Raw video from the scene

Holiday shopping took a terrifying turn Tuesday morning when a man with a gun took a woman hostage inside a store in the Greenspoint Mall.

The mall was quickly evacuated.

“The police just told everyone to start running, so we started running toward all the stores, we let down the gates and everything and the next thing you know the police are telling us to exit the mall,” Calvin O’Bryan said.

A short time later, police found the man and woman dead. They believe he killed her before turning the gun on himself.

“As the officers approached the store, they heard one gunshot.  They immediately secured the scene,” a police spokesman said. “SWAT officers found two victims inside the store, one male and one female.”

According to the Greenspoint Management District, the situation started when the boyfriend of the female mall employee called, threatening to harm her.

The woman, who worked at Body Luxuries, a lingerie store, called mall security, but her boyfriend arrived before security could get there.

The man apparently confronted the woman at about 9:45 a.m. as she was opening the security gate over the store, said Houston Police Lt. Albert Mihalco.

The woman was the only employee present. After struggling, the man moved the woman into a back room of the store and shot her in the head, Mihalco said. She was found wearing only a bra and panties, but police said they did not know if she’d been sexually assaulted.

11 NEWS

Mall customers and employees were evacuated after the shots were fired.

"There was a struggle in the back room," Mihalco said. "I'm not sure if he tried to rape her or what was going on."

HPD SWAT officers happened to be nearby and responded to the scene.

The names of the suspect and victim have not been released.

No other injuries were reported.

Mall employee Deborah White said she was about to raise the security gate that covered the Ashley Stewart store where she worked when a security guard ran down the mall corridors, pounding on gates and doors and telling everyone to evacuate.

“I just left my coat and got out,” White said.

Other witnesses described the chaos as police hurried them to safety.

“When I came out of the store, Santa Claus was sitting right across from me. He the one who told me to go back inside the building, somebody had a gun,” Glenda Amos said.  “When I raised my head up and looked that’s when I seen all the policeman and they started swarming towards me to get me out of the way.”

“The Greenspoint community is deeply saddened by this. It’s a tragedy for the mall, it’s a tragedy for the community, it’s a tragedy for the families.  This is a community that has worked tremendously hard towards public safety and has made huge, huge gains in creating a safe environment,” said Jocklyn Keville, Vice President Marketing and Public Affairs with the Greenspoint District.

Crowds of mall employees stood outside in the parking lot behind police tape, waiting for information.

“Somebody got stabbed Saturday in the mall. They got cut Saturday in the mall, so I guess it’s just the holidays.  All we can do is pray and hope for the best,” O’Bryan said.

The Associated Press contributed to the report.