BROOKFIELD, Wisconsin (AP) — A man who had been accused of domestic violence and slashing his wife's tires took a gun into the spa where she worked and shot seven women, three fatally, before killing himself, a police chief said.

The man, 45-year-old Radcliffe Franklin Haughton is said to be Jamaican, but efforts by the Jamaica Observer to verify that last night were unsuccessful.

The shootings set off a confusing, six-hour search for the gunman that locked down a nearby mall, a country club adjacent to the spa and the hospital where the survivors were taken. The search froze activity in a commercial area in Brookfield, a middle-to-upper class community west of Milwaukee, for much of the day. Ultimately, he was found dead in the spa.

Authorities said it would take time to sort out exactly what happened, and emphasised they were still interviewing witnesses and rescuers and did not have a firm timeline of events. At a news conference last night, Mayor Steve Ponto called the shootings "a senseless act on the part of one person."

The chaos started around 11:00 am at the Azana Day Spa, a two-storey, 9,000-square-foot (836-square metre) building across from a major shopping mall. The first officers on the scene found the building filled with smoke from a fire authorities believe was set by the suspect, police chief Dan Tushaus said.

They also found a 1-pound (.45-kilogramme) propane tank they initially thought might be an improvised explosive device, Tushhaus said. That slowed the search of the building as law enforcement agents waited for a bomb squad to clear the scene.

Tushaus said later that police didn't know whether the gunman brought the propane tank to the spa or it was left by a contractor.

The search also was complicated by the layout of the building, with numerous small treatment rooms and several locked areas, Tushaus said. While officers initially thought the gunman had fled the building, they later found his body in one of the locked areas, he said.

The bodies of the victims were also found in the spa. Tushaus said investigators were still working to identify them. He said the four survivors were between the ages of 22 and 40. He didn't know if they were employees at the spa or customers, and it wasn't clear if the man's wife was among the victims.

Haughton had recently been arrested after witnesses identified him as the person who slashed his wife's tyres, police said.

He appeared in court Thursday. A four-year restraining order was issued, and Haughton was ordered to turn any firearms over to the sheriff's department.

Haughton's father, Radcliffe Haughton, Sr, spoke to a television station and The Associated Press shortly before police announced that they had found his son's body. In telephone interviews from Florida, he said he had last spoken to his son a few days ago, but didn't have any indication anything was wrong. He begged him to turn himself in.

After learning of his son's death, he said only: "This is very sad."

It was the second mass shooting in Wisconsin this year. Wade Michael Page, a 40-year-old Army veteran and white supremacist, killed six people and injured three others before fatally shooting himself August 5 at a Sikh temple south of Milwaukee.

The shooting at the mall took place less than a mile from where seven people were killed and four wounded on March 12, 2005, when a gunman opened fire at a Living Church of God service held at a hotel.