Kimberly Criswell, who owns a salon just two light up hair extensions wholesale doors down from the scene of the shootings, said she and her customers and employees heard gunshots, and her receptionist saw a man through a window as he was shot in a parking lot.
"There was like a 'pop, pop' and my receptionist screamed, 'He just shot that man,' and we all ran into the bathroom and locked the door," Criswell said.
Glenn Zachman, who owns a video newsgathering service, said he arrived at the scene of the arrest shortly after police and saw they had placed plastic bags over the man's hands to preserve possible gunshot residue.
He also saw a bulletproof vest on the back of a patrol car but didn't know if the man, dressed in a button-down shirt and pants, had been wearing it.
The man, in handcuffs, was placed in a patrol car and taken away about two-and-a-half hours after the shooting. A new white pickup truck that was believed tinsel extensions to be his was parked on the modest residential street with its doors open.
The man was cooperative when officers, working from a description of the shooter, stopped him near the salon, Bowles said.
Shortly after he was arrested, police arrived at a house on Melody Lane in nearby Huntington Beach and escorted two women to a white car and then roped off the house with crime scene tape. Neighbors identified photos of the alleged shooter as their neighbor Scott. The house is registered to Scott Dekraai, and one of the licensed cosmetologists at the salon was Michelle Dekraai.
Kari Salveson of Los Alamitos, who attended a service for the victims at SeaCoast Grace Church in Seal Beach, said she had known Michelle Dekraai for several years and was aware that she and her ex-husband were involved in a bitter custody dispute over their son.
She said Michelle Dekraai made her every visit to the feather hair extensions salon special.
"She could gab away. She was one of those girlfriends you could never get enough of. She made you smile and she made you laugh," Salveson said.
Several people who knew Michelle DeKraai also said she sometimes went by her maiden name of Huff and it was unclear which one she was currently using.
In Huntington Beach, people were shocked to learn that one of the friendliest men in the neighborhood had been arrested for the shootings.
Dekraai's neighbors described him as a friendly man who invited them over for pool parties at the house he'd lived in for about six years. They said he doted on his son, playing catch with the boy in his yard.
