The Walker County Sheriff's Office is investigating a deadly shooting that ended with the shooter taking his own life.



It started around 8:30 Monday night at a home off Old Dalton Road in LaFayette. Police say 35-year-old Daniel Chad Marks shot the man, took his adult daughter hostage and led police on a multi-county car chase that ended in Cherokee County, Alabama.



The sheriff's office says it appears Marks shot and killed 63-year-old Roy Leonard McKeehan. A neighbor says McKeehan died trying to protect his daughter from domestic violence.



"Somebody started beating on the door and ringing the doorbell and I went to the door and they told me there had been a shooting and asked me if I would call 911," says a neighbor of McKeehan, who did not want to be identified.



She says the cousin of Chad Marks came running to her house for help after she saw the shooting.



"She told me that Chad had just shot Lucinda's daddy."



She says McKeehan's daughter, Lucinda, had been in a relationship with Marks for several years. The cousin says McKeehan confronted Marks.



"She said, 'I followed him back into the bedroom' and said 'I was trying to calm him down. Mr. McKeehan had come in and said, all he done was told him, 'I don't want you putting hands on my daughter.''"



Then Marks pulled out a gun and shot McKeehan in the head.



"Mr. McKeehan, they said, had some kind of metal something in his hand and he jumped over the bed, grabbed, Chad did, grabbed the metal thing and started beating him in the head after shooting," says the neighbor.



Marks then got into his green Jeep and took off.



"Lucinda was coming up the driveway, he grabbed her, made her get in the car with him and he took off."



With Lucinda as a hostage, Marks was on the run. Law enforcement put out an alert to be on the lookout for Marks' jeep. Deputies tried to stop it in Chattooga County but Marks raced into Cherokee County Alabama where he crashed. Officers say Marks shot himself in the head as they moved in.



"I was just thinking, you know, you have a husband one minute he's gone," says the neighbor.



For those who knew Leonard McKeehan, the news is hard to process. His neighbor, who recently lost a sister herself, says she is praying for McKeehan's wife and family.



"I know what she's going to be going through. And hers is going to be, to me, it'd be even harder because of the way he died."



The sheriff's office says Lucinda was not harmed and is still be questioned about what happened. Officials say this is still an on-going investigation.