A 51-year-old man shot and killed five people in the unincorporated East Georgia community of Appling on Friday night, officials said, before fatally turning a gun on himself in his garage.

Capt. Andy Shedd of the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office said the suspect, Wayne Hawes, lived in the neighborhood, about 25 miles west of Augusta, where he carried out the shootings at two houses, killing three adults in one of them and two in the other.

Relatives said one of the victims, Reba Dent, was Mr. Hawes’s mother-in-law, and Vernon Collins, the Columbia County coroner, said Mr. Hawes’s wife was in protective custody on Friday night.

The shootings occurred about 35 minutes apart, Capt. Shedd said.

The captain said the police were called to 3162 Johnson Drive about a shooting at 7:54 p.m. He said two victims were declared dead at the scene; a third died at a hospital. One man and two women were killed, he said.