A man who shot dead four people outside a Jewish school in France was seen wearing a video camera around his neck as he pumped bullets into a boy on all fours and a girl clutching a satchel, witnesses said.
The gunman pulled up outside the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse on a black motorbike at around 8.00am as children chatted outside, waiting for a bus to take them to nursery, before he drew his pistol.
Witnesses have told AFP the man may have been wearing a small video camera around his neck.
In the first hail of bullets Gabriel and Arieh Sander, aged three and six, were shot dead alongside their father Rabbi Jonathan Sandler as children ran screaming for safety.
Arieh was reported to have tried to crawl to safety before he died. A witness said that Gabriel was shot in the neck at point blank range.
Aharon Getz, a friend of Sandler's, told Haaretz that he was a "delightful man" and "had a wonderful connection with his fellow students and the communities in which he worked".
When the killer's pistol jammed he switched to a .45 calibre gun and chased children past the school gates.
Then he cornered eight-year-old Miriam Monsonego, who was the daughter of the school principal, Yaacov Monsonego. She was holding her satchel and trembling when he grabbed her hair, put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
Witnesses claimed he fired two more bullets at the girl as she bled to death on the floor.
Above: Miriam Monsonego, 8, shot and killed outside her school in Toulouse
The gunman also shot a 17-year-old student, who is now critically ill in hospital. At least four others were seriously wounded.
"He killed those children in cold blood, like dogs" said a witness quoted by the Times newspaper.
The killer's deadly work complete the he left the school, got on to his motorbike and drove away into the winding streets of Toulouse.
The mother of the two boys is now left alone with her four-year-old daughter, and Toulouse is left alone with its grief.
"Our thoughts are with these shattered families, with this mother who at the same moment lost her children and her husband, with the director of the school who saw his daughter die before his eyes," said President Nicolas Sarkozy. "Barbarism, savagery, cruelty cannot win. Hate cannot win."
The killer has been linked with two other shootings in the region which have left three soldiers dead in a week of violence.