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Four people were shot to death overnight in Birmingham and St. Clair County, and authorities say the suspect surrendered and alerted police to the killings.

Daniel P. Watson, 28, of Pell City is charged with capital murder and murder with a firearm in the St. Clair County murders, the sheriff’s office there announced. Watson is in custody in Birmingham but has not been charged in the two deaths in that city.

Birmingham Police spokesman Officer Truman Fitzgerald said officers at 6am on Tuesday received information from the Leeds Police Department that Watson had confessed to shooting two people in Birmingham.

Watson was able to provide background information about a house in South East Lake where two of the murders occurred.

Officers entered and found an adult male and an adult female dead from gunshot wounds.

Fitzgerald said Watson approached a Leeds police officer around 5 am and told him that he had shot two people in Birmingham and two people in St. Clair County.

Fitzgerald said he believes the Birmingham murders happened first, probably between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.

Fitzgerald said no one heard the shots in Birmingham.

“Gunshots are so common that even if a resident heard them, it probably wouldn’t raise any alarms,” he said.

In St. Clair County, Sheriff Billy Murray said his double homicide occurred on Ivy Drive in Ragland.

The sheriff identified the victims there as Amber L. Manning, 37, and Timothy R. Davison, 62.

They both lived at the Ivy Drive address.

Murray said that around 12:01 a.m., St. Clair County deputies responded to a disturbance call at 1 Ivy Drive Ragland.

When they arrived, officers found Manning dead in the driveway.

Davison was inside the residence and still alive. He was airlifted by a lifeguard to the UAB hospital and later pronounced dead.

“From everything I’ve been told, the suspect knows everyone or knows everyone. You are dealing with four lives lost in 24 hours and a possible fifth life lost at the end once this case goes to trial,” Fitzgerald said.

“This gentleman had a reason,” he said.

“This shows how terrifying it is for this person to go to two different counties and take lives.”

The reason, he said, could be related to the home.

Two Birmingham victims are the city’s 16th and 17th homicides in Birmingham this year.

In all of Jefferson County, there have been 21 homicides, including the 17 in Birmingham.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.