BAILEY, Colo. -- The gunman who killed a student and committed suicide during a high school standoff methodically selected six girls as hostages -- and sexually assaulted at least some of them, authorities and witnesses said Thursday.

The gunman was identified as 53-year-old Duane Morrison.

Authorities don't know much about Morrison, who was apparently living out of his vehicle, but had a Denver address as of April 2006.

"There are no known connections in this area, but the investigation is still ongoing there," Sheriff Fred Wegener said.

Wegener said the motive "still remains a mystery" and that it appears that Morrison targeted Class No. 206 by random. The sheriff said he hopes that the investigation reveals otherwise.

"Honestly, I'm hoping for the community that this wasn't random. I don't want this to happen to anyone else," the sheriff said.

"He did traumatize and assault our children. This information was sent to me by the SWAT team. This is why I made the decision I did. We had to go and try to save them," Wegener said. He said the assaults were "sexual in nature."

Authorities said Morrison, who apparently dressed to pass off as a student, confronted a male student in the school parking lot at one point and asked about a list of names of female students -- indicating that he may have targeted certain girls. Students said the bearded gunman was wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt and a camouflage backpack as he walked around the campus.

Morrison was armed with two weapons: a semi-automatic pistol and a revolver. An assault rifle was discovered Thursday afternoon in a roadside camp near the river, about a mile east from the school, but authorities don't know yet if it is connected. Detectives are examining tire tracks near a puddle on the site and are looking into whether it belongs to the suspect's gold Jeep Wrangler.

Morrison's Jeep Wrangler Rubicon was found in the parking lot of the school and searched, but Wegener didn't say what was inside the vehicle. Authorities are asking anyone who recognizes the vehicle, with Colorado license plate 529-IKL, to call them. It has a winch attached to the front bumper and appeared outfitted to go off-road.

Morrison was living inside his Jeep for several months but for the past 12 years had lived at the Kimberly Ann apartments, located at Louisiana Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in southeast Denver. It's not known yet what prompted him to move out and live in his car.

Joe Morales, the director of the Colorado Department of Public Safety, described Morrison as a "loner" who may have been camping in the area. He called Morrison "a coward."

"I think anybody who goes in -- an armed individual who takes on innocent, unarmed children in the sanctuary of their school is the lowest of the most cowardly of the most yellow," he told reporters.

Morrison had a "minor" criminal history, the sheriff said. According to public records, Morrison was convicted of larceny and marijuana possession in Aurora in 1973 and had a warrant for his arrest in 2006 for failing to appear on a minor offense in Littleton.

"He's a weird dude. It was a telephone harassment. He left some messages at a business in the city," Littleton police Sgt. Sean Dugan said. He declined to release details of the charge, but said Morrison received a nine-day jail sentence in August that was suspended.

Morrison has never been married. Authorities say they found a motel key and possibly prescription drugs among Morrison's possessions.

He has no history of sexual offenses, 7NEWS reported.

"This is an ongoing investigation," Wegener said. He asked anyone who had information on Morrison to call a tip line at 303-816-5947.

Family, Neighbors Describe Morrison

Morrison's brother, who lives in Centennial, didn't want to talk about the suspect. His father said the suspect had a normal childhood and normal upbringing.

"He was just like the rest of my kids. If he hadn't been, I'd a sent him to the reform school. He was not in one single solitary bit of trouble, more than maybe sneezing twice in a row," said Bob Morrison, from his home in Tulsa, Okla.

Morrison's stepmother said they "have no record of him being, having any trouble before."

"We just know the way he was raised," Billie Morrison said, declining to elaborate. She said the last time she saw him was three to four years ago, she doesn't know what prompted the violence in Colorado.

"We don't know why," she said. "We don't know how."

Lynda Richards, 64, said Morrison was a tenant at a Denver apartment complex she managed in 2004 and 2005 and she saw him nearly every day. She said he didn't appear to have a job, yet paid his rent on time. He occasionally made inappropriate sexual comments toward her.

"I was in (the laundry room) and he came in and before he left, I was washing underwear and he said 'Oh, my, look at those sexy panties,"' she told The Associated Press. "And that scared me at that point. I thought 'What is up with this?' I don't think any man would talk like that.

"And I have some leather jeans. At one time, he said, 'Oh, God, leather.' Some of the things he said were very sexually oriented."

Richards described Morrison as a nice guy with a dark side.

"Did he light candles and have seances or anything? No. Nothing like that that I ever saw. I just felt that he had the thoughts that he was a ladies' man or that he was God's gift to women or something -- that everybody would just fall at his feet," she said.

"I'm totally surprised. He ran a haunted house during the Halloween holiday over in Commerce City. He was always around children, kids," said another former neighbor, Rudy Maldonado.

A Denver police report obtained by 7NEWS shows that in May 2005, Morrison reported a burglary at his apartment, telling police that 14 guns, ranging from handguns to rifles to a semi-automatic weapon, were stolen. In that police report, Morrison told police he worked at a Commerce City haunted house.

What He Did

Student Chelsea Wilson said she was in the college prep English class when the gunman came in at 11:40 a.m. and told the students to line up facing the chalkboard.

"All the hairs on my body stood up," Chelsea said. "I guess I was somewhat praying it was a drill."

One by one, the gunman started letting students go, and Chelsea, a tall brunette, said she was the first girl to leave. Her mother, Julia Wilson, said she thinks the gunman made all the blond, smaller girls stay.

"I was walking out of the classroom and got about halfway out of the classroom and I heard him yell at someone to face the chalkboard," she said.

Chelsea said she heard what might have been a gunshot after she left the classroom.

Chelsea said as soon as she got out, she told a teacher about the gunman.

"He's a pervert," Chelsea said. "I'm not sure of motivation. I just knew it wasn't good."

She said the tragedy has been really hard on her and all her classmates because of their closeness to the girls who were taken hostage.

One of the hostages told her family the gunman stormed into class, threw his backpack on a desk, then lined up students and dismissed them one by one -- boys first and heavier girls. Eventually, he told the girls who were left to use their cell phones to call their parents.

"That's how my mom got the call," the 13-year-old sister of the hostage told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Her mother said the family did not want to be identified because it might further traumatize the former hostage.

"She was crying," the girl said of her 15-year-old sister. "My mom couldn't really hear her."

Authorities said the gunman used a human shield whenever he neared the classroom windows, and the sister said it was Keyes every time. The young girl said the whole incident was like a bad dream -- until Thursday morning, when the hostage climbed onto her sister's bed.

"This morning, I woke up and I never really thought it happened until I heard her crying," she said.

Asked if she would send her daughter back to Platte Canyon High, the hostage's mother said she probably would.

"I heard my daughter say she doesn't want to go in that room because Emily got shot in that room, the gunman got shot in that room," the mother said.

Detectives are looking at surveillance tapes from inside the school to determine what happened and how it was that he breached school security.

Students Spoke To Gunman Before Hostages Taken

Jesse Kirby, a freshman at Platte Canyon High School, said he spoke to the gunman just moments before the hostage crisis.

"He didn't really look like a student, although he did because he was wearing all of our school stuff. But when he turned around and he looked at me, he had long gray hair sticking out of his hoodie. He was wearing his hood up, so it was really hard, and he said, 'Hey.' And I was like, 'Hi.' He asked me what class I was going to. I was like, 'I'm going to English I,' and he said, 'You're lucky,' " said Kirby. "And I was like, 'It's English!' And he was like, 'I loved English.' And I was like, 'I don't.' And there was an awkward silence and then I just went to my class. And then like five minutes later, we heard the big boom."

A female student said moments before, the gunman asked her to go with him to the English college prep class and she declined, saying she had to go to her own class.

During the siege, he took the girls hostage in a second-floor classroom and eventually released four of them. Morrison, still holding two girls, soon cut off contact and warned that "something would happen at 4 o'clock," authorities said.

It's not clear what the man's 4 p.m. deadline pertained to.