The victim in Tuesday's fatal shooting at a Food Lion in Salem called police moments before he was shot, according to a search warrant filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court Thursday morning by Salem police.

The same document indicates that the suspect, just before his apprehension, confessed to having shot a man in Salem 15 times. The warrant also said police seized items from the suspect's home Wednesday.

The search warrant said a man identifying himself as James Fleshman called 911 and told them he was having problems with a man named Brian Sheppard.

Fleshman, 48, of Roanoke County had been dating Sheppard's estranged wife, according to Salem spokeswoman Melinda Payne.

Sheppard and his wife, Melissa Sheppard, had been separated for more than a year and filed for divorce last month, court records indicate.

Last August, Sheppard was convicted of misdemeanor assault against Fleshman and was supposed to have no contact with him during his one-year probationary period.

Fleshman told dispatchers Tuesday that he saw Sheppard getting into a black Jeep in the grocery store parking lot. Contact with Fleshman was lost, the warrant said, and moments later dispatchers began receiving calls of shots fired in the Food Lion parking lot.

Salem police said when they arrived, they found Fleshman lying in the parking lot. He had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The warrant said Salem police took testimony from eyewitnesses and, based on those statements, Montgomery County deputies apprehended Sheppard about 20 minutes later in Christiansburg. Sheppard was driving a dark sport utility vehicle similar to the one described by witnesses, and the warrant said there was ammunition in the passenger seat of the vehicle.

The warrant said Sheppard told a Montgomery County deputy that he had shot a man in Salem 15 times. Authorities then took Sheppard into custody.

Sheppard is charged with first-degree murder and is being held at the Roanoke County-Salem Jail. A bond hearing has not been set. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June.

On Wednesday night, Christiansburg police searched Sheppard's home in the 1500 block of Sleepy Hollow Road. They seized a Polaroid photograph and "1 shipping carton for a Beretta," the warrant said.