Two people were killed at a US Kraft Foods plant in Philadelphia on Thursday, and one wounded, after a suspended employee opened fire inside the facility in a targeted shooting spree.

43-year-old Yvonne Hiller, an employee at Kraft for 15 years, has been charged with the murder of LaTonya Brown and Tanya Wilson, as well as the attempted murder of Bryant Dalton, who remains in hospital.

Hiller was suspended from work and escorted off Kraft property at around 8:30pm on Friday, according to local police commissioner Charles Ramsey, but is alleged to have returned shortly afterwards with a licensed .357 Magnum which she kept in her car, threatening security guards, driving through a fence and re-entering the building, to eventually open fire on the three employees in a break room, telling a fourth to ‘get out’.

Hiller was taken into custody by a SWAT team after a 40-minute stand-off, with seven employees still in the building left unharmed.

Hiller and the three victims all worked the same shift on the mixing floor, and the Philadelphia Enquirer reported that she had feuded with coworkers for years, mainly over her belief that they were spraying her with chemicals. Hiller is alleged to have threatened Dalton personally the day before the incident, saying that she was going to ‘take him out’.

The Kraft Foods plant in Philadelphia, previously the Nabisco factory, manufactures Ritz Crackers and Lorna Doone cookies.

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