Chris Kyle, a former US Navy SEAL sniper who was responsible for 160 kills during his career, was shot and killed with another man at a gun range on Saturday, according to the co-author of Mr Kyle's book.
A suspect has reportedly been arrested.
Mr Kyle, who wrote "American Sniper" about his military service from 1999 to 2009, and another man were found dead at the Rough Creek Lodge's shooting range, according to the Fort Worth Star- Telegram, quoting Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant. The second victim was not identified.
"It just comes as a shock and it's staggering to think that after all Chris has been through, that this is how he meets his end, because there are so many ways he could have been killed" in Iraq, said Scott McEwen, who wrote the book with Mr Kyle.
Rough Creek Lodge is in Glen Rose, Texas, about 50 miles south-west of Fort Worth. The range referred calls to the Erath County Sheriff's Office, but no-one there was immediately available for comment.
Mr Kyle served four combat tours of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom and elsewhere, and won two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars for bravery.
After leaving the Navy, he founded a firm that provided combat and weapons training to military, police, corporate and civilian clients,
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article