CARTHAGE, N.C., March 30, 2009
Gunman Stopped By Single Bullet To Chest
Suspect's Estranged Wife Worked At N.C. Nursing Home Where 8 Were Killed Before Lone Police Officer Intervened
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Investigators examine a weapon found at the scene where a gunman opened fire at a nursing home Sunday morning, killing at least eight people and wounding three others in Carthage, N.C., Sunday, March 29, 2009. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
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Robert Stewart, 45, has been charged with eight counts of murder following the shooting rampage at a North Carolina nursing home Sunday. Police said multiple weapons were used and recovered at the scene. (Moore County Sheriffs Office)
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Play CBS Video Video Nursing Home Shooting Spree Bob Orr reports on a shooting spree at a Carthage, N.C. nursing home that killed eight people, including one man who fought to save several residents. Julie Chen spoke with his family.
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Video Deadly Nursing Home Shooting The small town of Carthage, N.C is in shock in the wake of a nursing home shooting that killed at least 8 patients. Mark Strassmann has the latest.
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Interactive Guns In America State-by-state gun laws and death rates, maps of recent school and workplace shootings and facts on who's at risk.
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Photo Essay Nursing Home Rampage Man kills eight people at N.C. facility before being shot by police officer.
Carthage Police Chief Chris McKenzie said Monday that police are still working to uncover the motives of 45-year-old Robert Stewart for a rampage in the Pinelake Health and Rehab center on Sunday that claimed the lives of seven residents and a nurse.
It ended when 25-year-old Officer Justin Garner wounded Stewart in a hallway.
Garner was the only officer on the scene when he entered the facility and confronted the shooter, and received three "pellet wounds" to his leg and foot &#-151; apparently from a shotgun blast.
"If that’s not heroism I don’t know what is," McKenzie said, calling his officer's performance "phenomenal."
He said Garner is resting in home and is in good spirits, and is expected to return to the force after undergoing additional surgery, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.
Court records said Stewart is not scheduled to appear in court until next week on eight counts of first-degree murder and a charge of felony assault of a law enforcement officer.
Investigators are looking into whether Stewart may have targeted the facility because his estranged wife worked there, police said Monday.
McKenzie said investigators are looking at whether what he called domestic issues may have been the motive for Stewart to open fire on his defenseless victims. Investigators said multiple weapons were recovered at the scene.
McKenzie said the woman - whom he did not name - worked at the nursing home. He said he believed that the couple was recently separated but that he did not have any other details. He was not sure if the woman was at the nursing home at the time of the shootings.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Monday that Stewart's estranged wife is Wanda Luck, who works as a certified nurse assistant at the nursing home. Public records indicate she shared an address with Stewart in Carthage. Mark Barnett, a neighbor of Luck's parents, told the newspaper that Luck was working at the home on Sunday.
Police could not immediately be reached to confirm her identity.
Police said Stewart killed seven residents and a nurse at the Pinelake Health and Rehab center in Carthage, N.C., and wounded three other people; their wounds are not considered life-threatening.
The condition of Stewart, also hospitalized, is unknown.
Carthage is about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh.
The gunman seemingly picked his targets at random, moving from room to room inside Pinelake, deciding who would live and who would die, reports Orr.
"He was shooting the residents and the workers," said Tammy Clark, the daughter of one resident. "He went into some of the rooms and shot some of the people right there in bed."
In all 11 people were shot, eight of them fatally, including Jerry Avant Jr., 39, a male nurse whom doctors say apparently died trying to shield others.
Avant's fiancée, Jill DeGarmo, told CBS News that Avant was shot 27 times while trying to warn people about the shooter.
His father said, "He undoubtedly saved a lot of lives, before he went down."
The other victims were all elderly patients, ranging in age from 78 to 98.
The spree ended in a nursing home hallway when Stewart traded shots with police officer Justin Garner. Both men were wounded, Corporal Garner shot in the leg.
Moore County District Attorney Maureen Krueger said, "He acted in nothing short of a heroic way today, and but for his actions, we certainly could have had a worse tragedy."
(WRAL)
Outside Pinelake investigators found a camouflaged-colored weapon leaning against the side of a Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot.
Not long after the shooting, friends and family of Pinelake residents and employees started to gather at the First Baptist Church of Carthage. They were frustrated by the lack of immediate news about who had died, said Lea Chandler, a volunteer with the Moore County chapter of the American Red Cross.
Chandler said she saw two women and their husbands get the news that their mother had been killed.
"They were just crying out, 'Why mama?'" Chandler said. "To see people suffer is hard. To see people suffering, not knowing, trying to find information."
(AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
"He'd get mad because of things that didn't go his way. He never really hurt me, but he would get mad and blow up," she said.
Griffin, who divorced Stewart after 15 years of marriage, said he had been trying to reach her during the past week through family members.
She said Stewart claimed to have cancer and needed to go away. But he gave no hint of the violence he had planned for this quiet Carolina town.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Add a Comment See all 70 Comments
- US gun laws are insane
- Reply to this comment
- Blowflies can smell a corpse 10 miles away and arrive within an hour much like spamlord. Mea culpa. I meant schoollord.
- Reply to this comment
- Americans are too violent to have guns. The swiss are not.
Posted by cbswontwin
And why is that? - Reply to this comment
- yeah, italics just look so much better, don't they? Someone needs to get a real job.
- Reply to this comment
- US gun laws are insane.
Americans are neanderthals.
Posted by yamuttya at 5:48 PM : Mar 30, 2009
When you can talk the Arabs and other mid Eastern folk out of their guns, then you can talk to me about mine, Until then, I don't want to hear it. - Reply to this comment
- US gun laws are insane.
Americans are neanderthals. - Reply to this comment
- Liberalism is a disease of the mind and It robs you of the will to be free and makes you a parasite on the rest of society.
Posted by mecanik-2009
That just about nails it. Most liberals are cowards, they want someone else (the Police) to protect them. When it doesn't happen they are the first to yell LAWSUIT CITY.
Cowards disgust me. - Reply to this comment
- Schoollord wants everybody to eat their spaghetti with a spoon. LOL
Posted by 1American at 3:59 PM : Mar 30, 2009
He probably uses his fingers to stick one end of a noodle into his mouth and inhales. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by Questionews at 3:54 PM : Mar 30, 2009
Yeppy!!!!! - Reply to this comment
- Here is where schoollord and his kind wish to take us.
Posted by toolmangler-2009
Schoollord wants everybody to eat their spaghetti with a spoon. LOL - Reply to this comment
- JImmy came up with that phrase, but nobody cared.
Posted by Questionews at 3:38 PM : Mar 30, 2009
ssssssshhhhheeeeeeesssshhhhh LOL - Reply to this comment
- Well who else randomly kills people with guns, non-gun owners?
No, they stand by like cowards and let concealed weapons permit holders defend the helpless against assaults. A cowardly person sticks his head in the sand and says he can't help anyone and expects others to defend him. Freedom was meant for the brave not the weak of spirit. Liberalism is a disease of the mind and It robs you of the will to be free and makes you a parasite on the rest of society. - Reply to this comment
- "An individual has to demonstrate that he had good reason to possess a knife, for example for fishing, other sporting purposes or as part of his profession (e.g. a chef) in a public place.
Posted by toolmangler-2009 at 3:45 PM : Mar 30, 2009
I guess that would also rule out a kaiser blade, some folks call it a sling blade, I call it a kaiser blade. - Reply to this comment
- . Poor Britain is looking at having to ban kitchen knives now because they've seen such a huge increase in crime.
Posted by caligula1--2008 at 2:59 PM : Mar 30, 2009
Here is where schoollord and his kind wish to take us.
"The law already prohibits the possession of offensive weapons in a public place, and the possession of knives in public without good reason or lawful authority, with the exception of a folding pocket knife with a blade not exceeding three inches.
"Offensive weapons are defined as any weapon designed or adapted to cause injury, or intended by the person possessing them to do so.
"An individual has to demonstrate that he had good reason to possess a knife, for example for fishing, other sporting purposes or as part of his profession (e.g. a chef) in a public place.
"The manufacture, sale and importation of 17 bladed, pointed and other offensive weapons have been banned, in addition to flick knives and gravity knives."
A spokesperson for the Association of Chief Police Officers said: "ACPO supports any move to reduce the number of knife related incidents, however, it is important to consider the practicalities of enforcing such changes."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4581871.stm - Reply to this comment
- Doe's anyone think a police officer isn't human either. We have killings by police officers quite frequently. But there's usually a investigation and there "cleared of all wrong doing." I live in a large metropolitan area where there have been over the years at least a dozen killings by police after looking at the facts of the case they were murder in my opinion. I'm a former police officer myself. I worked with a department that there were officers I felt were a danger to the public. Either they were mentally unstable or their attatude was such they were just looking for a fight. Some departments weed out this type of behavior but others because of budget constraints will tolerate marginal officers just to keep officers on the street. There are a lot of good officers out there and they're the majority but there needs to be more citizen oversight to keep the departments clean of misfits.
- Reply to this comment
- Britannica notes that the term dates back to the American Revolution, and is derived from the "cracked corn" which formed their staple food.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_%28word%29
Posted by toolmangler-2009 at 3:35 PM : Mar 30, 2009
JImmy came up with that phrase, but nobody cared. - Reply to this comment
- You don't know much about the crackers do you? LOL Some of these people are BORN unstable!
Posted by skyk-2009 at 1:53 PM : Mar 30, 2009
Yeah!!! Some of them remind me of some 'Yankees' I know. BTW 'Crackers' are from Georgia, I don't know where Stewart is from.
According to the 1911 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, "cracker" is a term of contempt for the "poor" or "mean whites," particularly of Georgia and Florida. Britannica notes that the term dates back to the American Revolution, and is derived from the "cracked corn" which formed their staple food.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_%28word%29 - Reply to this comment
- Poor Britain is looking at having to ban kitchen knives now because they've seen such a huge increase in crime.
Posted by caligula1--2008 at 2:59 PM : Mar 30, 2009
I thought you were stretching with that one, but apparently not.
"BBC NEWS | Health | Doctors' kitchen knives ban call"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4581871.stm
My God. Will I soon have to register my Magic Chef carving knife with state & federal officials?
Or maybe have to go through a background check to buy a set of steak knives??
The spooky part is knowing that there are people out there that would be for something like this. - Reply to this comment
- Please note from the picture, the shooter used an ordinary Savage Model 11 sporting rifle. Fixed magazine well, bolt action, no flash hider, no bayonet lug, no pistol grip, not by any means an assault rifle clone or even close to it. But it still kills.
To those that want to ban certain firearms because of their appearance or because of their mode of operation, beware. This very powerful highly accurate "Under $500" rifle is every bit if not MORE effective than any such weapon. If he'd had an AK clone MOST of his victims might have survived (7.62x39mm being very underpowered compared to .308 or similar sporting rounds, and designed to wound not kill) either because the weapon was underpowered or simply because people who use such weapons tend to "spray n pray" rather then aiming at their targets one at a time.
People kill, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad, but trying to control the tools will do nothing to stop it. How many times have YOU used a flathead screwdriver to drive a phillips screw even though technically its the wrong tool for a similar job? Someone who cracks isn't going to care that the tool isn't perfect for the job, as long as it gets the job done, or the person thinks it will get the job done. He's still going to use it. Ban guns and it'll be crossbows and swords. Ban those and people will start carrying knives. Every western country that's enacted strong firearms control laws has seen an increase in crime despite a short term decrease in gun crime, until such illegal arms as the criminal element require begin to circulate, at which time ALL crime starts to go up. Poor Britain is looking at having to ban kitchen knives now because they've seen such a huge increase in crime. - Reply to this comment
- [There are many studies saying that most shooters are not mentally unstable. They just have a GRUDGE and ACCESS TO GUNS!~ ]
[Posted by cbswontwin at 12:42 PM : Mar 30, 2009 ]
so schoollord ... the obsessive compulsive anti-gun zealot ... says there are studies that state that most shooters are 'not' mentally unstable ... they just have a grudge and access to guns.
i wonder how the study distinguishes those that have grudges and access to guns that do shoot other innocents ... and those that have grudges and access to guns and don't shoot anyone.
so someone who has a grudge and a gun ... and chooses to kill as many as is possible is considered stable ... according to our resident poster child for the american psychiatric association ... and the authors of the unnamed and unreferenced 'studies'. - Reply to this comment
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