Man Who Shot 2 N.Y. Firemen Left Note on Killing Plan
Man Who Shot 2 N.Y. Firemen Left Note on Killing Plan
The ex-con who lured firefighters to their deaths in a blaze of gunfire left a typewritten note saying he wanted to burn down the neighborhood and “do what I like doing best, killing people,” police said Tuesday.
Police Chief Gerald Pickering said Tuesday that 62-year-old William Spengler, who served 17 years in prison for the 1980 hammer slaying of his grandmother, armed himself with a revolver, a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle before he set his house afire to lure first responders into a death trap before dawn on Christmas Eve.
Two firefighters were shot dead and two others are hospitalized. Spengler killed himself as seven houses burned around him Monday on a narrow spit of land along Lake Ontario.
One of the weapons recovered was a .233-caliber semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle with flash suppression, the same make and caliber gun used in the elementary school massacre in Newtown, Conn., Pickering said.
The chief said police believe the firefighters were hit with shots from the rifle given the distance but the investigation was incomplete.