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Junkie
Location: Ontario, Canada
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ex-postal worker kills 7
When I heard the story, I shrugged - another workplace shooting, this time the stereotypical postal worker.
Today I read a litte more, and I was very surprised to see the shooter was a woman. She sounds quite deranged, but I've never heard of a female mass murderer killing so many in such a workplace rampage.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11128315/
Long before former postal employee Jennifer Sanmarco went on a suicidal rampage inside a mail processing plant in Santa Barbara, acquaintances and others took note of her odd behavior, a spiral of bizarre acts that began at least two years ago.
Interviews with officials and others in New Mexico, Sanmarco's home state, to which she returned in 2004 after she lost her job at the mail facility, paint a picture of an unpredictable woman.
“We weren’t sure what she was going to do next,” said Terri Gallegos, deputy clerk for the city of Milan, N.M., where Sanmarco applied for a business license in 2004 for a publication called “The Racist Press” that she said she planned to launch. Another time she said she wanted to register a cat food business, Gallegos said.
During one meeting, Gallegos said, Sanmarco carried on a conversation with herself “like she was arguing with someone, but there was no one there.”
Last March, office workers called authorities after the 44-year-old woman made what Gallegos described as a rude allegation. Other times, Gallegos said, Sanmarco would come in and simply stare at one employee in particular.
In June, police in nearby Grants, N.M., talked to her after someone at a gas station called to complain of nudity, police Chief Marty Vigil said. Sanmarco was dressed when officers arrived.
Sanmarco's behavior turned violent on Monday night, when she returned to her old workplace, the sprawling Processing and Distribution Center in Santa Barbara, Calif. She drove through the gate behind another car and gained entry to the building by taking an employee’s identification badge at gunpoint.
That worker was not hurt, but Sanmarco fatally shot six postal employees before committing suicide in what is believed to be the deadliest workplace shooting by a woman.
“According to witnesses from the scene, she had a 9 mm pistol and reloaded at least once during her rampage,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff James Anderson said Tuesday.
It's believed Sanmarco may also have killed a former neighbor a few hours before the Monday attack, sheriff’s officials said Wednesday.
The possible seventh victim was found dead Tuesday from a gunshot wound to the head at a Santa Barbara condominium complex where Sanmarco once lived, said Jeff Klapakis with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.
“Evidence and circumstances of both crimes show distinct correlations between the two,” Klapakis said Wednesday.
Klapakis said the woman, identified by her brother as Beverly Graham, 54, died Monday.
Authorities said it was unclear whether Sanmarco targeted specific employees at the postal center, but U.S. Postal Inspector Randy DeGasperin said “chances are” she knew the people she was shooting.
DeGasperin told reporters Tuesday that Sanmarco had left the mail facility on a medical leave in 2003 after her co-workers expressed concerns she might hurt herself. He said police removed her from the building one time.
“She was not making any threats or anything of that nature,” DeGasperin said. “It was more for her safety.”
Beverly Graham had also noticed unusual behavior, her brother Les Graham told The Associated Press. He said his sister had complained about a woman who “used to come out and rant and rave in front of her building.” The family suspects that Sanmarco was the neighbor and his sister’s killer, he said.
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Si vis pacem parabellum.
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