Kentucky man goes on rampage after egg breakfast
A man enraged over how his wife cooked his eggs in rural eastern Kentucky shot five people dead with a shotgun before killing himself, a relative of the victims said.
by Our Foreign Staff
Published: 12:47PM BST 12 Sep 2010
The door remains open after neighbors say Stanley Neace kicked it
in and killed four people in the trailer in a shooting rampage that left a total of five people and Neace dead Photo: AP
Stanley Neace killed the five people in two mobile homes including his wife, his stepdaughter and three neighbours before shooting himself on Saturday. Trooper Jody Sims of the Kentucky State Police said the 47-year-old, who was facing eviction, stormed across the lawns of about seven homes in his pajamas and fired dozens of shots from a 12-gauge shotgun.
Miss Sims said that when state police arrived about an hour after the gunfire began, they heard a single gunshot and found Neace's body on the porch. Sherri Anne Robinson, a relative of two of the victims, said witnesses to the shootings told her that Neace became enraged when his wife did not cook his breakfast to his liking.
Robinson said that when his wife fled to a neighbor's trailer, Neace followed and shot her and the others. Miss Robinson says he allowed a young girl to flee. "He just got mad at his wife for not making his breakfast right and he shot her," Robinson said. "She tried to run to tell my family and he shot them too because they found out about it."
The victims were identified as the gunman's wife, Sandra Neace, 54; her daughter Sandra Strong, 28; and neighbours Dennis Turner, 31; Teresa Fugate, 30; and Tammy Kilborn, 40. Landlord Ray Rastegar said Neace received monthly disability checks from the Social Security Administration, though he didn't know what his disability was. Rastegar said he had begun the process of evicting Neace, who had lived in the trailer park for about seven years, because he had become increasingly hostile toward neighbors in recent months.
The names of the victims were provided by Kentucky State Police, while Robinson described their relationships. Fugate is Robinson's sister, Turner is her cousin and Kilborn was a witness who happened to step onto the porch of another trailer when she heard the commotion. Miss Robinson said Mrs Fugate, her sister, was shot in front of her 7-year-old daughter.
"Her daughter said, 'Please, please don't shoot me,' and he said, 'All right, you can leave,' and she ran out," said Robinson, who spoke to her niece after the shootings. "She went and told her neighbours, and the neighbours called the law." Steve Smith, a neighbour, saw the rampage from the window of his mobile home. When he walked outside, Smith said Neace took a shot at him but missed.
"He chased his wife around that Jeep shooting at her," Smith said, pointing to a shot-up sport-utility vehicle parked outside his mobile home. "I heard her screaming and running."
