Suspect of killing 3 men at a Massachusetts gay bar wound up in Arkansas over the weekend. He killed a police officer at a traffic stop, shot his female passenger, and then fled again. After a 20-mile high speed chase that ended at a roadblock and firing upon police there, he was shot twice in the head. He was taken to a hospital where he died the next day.
-- Full story follows:
Suspect in Gay Bar Attack Said to Pen Note
By Ray Henry, Associated Press Writer
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. - The teenager suspected of attacking three men at a Massachusetts gay bar, then killing two other people while fleeing from authorities in Arkansas, left a note indicating he planned "something violent," authorities said Monday.
Jacob D. Robida, 18, was fatally wounded Saturday when he opened fire on police at a roadblock following a high-speed chase in Arkansas. He was shot twice in the head and died at a hospital the following day.
In New Bedford, where police say Robida attacked patrons at Puzzles Lounge with a hatchet early Thursday and then opened fire with a handgun, detectives found what they considered a troubling message in Robida's room at his mother's home.
"We didn't interpret it necessarily as a suicide note, but it was certainly the note of a desperate man who had some plans to continue doing something violent," Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh Jr. said.
The contents of the note were not released. It was unclear whether Robida left the note before or after the nightclub attack.
Robida's mother told police her son had come home after the attack around 1 a.m. with his head bleeding, then left again.
Police searched his room, finding the message, an apparently homemade poster with a Nazi swastika and anti-Semitic writings, as well as a makeshift coffin, Walsh said.
The significance of the coffin was unknown, he said.
A police report released Monday said investigators also found weapons, including 85 rounds of ammunition, a Samurai sword, one knife and two knife sheaths in Robida's room. A knife without a sheath was found outside of Puzzles.
They also found two bumper stickers that read: "I dress this way to scare your kids" and "My day is not complete until I've terrified a complete stranger," the report said.
Police were trying to determine whether Robida had any accomplices in New Bedford or elsewhere, though evidence suggests he acted alone, Walsh said.
After the tavern attack, Robida surfaced Saturday in Arkansas, where he killed Gassville police officer Jim Sell at a traffic stop, setting off a 20-mile chase that ended in a gun battle when Robida allegedly shot and killed his passenger, 33-year-old Jennifer Rena Bailey.
Robida lived in West Virginia with Bailey, a mother of three boys, from sometime in 2004 to February 2005, West Virginia State Police Sgt. C.J. Ellyson said Monday.
Three of Robida's friends from a home page the teen created on the Web site MySpace.com told The Associated Press that Bailey was Robida's ex-girlfriend. Police said they were checking e-mails and Internet correspondence between the two and had seized Bailey's computer.
"We're trying to trace down their steps and find out when they hooked up, if she invited him over willingly or if she was abducted. We're trying to answer the unanswered questions," Ellyson said.
Bailey had ended her relationship with Robida once she realized how disturbed he was, said the woman's friend Craig d***inson. He strongly believes she was abducted.
"She would never leave her kids," he said. "I will guarantee she did not know what happened in Massachusetts."
Police in Massachusetts also are trying to determine where Robida got his handgun. In Massachusetts, handgun owners must be at least 21 years old.
*** YAHOO! News
Feb 07, 2006 @ 04:24:07
