Police Unravel Ex-Postal Worker Shootings

yahoo ^ | 2-3-06

[LouAvul]

LOS ANGELES - A woman who went on a deadly rampage inside a postal facility believed that she was threatened by a conspiracy among workers there, authorities said Friday.

Jennifer San Marco left writings at her New Mexico home alluding to a vague plot involving the plant where she once worked, a local medical facility and the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department, said sheriff's Sgt. Erik Raney in a telephone interview.

"She obviously felt that the post office was out to get her in one way or another," Raney said. "That establishes as good of a motive (for the killings) as we can determine at this point."

Also found in the woman's home was a check for cash with the notation "will," indicating San Marco left a will, "and that may shed more light on what's happened here," Raney said.

San Marco shot six postal employees Monday night and committed suicide at the Santa Barbara Processing and Distribution Center. Authorities also linked her to the killing of a former neighbor, bringing the death toll to eight.

Raney said that despite a history of mental illness, San Marco managed to buy the gun and ammunition used in the killings from two New Mexico pawn shops.

Paul Castillo, owner of Ace Pawn and Antiques, told the Santa Barbara News-Press that San Marco bought the gun for $325 without saying why she needed the weapon.

She filled out an application for a background check, which didn't turn up any problems, and picked up the gun two days later, Castillo said.

Also on Friday, mourners attended the funeral Mass for Charlotte Colton, a mother of three who was shot in the head during the rampage.

"If there was anything she did it was love boldly and fearlessly," said Colton's niece, Katrina Baggao de la Cruz, the News-Press reported. "You simply wanted to be a better person around her."

[muawiyah]

Sounds reasonable. Still, even though she was a total nutcase, that doesn't mean her former fellow employees didn't conspire to get her removed from employment with them.

Here they are, disarmed by the USPS Board of Governors, working in a building without its own armed guard (which it used to have until somebody got a merit award for bringing in electronic key-card controlled doors), and there's this crazy woman threatening them all.

Any normal person would conspire to get her out of there. A smart union guy would have gone after the postal management team that removed positive armed security from the facility.

Guess they don't have any smart union guys anymore ~

[ChefKeith]

And look for the pawn shop to get sued out of business for the sale of the firearm.

[muawiyah]

USPS has far deeper pockets than any pawnshop owner. I'd recommend going right for the public wallet.