A former postal worker who had been put on medical leave for psychological problems shot five people to death at a huge mail-processing center and then killed herself in a late-night rampage, authorities said Tuesday.
Authorities identified the woman as Jennifer Sanmarco, 44, of Grants, N.M.
“Chances are she might have known her victims,” U.S. Postal Inspector Randy DeGasperin told a news conference the morning after the woman made her way inside the gated facility and left a trail of bodies that ended with her own.
Sanmarco had worked at the Santa Barbara Processing and Distribution Center more than two years ago but was given a disability retirement in 2003 for an unspecified psychological reason, postal authorities said.
Sometime in that year, she was removed from the building by sheriff’s deputies after co-workers said she began acting strangely, DeGasperin said.
She made no threats, but co-workers were afraid she might hurt herself, he said. He provided no other details.
Shortly after 9 p.m. Monday, she returned to the 200,000-square-foot center, armed with a handgun, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Jim Anderson said.
“According to witnesses from the scene, she had a 9mm pistol and reloaded at least once during her rampage,” the sheriff said.
The woman drove past the perimeter fence by following another car, and got into the front door of the building by taking an employee’s electronic identification badge at gunpoint. The employee was not hurt, authorities said.
Sheriff’s deputies responding to calls about gunshots found two bodies in the parking lot, another just outside the front door and a badly wounded woman just inside.
Three corpses were later found not far apart elsewhere in the building. One was the assailant, who apparently shot herself, Anderson said.
It was unclear whether the woman targeted her victims or fired randomly, Anderson said.
As the shooting began, some of the 80 or so workers streamed out of the building. Some ran to a nearby firehouse.
“I was dumping mail on a belt when the gunshots suddenly (went) ‘boom, boom, boom, boom!” said postal worker Alger Busante, 56, of Santa Barbara.
He rushed out of the building and only returned Tuesday to get his car.
“It is really very shocking. This is a peaceful place,” Busante said.
The wounded woman,Charlotte Colton, 44, of Santa Barbara, remained hospitalized Tuesday.
Killed were Ze Fairchild, 37, and Maleka Higgins, 28, both of Santa Barbara; Nicola Grant, 42, and Guadalupe Swartz, 52, both of Lompoc; and Dexter Shannon, 57, of Oxnard.
It was the first lethal shooting at a postal installation in nearly eight years and one of the deadliest since a string of high-profile cases in the 1980s and ’90s — including one in which a part-time letter carrier killed 14 people in Edmond, Okla., before taking his own life.
In a statement, Postmaster General John E. Potter said families of the victims were being notified and counselors would be available.
“Our heartfelt prayers and condolences go out to the families of the victims and to our employees who have suffered through this tragic incident,” Potter said.
The center is 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles in a picturesque area about a mile from the ocean with a backdrop of mountains. The plant is off a quiet road connecting the University of California, Santa Barbara, student community of Isla Vista to shopping areas and U.S. 101.
Goleta Mayor Jonny Wallis said violence was rare in the neighborly community.
“A day at the office should not result in death,” she said.
Many of the 300 employees of the center were not on duty at the time of the shooting. They were told to report Tuesday to a processing center in Oxnard in adjacent Ventura County.
It was the deadliest shooting at any workplace since 2003, when 48-year-old Doug Williams gunned down 14 co-workers, killing six, at a Lockheed Martin aircraft parts plant in Meridian, Miss., before turning the gun on himself.
James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University and an expert on homicides, said he believed the death toll might be the highest ever for any workplace shooting carried out by a woman.
Most workplace mass murderers are men. Women committed only four out of 53 workplace shootings since 1976 that involved more than one victim, Fox said in a telephone interview.
“Men, more than women, tend to view their self-worth by what they do” at work, Fox said. Men also appear more prone to use violence in seeking revenge while “women tend to view murder as a last resort,” he said.
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