ST. LOUIS – There are some clues about what may have touched off Timothy Hendron’s shooting rampage in St. Louis on Thursday.
He had grumbled about his job and pressure from his bosses. One of the people he killed was his immediate supervisor.
Police want to conduct detailed interviews with Hendron’s family and with many of the employees at ABB Inc. to “try to find out what was happening in his life,” said Police Capt. Michael Sack.
But even with the early clues and the ongoing interviews, Sack admitted, “We may never know what truly motivated him to do this.”
Hendron’s family members are also grasping for answers.
They issued a statement Friday saying in part, “The loving and caring person we knew as a husband, father, son, brother, uncle and friend could never have done this. Please know that we do not understand what happened to cause this tragedy and we do not have any answers.”
Hendron, who killed three people at ABB and wounded five others before killing himself, fired more than 100 shots and was carrying “hundreds of rounds of ammunition,” Sack said.
Hendron, 51, of Webster Groves, Mo., began shooting about 6:30 a.m. Thursday during a shift change at the ABB electric transformer plant near Interstate 70 in north St. Louis. Sack said Hendron showed up for work carrying an assault rifle, a shotgun and two pistols, and with extra ammunition stuffed into a fanny pack.
Hendron had been an assembler for about 30 years at the plant, which makes large transformers for power utilities. Friends said he had complained about pressure and conflicts with supervisors. He also was part of a class-action lawsuit against ABB over 401(k) plan fees.
One of the men he killed, Cory Wilson, 27, of Collinsville, was a shift supervisor and Hendron’s boss in the pre-fit group, said an ABB spokesman.
Wilson’s father and stepmother, Don and Vickie Wilson, both work at ABB. They called off a scheduled news conference outside their home in O’Fallon, Mo., Friday night. Their attorney, Dan Walkenhorst, said they were too distraught.
“Obviously, with not being able to come out, they’re having a difficult time with their mourning and grieving,” Walkenhorst said.
He said the family wanted to express their condolences “to the other family members who lost their relatives and the injured as well.”
He wouldn’t comment on what happened at ABB or whether the Wilsons believe that Hendron targeted their son.
At a press conference on Friday afternoon, Sack said police did not find any notes in Hendron’s vehicle or on his body.
He shot himself once under the chin with one of his pistols. His body was found in an office far from the bodies of his victims.
Sack said Hendron appears in some ABB surveillance video, which detectives were using to try to piece together the path of his carnage. Sack said they didn’t know whether he fired at random or had a mental list of intended victims.
“Most of the people said they fled when they heard gunshots, so we can’t say whether he targeted people or not,” he said.
Sack also said police found a third pistol in the parking lot near a guard shack. Detectives are trying to determine ownership, and whether one of Hendron’s victims may have tried to defend himself.
Hendron lived with his wife and grown son by a previous marriage. His family has declined to speak with reporters. It issued the statement on Friday through Scott Rosenblum, one of the area’s most prominent defense attorneys.
Rosenblum said the family contacted him Friday because he knows some of them socially.
“I’m just trying to help them along,” he said.
Hendron began working at the plant a short time after he graduated in 1976 from Bishop DuBourg High School in south St. Louis. In the senior yearbook, for which he and classmates were asked to write something they had learned, he wrote, “People are not always what they seem.”
On Friday, as many as 250 ABB employees and families met at the St. Louis Airport Marriott with officials from the Swiss company’s American headquarters near Raleigh, N.C. ABB spokesman Bob Fesmire said the plant will remain closed at least through the weekend.
The plant employs 268 people. Bob Fesmire said about 100 were scheduled to be there when Hendron arrived, but roughly half were absent because of vacation or the snowstorm that struck Wednesday night. The plant runs three shifts, including a small midnight shift of only eight workers.
People walked solemnly from the hotel meeting Friday, many with reddened eyes, saying emotions inside had been raw.
One employee who declined to be identified called Hendron a loner who was “upset about a lot of things.”
Cathy Long of St. Charles, Mo., an employee who has five relatives who work at ABB, including one of the critically wounded ones, said the shooting could not have been prevented. But Long said the company should increase security.
Jim Beyer, a maintenance worker in the plant for 24 years, also doubted the rampage could have been prevented.
“They couldn’t do nothing because it happened so fast,” Beyer said.
