WEBSTER, N.Y. — The gunman who killed two firefighters in an ambush on Monday in this drowsy town on the shores of Lake Ontario expressed a passion for killing and a desire to destroy as much of his neighborhood as possible, the police said on Tuesday.
The gunman, identified as William Spengler, 62, left behind a chilling typewritten note recovered by investigators, Gerald L. Pickering, the police chief in Webster, told reporters on Tuesday. Chief Pickering, who described the writing as rambling, read just a portion of the note: “I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I like to do best – killing people.”
Chief Pickering also said that it was likely that the gunman used a semi-automatic rifle to kill the firefighters.
The violence on Monday unfolded with a simple call to put out a car fire, the sort of routine job firefighters tackle all the time. The fire truck hurtled to the assignment early Monday in a town that was preparing for the joys of Christmas.
But it apparently was a trap, the authorities said. There were a house and a car burning. There was also a waiting killer, who had stationed himself like a sniper on a berm above the firefighters.
Before they could begin to extinguish the flames, the firefighters were met by a burst of gunfire. Four were hit by the volley of bullets, and two died. An off-duty police officer from nearby Greece, N.Y., who was on his way to work, was wounded when he and his car were hit by shrapnel.
For a few hours, the scene was chaotic: flames ignited adjacent houses as the police frantically searched for the gunman, later identified as Mr. Spengler. They would find him dead near the beach, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Mr. Spengler had a lengthy criminal record and lived in the burning house. In 1981, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter for bludgeoning his 92-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer. He was imprisoned until 1998.
He remained on supervised parole until 2006, and the Webster police said they had not had recent brushes with him. His mother, Arline, who lived in the same house, died this year. A former neighbor, Roger D. Vercruysse, said Mr. Spengler and his sister had also lived in the house, but “he stayed in one part with his mother and his sister stayed in the other part, and they never talked to each other.”
Mr. Spengler’s ire for his sister was matched by love for his mother, Mr. Vercruysse said.
Mr. Spengler did not seem to have a lot of friends, but “every time I needed help, he was there,” Mr. Vercruysse, 64, said, whether it was for shoveling snow or driving Mr. Vercruysse’s blind sister to the store. The police said they found Mr. Spengler with three weapons by his side, including the rifle used in the shootings. The authorities said that they did not know where he had gotten the weapons, but that there had been recent gun thefts in Monroe County, where Webster is. As a felon, Mr. Spengler was prohibited from owning guns.
The authorities said they were unaware of a motive, but Chief Pickering suggested that “there were certainly mental health issues involved.”
The episode comes a little over a week after the Newtown, Conn., attack, and with the country engaged in an intense debate over gun control and care of the mentally ill. Grieving, Chief Pickering said in an interview: “We know that people are slipping through the cracks, not getting the help they need. And I suspect that this gentleman slipped through the cracks. Maybe he should have been under more intense supervision, maybe he should not have been in the public, maybe he should have been institutionalized, having his problems dealt with.”
The ambush shook residents of Webster, a town 12 miles northeast of Rochester.
“These people get up in the middle of the night to go put out fires,” Chief Pickering said of his lost firefighters. “They don’t expect to be shot and killed.”
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