By Samantha Thompson Smith, Wade Rawlins and Marti Maguire
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
CARTHAGE, N.C. _ When Michael Cotten pulled into Pinelake Health and Rehab on Sunday to see his aunt, a big man in overalls fired a shotgun at him before he could even park.
The blast Cotten described was apparently the first in a shooting rampage that left seven elderly residents and one staff member dead, Cotten and two others wounded, and the suspected gunman in custody and hospitalized, police said.
The shootings took place at about 10 a.m. at the facility, located at 801 Pinehurt Ave. in Carthage, N.C., about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh.
"As I was pulling into the parking lot, he started shooting my vehicle before I came to a stop," said Cotten, 53, a food-bank outreach coordinator and retired corrections assistant superintendent.
Police identified the suspect as Robert Stewart, 45, of Moore County, N.C., who faces eight counts of first-degree murder.
District Attorney Maureen Krueger identified the dead as: Tessie Garner, 88; Lillian Dunn, 89; Jesse Musser, 88; John Goldston, 78; Margaret Johnson, 89; Louise Decker, 98; Bessie Hendrick, 78; and Jerry Avent, age not given.
Stewart's estranged wife, Wanda Luck, worked as a certified nurse assistant at the nursing home, according to Mark Barnett, a neighbor of Wanda's parents. Barnett said she was working at the facility at the time of the shooting on Sunday. She was not listed as one of the victims in the shooting.
"This is a tragedy beyond comprehension for Moore County," said State Sen. Harris Blake, who represents the area.
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
Blake said Stewart was being transported to a hospital in Wake County Sunday because of security concerns at a local hospital.
"I was told he would be moved to Wake County," Blake said. "He is going to have to have some surgery. Apparently, he got hit with some bullets."
(END OPTIONAL TRIM)
Police released only limited information Sunday about the shootings. But survivors' accounts recreated a horrifying series of events in which a heavily armed intruder ranged freely through the center, shooting elderly residents, some in wheelchairs.
Resident Ellery Chisholm, 64, said she heard shots and screams coming up the hall when a stout man appeared in her doorway, pointing a gun at her roommate. Chisholm wasn't sure why he turned away and started shooting into the hallway instead of the room.
"I couldn't do nothing," said Chisholm, whose legs have been amputated from the knees down. "He just twisted around and started shooting."
A Carthage police officer, Justin Garner, 25, was shot in the leg during the incident, but he was treated and released from First Health Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst. Carthage Police Chief Chris McKenzie said Garner confronted Stewart in the hallway of the nursing home. Both men fired. Both were wounded, McKenzie said.
Jerry Avent was a well-liked nurse at Pinelake Rehab.
"Everyone loved him," said resident Helen Olive, 64, and legally blind, who survived the attack by hiding in her shower. "Some of the people here are in their 80s and 90s. He had his whole life."
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
HIDING TO SURVIVE
Cotten said he didn't want to die in his car, so between the gunman's second and third shot, he ran for his life into the center.
"I told them there was a gentlemen out in the parking lot shooting and they needed to call 9-1-1," said Cotten, who was wounded in his left shoulder. Then, he went searching for his aunt.
Eventually, the gunman entered the nursing home, too.
Cotten said he sought refuge in one of the interior bathrooms with several other people.
"We closed both doors hoping he wouldn't come in there" he said.
People hiding from the shooter could hear the sounds of chaos, screaming and gunshots. Cotten said he saw an elderly woman and man both shot in their wheelchairs and up the hall another elderly man shot in a wheelchair was he still alive?
"I think it's just divine intervention that I'm still here," Cotten said. "It just wasn't my time."
One victim, Jesse Musser, 88, had moved to the nursing home just six weeks ago, said his daughter, Holly Musser Foster. Jesse Musser, 88, was a retired railroad mechanic, and lived in room 405, at the end of one hall.
Foster's mother, Melba Musser, moved to the home two and a half weeks ago, but was unharmed by the gunman. She was in the Alzheimer's wing, a secure area of the nursing home that is protected with a pass code, Foster said.
"My prayer is that she doesn't know what happened," Foster said.
The Mussers had moved south from southern West Virginia six years ago to live with Foster. Recently, she found she could no longer care for them.
Foster said she typically went to visit her father at the nursing home at lunch every day during the week to be with her dad, who was blind and also had Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
Earier in his life, Jesse Musser loved woodworking and was a gunsmith in his free time.
"My daddy could do anything in the world," Foster said. "He could make anything, he could fix anything."
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)
NO SECURITY
The nursing home has no security staff, but a state regulator said that arrangement was typical of such long-term care centers.
"They are residential facilities," said Jeff Horton, chief executive officer of the state Division of Health Service Regulation. "They are not required to have security and most of them do not have it."
Sunday's shooting at a nursing home is a very rare occurrence, Horton said.
Pinelake Health and Rehab, certified in 1992, earned the highest overall rating of five stars from federal regulators recently, but was downgraded in the area of staffing, getting two out of a possible five stars.
___
(Staff writer Thomas Goldsmith contributed to this report.)
___
© 2009, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.).
Visit The News & Observer online at http://www.newsobserver.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
Developing Story...
