Answers hard to find after deadly N.Y. gun rampage

HERKIMER, N.Y. -- The man killed by police after a shooting rampage that left four people dead was a mystery in a small town, a stranger to his neighbors and a man of few words, even at a bar where he regularly drank Coors Light and listened to, but never sang, karaoke.

A former boss who worked with gunman Kurt Myers for 20 years described him as a quiet and nervous but intelligent and congenial man who was a fan of World War II trivia -- though a recent encounter with his old employee left him unsettled.

Steve Copperwheat, who hired Myers as a machine operator in the early 1980s at Waterbury Felt, a manufacturer of industrial textiles, said he encountered him in a Wal-Mart parking lot three months ago after not seeing him in about 10 years.

"I yelled over to him and he looked at me, said my name, said he was retired, and just went booking away," Copperwheat said. "It was almost like he didn't want anybody to know where he was. He was trying to be very distant, which surprised me. The whole conversation was really spooky."

Police don't know why the 64-year-old Myers chose the locations or victims. The gunman didn't appear to be close to his family even though it has lived in the area for generations, and police interviews with relatives and neighbors have produced little.

A law enforcement official stands in the doorway of the building where a man was killed after police stormed it following a standoff on, Thursday, March 14, 2013, in Herkimer, N.Y. The man was suspected of two shootings on Wednesday that killed four and injured two others. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

About the only clue is his cryptic query before he opened fire on customers in a barber shop where he used to get his hair cut: "Do you remember me?"

Myers died early Thursday in a gunfight with officers in an abandoned tavern where he holed up 19 hours earlier after walking into the barber shop and a car-care shop and shooting six men, four fatally.

The gunman was a loner, never married. Neighbors in this poor upstate New York town say he rarely spoke. The barkeeps who served him several times a week for a decade didn't even know his name.

Copperwheat, now the owner of Environmental Composites in Herkimer, said Myers had "always seemed to be in a rush. Walking, talking -- everything he did was fast."

State police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico called the shotgun attacks "unprovoked and random."

State police and FBI tactical teams entered the first floor of a building in Herkimer around 8 a.m. Thursday to end the standoff, D'Amico said. Myers opened fire at officers, killing an FBI dog that was behind a door, D'Amico said. Police returned fire, killing Myers. No officers were injured.

In a statement Thursday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo commended law enforcers for "ending this horrific spree of violence and bloodshed.

Myers seemed to be quite intelligent and was fond of World War II trivia. "He was really a buff on dates," Copperwheat said. "Once he got upset because one of the girls in the office didn't know when Pearl Harbor was."

The business was sold and moved several times, with Myers and other workers moving with it to several locations in central New York and eventually Dover, N.H., in 2003, Copperwheat said. There, Myers shared an apartment for a while with several other workers.

"I never had a problem with him arguing with anybody or fighting with anybody," Copperwheat said. "He just kind of kept to himself."

The shootings rattled Herkimer and neighboring Mohawk, two villages about 170 miles northwest of New York City. Utica, about 13 miles down the New York State Thruway, is the nearest sizable city, with about 60,000 residents.

His sister lives with her family in Barneveld, just a short drive from Mohawk and Herkimer. There was no car in the driveway on Thursday, and nobody answered the door or phone.

His brother, Lance Myers, died in federal prison in 1982 at age 31. He had been serving a four-year sentence for an embezzlement conspiracy at Oneida National Bank, where he had been a manager.

Myers' rampage started with a fire in his apartment in Mohawk on Wednesday morning. He then drove around the corner to John's Barber Shop and used a shotgun to kill two customers, Harry Montgomery, 68, and Michael Ransear, 57, a retired corrections officer.

John Seymour, the shop's owner, and another customer, Dan Haslauer, were wounded and hospitalized.

Myers then drove to Gaffey's Fast Lube in Herkimer and used the shotgun to kill Michael Renshaw and Thomas Stefka. Renshaw was a 23-year employee of the state corrections department, and Stefka worked at Gaffey's and played guitar at Mohawk Reform Church.

Seymour told his sister that Myers, who used to be a customer but hadn't visited for a couple of years, walked in and said, "Hi John, do you remember me?"

Seymour replied, "`Yes, Kurt, how are you?"' sister Mary Hornett said. "And then he just started shooting."

Traci Randall, who lived next door to Myers, said the only time she remembers speaking to him was when he yelled at her son because he thought he had shot an air pellet at his red Jeep.

"He would walk by himself," she said. "He was kind of a loner. No wife."

Michele Mlinar, bartender at Cangee's Bar and Grille in Herkimer, said Myers used to come at night on weekends and listen to karaoke but stopped showing up last summer.

She said he always wore a flannel shirt tucked neatly into his jeans and sat alone at the bar.

"He just listened," she said. "He never sang."

"It's now time for mourning those who we lost in this senseless act of violence," he said.

Elizabeth Cirelli, a neighbor of victim Stefka, said she was shocked by his slaying. He was a neighbor in Herkimer.

"He was a great guy, a really nice person," she said. "This is horrific. We really couldn't believe it."

He did, though, appear to have tenuous connections to the barber shop.