Praying survivor spared gunman's deadly rampage

The Associated Press

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A customer survived a gunman's deadly rampage inside a Radio Shack store by dropping to the ground and then prayed aloud as the moans of his victims echoed around her, tapes of her call to 911 showed Friday.

Leellette D. Rutherford was inside the store buying a computer mouse Thursday evening when Justin Cudar walked in and began firing without warning, killing a customer and a clerk and severely wounding another employee before turning the gun on himself.

A terrified Rutherford pleaded with the 911 operator to send help as she prayed aloud. She grabbed the hand of one of the bloodied clerks after he was hit in the face.

The tape of the dramatic emergency call was released as authorities and families struggled to understand Cudar's motive.

"Why me? Why didn't he shoot me?" she said. "I would have given my life for the others."

Barbara Cudar did not answer her door Friday. Michelle Luciano, a neighbor, said Justin Cudar never showed signs of trouble.

"He was a good kid," Luciano said. "It's just shocking."

Marianne Pasha, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office, said deputies spoke with Cudar's mother after receiving a report earlier in the day of a driver exchanging hostile glances with two people in a pickup truck, then throwing a steering-wheel locking device through the pickup's window. The frightened victims hid behind a store and called for help, Pasha said.

"His mother said her son had anger-management issues," Pasha said Friday. "I am not sure anyone will know what set him off."

In 2000, a police report said Cudar punched a student at a college in an unprovoked incident, but he wasn't arrested. Earlier this year, a woman complained that Cudar was harassing her by telephone; police referred the matter to the telephone company.