Shooting victim had Bollinger County roots

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- James Martin, the first of six people killed in the Maryland shooting spree last week, had his roots in Bollinger County.

Martin, 55, of Silver Spring, Md., graduated from Woodland High School in 1965 and had worked at the Wallis Store and Lutes and Hartle Hardware Store in Lutesville, Mo., while in high school, said longtime friend Tom Ossig of Marble Hill, who said Martin was "like a foster brother to me."

"My mom took him in after his mom died," Ossig said. "He was about a sophomore at SEMO when his mom died, and since he had no family, we took him in. We were roommates at SEMO."

Martin, a program analyst at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was killed about 6:04 p.m. Oct. 2 in the parking lot of Shoppers Food Warehouse grocery store in Wheaton, Md.

Ossig said he received a call on Oct. 4 from Martin's sister about the shooting.

"I had to be told three or four times before I knew it was true," Ossig said. "Here's a guy in the prime of his life, and another guy takes his life for no reason. It was a shock."

Martin earned a degree in business from Southeast Missouri State University in 1969.

"I last talked to him last September when my mother died," Ossig said.

"After I learned about the shooting, I talked to his wife and she said she was glad my mom wasn't here to go through this.

"This has really torn us up," Ossig said. "He was like one of us. It's devastated us, it really has."

Martin, the first victim, had probably stopped at the grocery store on his way home to his wife, Billie, and son, Ben, 11, when the shooter struck, said Don Spillman, his supervisor at NOAA.

Spillman last saw Martin at a meeting that ended around 5 p.m. Martin, a program analyst at the agency, usually left work at 5:30 p.m.

"The word I heard associated with Jim a lot by the people who worked with him was 'gentleman,'" Spillman said.

Martin, who handled workplace diversity and produced the agency's annual production goals in a division that manages its fleet of ships and aircraft, Spillman said.

He also organized the office's adoption of a Washington, D.C. elementary school, said Spillman, who has known him for 12 years.