Shooting suspect may have been gunning for wife

A painter said to have carried out the North Carolina nursing home shootings may have been after his recently-estranged wife during the rampage that killed seven residents and a nurse.

Robert Stewart’s wife was working as a nursing assistant at Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, North Carolina, when he launched the murderous attack on Sunday, not long after the two split up, said Police Chief Chris McKenzie.

The break-up ended a rocky relationship that spread over many years and bookended other failed marriages, according to court documents.

Authorities would not elaborate on how their relationship may have played a role in the rampage, but the prosecutor who charged the 45-year-old suspect with murder left no doubt the attack had a purpose.

“We can share this: This was not a random act of violence,” said Moore County district attorney Maureen Krueger. “There is only one suspect and he is in custody.”

Authorities said Monday that Stewart arrived at Pinelake, a 110-bed nursing home and care centre for patients with Alzheimer’s disease at around 10am local time on Sunday.

Mr McKenzie said he was armed with more than one weapon and witnesses said he was shooting both a “deer gun” and a shotgun as he blasted his way through the car park and into the building.

Several people inside the home called police, pleading: “There’s a man in here with a double-barrel shotgun shooting people! White man with a beard.”

The shooting spree was ended by 25-year-old Master Officer Justin Garner, who entered the nursing home alone as he responded to the police calls.

Mr McKenzie said Mr Garner, a training officer with more than four years on the Carthage force and a past winner of the department’s officer of the year award, knew he was going into a perilous situation, but did not wait for back-up or a police commando team to arrive.

Stewart wounded Mr Garner three times in the leg as they traded gunfire, with the single shot Mr Garner fired from his .40-calibre service pistol hit Stewart in the chest.

Stewart made his first court appearance yesterday on eight counts of first-degree murder and a single charge of felony assault of a law enforcement officer.

Ms Krueger plans to seek a grand jury indictment on those charges next month.

Yesterday it appeared the relationship between Stewart and his wife, identified by a neighbour as Wanda Luck, was tied in some way to the rampage.

“We’re certainly looking into the fact that it may be domestic-related,” Mr McKenzie said.

According to marriage records in Moore County, 19-year-old Stewart married 17-year-old Wanda Gay Neal in July 1983.

They divorced three years later and both were involved in several other marriages before they reunited and remarried in June 2002. Mr McKenzie said he believed the couple had recently separated again.

After his first divorce from Ms Luck, Stewart remarried in South Carolina to a woman named Ellen Susan McCaskill.

She identified herself as Sue Griffin during a brief interview on Sunday and told reporters Stewart had recently started telling family he had cancer and was preparing for a long trip and to “go away”.

One of Ms Luck’s former husbands, Joseph Ferguson, said she talked about Stewart, whom he later met, calling him a “normal guy” and saying he was shocked to learn he had been accused of killing eight people.

“I don’t want to get into details about their marriage, but it was rocky, I can tell you that,” Mr Ferguson said.