A10 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019
DAYTON, Ohio — The police on
Monday were still trying to deter-
mine what motivated a gunman in
Dayton to kill his sister and eight
others, but people who grew up
with him were conducting a differ-
ent kind of investigation, looking
back for any signs that might have
foreshadowed his explosion of vio-
lence.
For more than a few, and for
women in particular, these signs
were not hard to find.
“I don’t want to say I saw it com-
ing,” said Mika Carpenter, 24, who
met the gunman, Connor Betts,
24, at a summer camp when they
were both 13. “But if it was going
to be anybody it was going to be
him.”
Like others who knew Mr. Betts
as a teenager, Ms. Carpenter re-
called his dark and often violent
jokes, including riffs about “bodily
harm” that led many to keep their
distance.
“He was kind of hateful to wom-
en because they didn’t want to
date him,” she said. Still, she be-
came friends with him because,
she said, she saw that he had a
good side.
Mr. Betts often expressed con-
cerns to her about having dark
thoughts, she said.
“I remember specifically him
talking about being scared of the
thoughts that he had, being scared
that he had violent thoughts,” said
Ms. Carpenter, who cut off contact
with him in 2013 after he lashed
out at her during an online chat.
“He knew it wasn’t normal.”
The police in Dayton were quick
to caution on Monday that much
about the shooting early Sunday
morning was still unknown. There
was still no clear motive, nor an
understanding of how three peo-
ple — Mr. Betts, his sister and a
mutual friend — all went out to-
gether and one ended up shooting
the other two. The friend, who has
not been named by the police, was
shot in his lower torso but sur-
vived; the sister, Megan Betts, 22,
was killed.
“It seems to just defy believabil-
ity that he would shoot his own sis-
ter,” said Dayton’s police chief,
Richard Biehl, at a news briefing
on Monday morning. “But it’s also
hard to believe he didn’t recognize
that was his sister, so we just don’t
know.”
On Saturday night, the three
drove together to the Oregon Dis-
trict, a stretch of bars and clubs
that is usually crowded on week-
ends. They separated at one point
but remained in touch, the chief
said. The police have no indication
that the sister or mutual friend
knew about the weapons Mr. Betts
would later use in the shooting.
Mr. Betts fatally shot one per-
son in an alleyway before turning
his fire on his sister and their
friend, the police have said. Nine
people were killed and at least 27
others were wounded, including
14 who were shot. Others had cuts
and injuries from the stampede of
fleeing people.
The police said on Monday that
Mr. Betts had purchased an AR-
style pistol online from Texas, but
had modified the gun with a pistolbrace to improve stability. He also
had a drum magazine that could
hold 100 rounds, the police said.
Mr. Betts had up to 250 rounds
of ammunition and fired at least 41
shots, Chief Biehl said. Six officers
fired a total of 65 rounds at the
gunman, killing him as he tried to
enter a bar, where many people
had taken refuge when the shoot-
ing began.
“I ran, I got trampled, I lost my
shoes,” said Jessica Westover, 23,
who was among the hundreds of
people who gathered on Sunday
night at a crowded vigil in the Ore-
gon District. They mourned thedead and cheered the actions of
emergency medical workers, but
some also expressed anger over
inaction on gun control.
When Gov. Mike DeWine, a Re-
publican, stepped to the micro-
phone to say a few words, some
shouted “Do something!” and
drowned out his remarks. A chant
soon broke out: “What do we
want? Gun control! When do we
want it? Now!”
Mr. DeWine planned to hold a
news conference on Tuesday
morning to announce proposals to
address gun violence and mental
illness.For many who grew up along-
side Mr. Betts in the quiet Dayton
suburbs, the shooting had sum-
moned uneasy memories.
“He wanted to scare people, he
really enjoyed it,” said Hannah
Shows, who became friends with
Mr. Betts when they were in the
seventh grade. She recalled his
talk of guns and gore, but chalked
it up at the time to his being a 13-
year-old boy.
But in ninth grade, Ms. Shows
discovered she was named on a
list that Mr. Betts had made of peo-
ple in the school. The list threat-
ened violence or sexual violencetoward those who were on it, most
of them girls, said Ben Seitz, 25,
whose girlfriend at the time was
also included.
Ms. Shows said she was never
told the details about the threats,
but the principal had asked her,
“Is there any reason he would
want to hurt you?”
Ms. Shows said she had as-
sumed she was on the list because
Mr. Betts had expressed interest
in her and she turned him down.
“After that, it turned into cold ha-
tred the way he stared at me,” she
said.
“People knew he was this way,”
she said. “A lot of people could
have helped, but no one did any-
thing about it.”
Asked about the list from high
school, Chief Biehl said that, even
if the reports were true, he would
be wary about making any con-
nections.
“I’m a little bit reluctant, even if
there’s such evidence, to interpret
it 10 years later as somehow this is
indicative of what happened yes-
terday,” he said.
At a brief talk with reporters lat-
er on Monday, the chief said he ex-
pected the investigation to be
lengthy. Detectives were continu-
ing to look at phones, computers
and videos to understand what
happened and why, though he
added that there was no evidence
that the shooting was a hate
crime.
“I think there will be some fa-
miliar themes that will emerge
from this investigation, so it will
not be a surprise in some regard,”
Chief Biehl said. “I think there are
some unique aspects of it that we
perhaps have not seen in other
shootings.”
He declined to say what those
unique aspects might be.In Dayton’s Aftermath, a Hunt for Clues to What Drove the Gunman
This article is by Campbell Rob-
ertson, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs
and Timothy Williams.
A memorial to victims of the Dayton shooting. Some who knew the shooter said he had a dark side.MADDIE MCGARVEY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESCampbell Robertson reported
from Dayton, Ohio, and Nicholas
Bogel-Burroughs and Timothy
Williams from New York. Mitch
Smith contributed reporting from
Dayton. Susan Beachy and Kitty
Bennett contributed research.
El Paso and Dayton Shootings
It was a Saturday at a Walmart
at the Texas border, but it could
have been a Saturday at a Wal-
mart anywhere in America. At the
precise moment the gunman
walked in — 10:39 a.m. — shop-
pers were in the middle of such
mundane routines that it ob-
scured the lives of Americans and
Mexicans who were anything but.
The youngest was 15. The oldest
was 90. Thirteen were American
citizens, seven were Mexican na-
tionals, one was German and one
other’s nationality was undeter-
mined. Twelve were men, 10 were
women.
Arturo Benavides, 60, an Army
veteran, drove a bus for the El
Paso public transit system for
nearly 20 years before retiring in
- He loved talking to family
and strangers about both experi-
ences.
“He would tell them about the
military or his Army days,” Mr.
Benavides’s goddaughter, Jacklin
Luna, said. “He was super, super
giving. Caring.”
Mr. Benavides and his wife, Pa-
tricia, went to Walmart together
on Saturday, but at 10:39 a.m., he
was in line at the cash register and
she was sitting on a bench by the
bathrooms. They had always been
more together than apart: He had
spent more than half his life with
her. When the gunman opened
fire, Mr. Benavides was killed but
Patricia survived. She had been
pushed into a bathroom stall for
safety.
Javier Amir Rodriguez, 15, had
been a Scorpion: He played soc-
cer last year as a freshman for the
Horizon High School Scorpions in
nearby Horizon City. He no longer
attended the school, but he left a
strong impression. On Monday
night, the Scorpions soccer squad
was gathering once more: this
time for a vigil for their slain
friend Amir.
The gunman, who lived in the
Dallas suburb of Allen and had
turned 21 one week before the
shooting, surrendered to the au-
thorities. Before the attack, he
posted a four-page anti-immi-
grant manifesto online railing
against “the Hispanic invasion of
Texas” and “all the problems
these invaders cause and will
cause.”
Two days after the shooting,
many residents said they con-
demned the hateful and racist
message in the manifesto and
mourned a punctured sense of
safety the city has long cherished.
But a void had stood in the way
for many: It was not until late
Monday that the El Paso authori-
ties released the names of those
who were killed. That stood in
sharp contrast to the situation in
Dayton, Ohio, where nine people
were killed in a mass shooting
about 13 hours after the massacre
in El Paso. By midday Sunday, the
authorities there had identified all
of the dead, a group of men and
women that spanned two genera-
tions.
For many of the relatives in El
Paso, the anguish of waiting for of-
ficial confirmation mixed with
grief, and outrage, and the pain of
holding out hope while still fear-
ing the worst. And so a kind of offi-
cial and unofficial tally of the dead
unfolded. Mexican officials con-
firmed the identities of some vic-
tims, while relatives of others con-
firmed their deaths in interviews
with the news media, through so-
cial media posts and statements
from their schools.
A series of messages one vic-
tim’s relatives had posted on Face-
book over the weekend showed
the anguish of a family not know-
ing for a full day what had hap-
pened to a loved one — believing
at one point that he had been
found alive, only to learn that it
was a case of mistaken identity.
On Sunday morning, nearly 24
hours after the shooting, the fam-
ily of David Johnson, 63, was still
searching for him. “I previously
posted that we had located him,
but there was a mix up and the
man in surgery was not him,”
wrote his nephew Dominic Pa-
tridge.
By Sunday evening, the family
knew that the worst had hap-
pened. In a message titled “Final
Update,” Mr. Patridge wrote it had
been notified that Mr. Johnson
had died. His uncle had been shot
several times while protecting his
aunt and his 9-year-old cousin.
“He smiled with his eyes and al-
ways addressed you with a high
pitched warm welcome,” Mr. Pa-tridge wrote. “I’ll never forget
that.”
Since the massacre, the Wal-
mart has mostly remained sealed
off, the parking lot still crammed
with the cars belonging to those
who had been shopping when the
gunman stormed the store. He
had stopped there because he was
hungry, El Paso’s police chief said.
The bodies of the victims re-
mained inside the store until Sun-
day. The delay in releasing the
names came as the authorities
sought to confirm victims’ identi-
ties and inform their families.
Medical examiners worked
through the weekend, finishing on
Sunday afternoon, the authorities
said.
For all of the gunman’s anti-La-
tino bigotry, the shoppers in the
Walmart that morning were di-
verse. Some of his victims wereHispanic, but others were not.
Some were retirees; others, teen-
agers. Some lived in El Paso; oth-
ers were just visiting.
And there was the woman ev-
eryone called Angie.
Angelina Englisbee, 86, had
seven children and a son who died
in infancy. Her husband died of a
heart attack, leaving her to raise
the children on her own. At one
point, she was working three jobs
at once. “She was a very strong
person, very blunt,” said her
granddaughter Mia Peake, 16.
Ms. Englisbee had been talking
on the phone with one of her sons
on Saturday morning when she
said she had to hang up because
she was in the checkout line at
Walmart. Mia said the family
learned on Sunday evening that
Ms. Englisbee was among the vic-
tims of the shooting. When thenews came, Mia and her mother
were in the car, driving to El Paso
from their home in New Mexico.
“My mom could not stop crying,
and I remember thinking, ‘I can’t
cry until we get there, I can’t cry
until we stop,’ ” Mia said, adding,
“It feels like hell — it doesn’t feel
real.”
On Monday, Edie Hallberg, one
of Ms. Englisbee’s daughters,
pulled up to her house to rest for a
moment and take a shower. As
soon as she pulled in, her neighbor
across the street walked over with
containers packed with food.
“Everybody’s helped,” Ms. Hall-
berg said. “El Paso has been there
for us. It was the waiting that was
so bad.”
First, she had rushed on Satur-
day to the Walmart, where she
knew her mother had been when
the shooting started. Then, shewent to the school that the au-
thorities had turned into what
they had called a reunification
center. She had to wait until Sun-
day for the authorities to confirm
what she had already deduced:
Her mother was dead.
Mayor Dee Margo of El Paso
said in a news conference Monday
afternoon that President Trump
would visit the city on Wednesday.
“This is not a political visit,” Mr.
Margo said. “He is the president of
the United States, so in that capac-
ity, I will fulfill my obligation as
mayor of El Paso to meet with the
president.”
Greg Allen, the El Paso police
chief, said 15 patients remained in
the hospital, two of whom were in
critical condition. Nine people had
been discharged, he said.
The El Paso Police Department
released this list of names of the
dead on Monday, although in
some cases families and the Mexi-
can consulate provided different
spellings:
Andre Pablo Anchondo, 23; Jor-
dan Anchondo, 24; Arturo Be-
navidez, 60; Leonard Cipeda
Campos, 41; Maria Flores, 77;
Raul Flores, 77; Jorge Calvillo
Garcia, 61; Adolfo Cerros Hernan-
dez, 68; Alexander Gerhard Hoff-
man, 66; David Alvah Johnson,
63; Luis Alfonzo Juarez, 90; Maria
Eugenia Legarrega Rothe, 58;
Elsa Libera Marquez, 57; Maribel
Loya 56; Ivan Hilierto Manzano,
46; Gloria Irma Marquez, 61;
Margie Reckard, 63; Sarah Esther
Regaldo Moriel, 66; Javier Rodri-
guez, 15; Teresa Sanchez, 82; An-
gelina Sliva-Elisbee, 86; Juan Ve-
lazquez, 77.
In a Facebook post, Elsa Libera
Marquez’s husband, Antonio,
wrote an emotional farewell to his
wife: “I say goodbye to my part-
ner, the most wonderful of women,
a being full of life who will contin-
ue to light our path for the time
that life gives us... we will miss
you love!!!!”
In another Facebook post, San-
dra Ivonne Cerros, the daughter of
Mr. Cerros and Ms. Regaldo, con-
firmed her parents’ deaths. “We
are devastated,” she wrote.
The young couple who were
killed protecting their son, Andre
and Jordan Anchondo, had cele-
brated their first anniversary a
week before the tragedy, and had
moved into a home painstakingly
renovated by Andre. Family mem-
bers were left shellshocked. They
are now picking up the pieces to
see how to raise the three children
the couple left behind: Skylin, 5;
Victoria, 2; and baby Paul Gilbert.
“Their parents simply cannot
be replaced,” said Jerry Jam-
rowski, 33, Jordan’s uncle. “How
are we supposed to explain what
happened to their three beautiful
children?”
Mr. Jamrowski said it had been
a harrowing experience since Sat-
urday. They found out that day
that Jordan had died but it took
another day, until Sunday after-
noon, to confirm that Andre was
also killed.
“Andre was also heroic,” said
Elizabeth Terry, 44, Jordan’s aunt.
“He threw his own body in front of
his wife to try to save her.”After Wait for Victims’ Names in Texas, Families Are Left Devastated
JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMESFrom Page ARick Rojas and Simon Romero re-
ported from El Paso, Manny Fer-
nandez from Houston, and Jose A.
Del Real from Los Angeles. Report-
ing was contributed by Arturo Ru-
bio from El Paso; Elisabeth
Malkin from Ciudad Juárez, Mex-
ico; Kate Taylor from Cambridge,
Mass.; Mitchell Ferman from Mc-
Allen, Tex.; and Nicholas Bogel-
Burroughs from New York.
Top, a memorial on Sunday for the victims of the shooting at a Walmart in El Paso the day before.
The death toll was at 22 on Monday. Arturo Benavides, 60, an Army veteran, left, was at the cash
register when the gunman opened fire. His wife survived. Jordan Anchondo, 24, middle left, died
trying to protect her baby, who survived. Her husband, Andre, 23, tried shielding them both. David
Johnson, 63, right, was shot several times while protecting his aunt and a 9-year-old cousin.