Prosecutors: Man who attacked gay bar( Mass.) left 'desperation' message

[RedEarth]

Prosecutors: Man who attacked gay bar left 'desperation' message
By Noah Trister, Associated Press Writer | February 6, 2006

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. --A teenager who killed an Arkansas police officer days after a violent rampage at a gay bar left a "desperation note" around the time he attacked the bar and fled the state, Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh Jr. said Monday.

The note, which authorities did not immediately release, was found in a search of Robida's house Thursday, hours after he allegedly attacked three men in a gay bar, slicing some of his victims with a hatchet and shooting two of them. Robida died Sunday in a shootout with Arkansas police.

In addition to the message, police found items including an apparently homemade poster with a Nazi swastika and anti-Semitic writings, as well as a makeshift coffin, Walsh said.

"We didn't interpret it necessarily as a suicide note, but it was certainly the note of a desperate man who had some plans to continue doing something violent," Walsh said. Police said Robida returned home after attacking the bar, and it was unclear whether he left the note before or after the attack.

On Saturday afternoon, Robida allegedly shot and killed a police officer who pulled him over in Gassville, Ark., then led police on a 20-mile chase. Prosecutors say he crashed his Pontiac Grand Am and fatally shot his passenger, 33-year-old Jennifer Rena Bailey, a mother of three from West Virginia with whom Robida used to live.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/02/06/man_wanted_in_mass_violence_dies_many_questions_unanswered?mode=PF