8 Killed In Copley Ohio, Gunman Michael Hance Among The Dead

COPLEY, Ohio (AP) — A man gunned down two people outside a home and two more in a car Sunday morning, then shot his girlfriend in a rampage that left eight dead including the gunman, who was shot by police, authorities and witnesses said.

Two others were wounded, police said. A child was among those shot, witnesses said, though police wouldn't confirm that. Investigators were trying to piece together what happened at four crime scenes, police Chief Michael Mier said.

A neighbor, Gilbert Elie, said he was getting ready for church when he heard gunshots and cries for help in his northeast Ohio neighborhood, a wooded, residential area outside Akron. He went to a house across the street and said he found a shocking scene: the woman who lived there lying in the driveway, her husband shot near the garage, and their young granddaughter and another woman shot in the front seat of a vehicle, the windows apparently blown out by gunfire.

A third woman came out of the house next door and tried to talk to Elie, he said, but their brief exchange ended abruptly when a man followed her out of the house and shot her, sending the 75-year-old Elie running for safety behind a truck.

"She was talking to me, and he come up behind her and shot her, so I figured, maybe I'm next," he told The Associated Press.

He hid until he could see the gunman was gone, then returned home. Police arrived, and Elie said he heard a second round of shots coming from behind the houses and assumed officers had killed the gunman.

Elie said the gunman lived with the woman who tried to talk to him. Elie described the gunman as unfriendly, a rarity on a street where most neighbors offer a wave in passing.

He often worked on his car outside his house but never waved at anyone, Elie said.

The names and ages of the victims and the gunman weren't being released until police could tell family members, some of whom are out of state, Copley police Sgt. Eric Goodwin said.

Goodwin did not know the conditions of the wounded. Investigators were "still putting things together" as they work the crime scenes, he said.

He gave no more details, including whether the shooter and victims were related, their names or what led to the argument.

"That's still under investigation," he said.

Jeff Kirby of nearby Norton said he was visiting his mother's home a block from the shootings around 10:30 a.m. when he heard gunfire — about 15 shots with several pauses between them.

Kirby, 53, said the last gunfire he heard occurred about the same time he heard sirens in the neighborhood.

The neighborhood remained blocked off by police Sunday. About 200 people assembled at a park around sunset for an impromptu candlelight vigil for the shooting victims in their town and crime victims elsewhere.

The Rev. Jeff Bogue of the Grace Church of Greater Akron prayed with them, saying it's troubling that "such evil would come to our little township." Some residents said they set up a memorial fund.

Copley Township is a town of about 14,000 people is west of Akron and about 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Cleveland in northeast Ohio.

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8 Dead, 1 Hurt in Copley Shooting Rampage
By Lindsay Buckingham FOX8.com Reporter

12:28 a.m. EDT, August 8, 2011
COPLEY, Ohio—
Copley police confirm that eight people, including a gunman, are dead after a shooting rampage Sunday morning. Another person was wounded.

Chief Michael Mier said the unidentified gunman opened fire around 11 a.m. during an argument inside a home in the 2300 block of Goodenough Avenue. Several people were allegedly present when the incident occurred. Police believe the gunman shot his girlfriend at that residence, then went next door and shot his girlfriend's brother and four other people.

Witnesses told Fox 8 News he then began a search for those who had gotten away after the initial gunfire.

Police say the gunman chased two victims through backyards before shooting one of them outside of a home on nearby Schocalog Road. Two other people that had run from him sought safety in another house on Schocalog, but it didn't last. The shooter entered that home and gunned down another victim.

After exiting the home, the suspect shot at a Copley officer and a private citizen. It was there, police said, the two men returned fire and fatally shot the gunman. Officials say the citizen was a former police officer.

Chief Mier said in all eight people were shot by the suspect, seven of which died at the scene. The eighth victim, a woman, was taken to an area hospital where she remains in the intensive care unit.

One of the deceased was an 11-year-old boy. Witnesses said at one point, the boy and another victim escaped the gunfire and made a run for it, but the gunman followed and caught up with them.

"A neighbor of mine sat there riding a motorcycle and seen the guy chasing the little kid with the gun shooting and trying to kill him," said Bob McCrady.

Residents were horrified to learn that the boy and the other person who was trying to get away, were eventually killed by the gunman.

Brenda McCrady told Fox 8 News that she was sitting in her Schocalog Road home, when a hysterical woman came banging at her door.

"Somebody knocked on my door, and a woman was on my porch -- hiding on my porch. I went out the door, she ran in the house and told me that somebody had shot her husband point blank in the head," McCrady said. "[The woman] said 'there's a lot of people shot,' and she started screaming 'my son, my son, my 11-year-old son.' [The woman's son] went the opposite direction she went, and she was looking for, wanting her son, but she said 'oh, my God, I'm a widow,' " McCrady said.

The bodies of the shooting victims were found in four different locations along the two streets. Authorities said their identities would not be released until all of their families were notified.

A prayer vigil for the victims was held Sunday evening at the Copley Community Park. Community members cried and embraced at the candlelight event, which about 200 people attended.

Copley-Fairlawn City Schools Superintendent Brian Poe confirmed Sunday that at least one of victims was a student at Copley High School. Counselors will be on hand Monday to provide support for students.

The Copley Police Department was assisted in the investigation by the Akron Police Department, the Fairlawn Police Department, the Summit County Medical Sheriff's Office, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office and the Summit County Prosecutor's Office.

Police said they would reveal more information about the shootings in a news conference Monday at noon.

Meanwhile, authorities are asking people to avoid the area near the shootings, as entrances to the neighborhood have been blocked off.

Stick with Fox 8 News and FOX8.com for the latest updates on this developing story, as they become available.

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Eight killed in Ohio shooting following domestic dispute

A family argument in Ohio resulted in eight people being shot dead in two places, including an 11-year-old, and two more people were wounded.

10:40PM BST 07 Aug 2011

One person shot five people to death in one location, then two more were killed nearby before police killed the gunman, police Chief Michael Mier told WKYC-TV.

The shootings happened in a wooded, residential neighborhood of older homes outside Akron, Copley Township officers said. The neighbourhood remained blocked off by police Sunday afternoon.

Jeff Kirby of nearby Norton said he was visiting his mother's home a block from the shootings at mid-morning when he heard gunfire - about 15 shots with several pauses between them.

Mr Kirby, 53, said the last gunfire he heard occurred about the same time he heard sirens in the neighborhood.

Copley police Sgt. Eric Goodwin said he did not know the conditions of the wounded but said he believed there were no more victims.

"As far as I know, everyone's accounted for," he said.

He gave no more details, including how the shooter and victims were related, their names or what led to the argument.

"That's still under investigation," he said.

Copley Township is a town of about 14,000 people outside Akron in northeast Ohio.

An employee at a nearby petrol station told Reuters a customer's niece lived in the house where the shooting took place.

"She doesn't know if (the niece is) dead or alive," said the worker, who declined to be identified.

The worker described Copley Township as a quiet, upscale community.

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Aug 8, 2011

Police were still trying to determine on Monday why a 51-year-old man shot and critically wounded his longtime girlfriend and killed seven other people in a quiet Ohio suburb before he was killed by police.

Police said Michael Hance shot Rebecca Dieter, 49, and chased down her brother Craig Dieter, 51, and his 11-year-old son Scott Dieter and shot them dead in a Sunday rampage in Copley Township, near Akron, Ohio.

The shootings took place in the area of a house that Hance sometimes lived in with Rebecca Dieter, but it was not known if any of the shootings took place in that house, Copley police chief Michael Mier said.

Police said Hance also went to a neighbor's house and shot homeowners Russell and Gudrun Johnson, both in their sixties. Their son Bryan Johnson, 44, and his 16-year-old daughter Autumn were also shot and killed there.

The name of another victim, also 16, was not released pending family notification.

An initial investigation by Copley police found no criminal or mental illness record for Hance. Mier said there was also no record Copley police had ever been called to either his Copley address or another in Akron for domestic violence.

"We still have a lot of work to do," Mier said. "The suspect has very little background."

A neighbor and friend of the victims, Carol Eshleman, who had been a caregiver for Rebecca Dieter's deceased parents, said Hance had a temper.

"Mike was a very strange character," Eshleman said. "Mike was very troubled." She said she had heard the dispute was over money.

HID BEHIND A TRUCK

Gilbert Elie, who lives a couple houses down from the crime scene in the semi-rural, upscale residential neighborhood, told Reuters he rushed to the scene when he heard shots fired.

There, he saw bodies strewn on the ground and heard the groaning of one woman and saw blood "running out from under her," he said.

Then a woman Elie said was the accused shooter's girlfriend came out of another house. "I was talking to the girlfriend and this guy walked up and blasted her and she fell down the steps," Elie said.

Elie ran and hid behind a truck. "She was crying 'help, help,'" he said, adding that he ran home and called the police.

About 300 people participated in a prayer vigil for the victims on Sunday evening, many of them high school students, as the town of 14,000 people tried to piece together events in Copley Township, 40 miles south of Cleveland.

At 10:55 a.m. local time on Sunday, police had responded to a 911 call of reported gunshots in the area and subsequent calls saying a man was chasing someone.

Police played a 911 call during a Monday news conference from a woman hiding in her basement with her three children as Hance entered in the house looking for Scott Dieter. Mier told reporters that it appears Hance allowed that woman and her children to leave but shot the boy at that location.

Mier said two police officers, including an off-duty officer who lives in the neighborhood, saw Hance as he was leaving the house where Scott Dieter was shot. Hance was shot and killed by the on-duty officer, initial coroner reports said.

Mier said two handguns were found at one of four crime scenes being investigated by various law enforcement agencies.

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Aug. 9, 2011



Police identified the final victim from an Ohio shooting spree that left eight people dead as investigators looked for answers in a rampage that devastated a quiet suburban community.

Amelia Shambaugh, 16, was visiting a friend and sitting in a parked car when they were both killed Sunday morning, Copley Township Police Chief Michael Mier said Tuesday.

Federal authorities are tracing two handguns linked to shooter Michael Hance, who died in a gunfight with police after killing seven people, Mier said.

Mier said he still doesn't know why Hance, who had no previous criminal record before the outburst, did it.

"We've heard a variety of opinions," Mier said. "That's something we're trying to sort through and determine."

Neighbors said the violence was the culmination of a dispute over the home where Hance was living with his longtime girlfriend, Becky Dieter, who was shot but survived. The home had belonged to Dieter's deceased parents.

Hance often read textbooks on diseases and medical procedures and tried to get others interested, neighbor Carol Eshleman said. He also made and drank odd health concoctions and claimed he didn't have to work because he was an inventor, she said.

He seemed constantly under stress, trying to deal with possessions of relatives who had recently died, said Eshleman, a 64-year-old driver for public school special education students.

"Mike was strange," she said, but "I wouldn't think he'd go to this extreme."

On Tuesday, red, blue and purple ribbons adorned trees in the center of the township outside of Akron and also outside the high school, honoring the victims,, police officers and fire rescuers.

Copley-Fairlawn schools made counselors and psychologists available to anyone in the community. The high school, with about 1,100 students, is struggling for answers, Superintendent Brian Poe said.

"This is very, very difficult to work through because of the severity of the tragedy, because you lose seven people at once, and the manner in which it was done, in which the victims were hunted down," said Poe, who is finishing his first year as superintendent.

"When you lose a child or a friend or a community member in a car accident, that in itself is very tragic," he said. "When seven people's lives are taken, it really multiples the severity, and that's been difficult for us to comprehend."

Poe declined to release details about Shambaugh and the other student killed, Autumn Johnson, also 16, but said both would be deeply missed.

A former police officer credited with helping stop Hance described feeling terrified but said he reacted the way he was trained.

"It just comes down to part of my DNA," Michael Lavery said in an interview Monday with WKYC-TV of Cleveland.

He lives in the suburban Akron neighborhood where police said Hance stalked and gunned down people, including an 11-year-old boy. The rampage ended in a shootout with Lavery and police in which Hance was killed.

Lavery said the rest of his family went to church Sunday morning, but he stayed home with a son who was sick.

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