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Show 10 A the Salt Lke Tribune, Sunday, Augnii 24, l6 Countdown to Horror: The Day a Post Office Became a Nightmarish Balt lei iehl ni miniature golf with his active son, Damien. A grandson of famed Notre Dame Irish fan coach Knute Rockne, Mike is a even though he attended Oklahoma State. He is a Vietnam veteran, but talks little about the war and less about his e famous granddad. He enjoys his work. He's held the job for more than five years. This morning, he dashes out, hardly brushing the cheek of his wife, Linda, with his goodbye kiss. 6 a mu Rick Esser, 38, runs outside to pull in some garden tools from his Bethany home before he slugs down his breakfast. The tools could rust tn the dew. Hes fussy about his equipment. He talks a lot about early retirement so he can devote more time to his backyard garden and spend more time with his two children and his wife, Janet. Esser is well-likeby fellow workers, and they grumbled little when he was promoted two years ago to a supervisors post. Hes been at the post office for six years. This morning he may have recalled the shouting match between his fellow supervisor Bill Bland and a part-tim- e worker named Sherrill. But, no doubt, he felt a bit sympathetic for Sherrill who said he like Esser was a Vietnam vet. Esser never would learn Sherrill had lied about the war, that didnt come out until much later. 4:15 a.m.: Jerry Pyle, 51, rushes out the door early. Hes a rural carrier on Route 3, and his route recently has been center expanded, so he has to get to the letter-sortin- g early. He waves at a friend as he drives by on the main highway to the office. He's been at the post office for 25 years, started as a window clerk, but he enjoys the and is glad to be assigned the sprawling rural route. Today, he barely has time to say goodbye to his wife, Dorothy, and five children, three of them stepchildren. &30 m: Bill Bland wakes up late and troubled this day. Thered been a violent argument on Tuesday with Sherrill, the part-tim- e employee who'd been fired once before after 89 da vs for allegedly kicking a dog. This time the employee had been reading post cards, and making coarse jokes about the sexual preferences of the writers. Fellow employees didnt appreciate the humor. In the postal service, you don't read other peoples mall. Besides, Sherrill had a habit of sloughing off duties; he termed It nigger-work.- " But when Bland, a supervisor, brought all these complaints to Sherrill's attention and said his job was in jeopardy, there was an explosion. Sherrill, normally reserved, just blew up, cursing his boss and ' his job. The interview turned bitter and blusterous. Bland had hit a nerve. Sherrill said he was being picked-on- , ' deliberately humiliated. Fellow employees heard the veiling throughout the vast postal hall. As he dashes out of nil home, Bland knows hell probably arrive a bit late and that he'll probably catch some verbal flak from Sherrill. 7 i.n: Sherrill enters the east entrance of the post office, his hand tucked into the leather bag draped over his shoulder. He says nothing. He brushes past Mike Bigler, a friendly associate, but never says hello. He walks past cubicles to his right and left and stalks to the center of the office, to a set of desks. Wheres Bland?" he is thought to have said to Esser. Not here. Whats the trouble?" Esser says. Sherrill doesnt reply, but he pulls out a cocked .45 and shoves It into Essers belly. Esser yells out No, Pat. No." Almost everybody hears that cry. But, above the din of recorded music piped in for the morning crew, few hear the muffled report of a gun fired against human flesh. Essers eyes are open when he falls. Rockne stands, looking stunned. Perhaps he thought it ; was some kind of joke. Sherrill always was pulling weird' little stunts, pretending to shoot people with hands point-- . ed like a gun. But, today, Sherrill holds a gun. It is smoking. Seconds after Esser crumbles to the floor, before Rockne can pivot, Sherrill turns the weapon on him and pulls the trigger. Rockne falls. an evening of By William H. Inman ITI National Feature Writer At precisely 14 minutes past sunHenry Sherrill dropped to his haunches, EDMOND, Okla rise, Patrick pressed a 45 cahber pistol to his right temple and squeezed the trigger, One of the bloodiest and most inexplicable one-marampages in U S history was over. In seven minutes, Patrick Henry Sherrill completed what he had set out to do. who puttered with radios arid Sherrill, an computers and had no history of crime nor mental problems, snuffed out 15 lives in a catharsis of humiliation and pain and hidden rage. With a brace of target pistols, for accuracy, the killer had fired 50 rounds, seven shots a minute, hitting all his victims in the classic figure-eigkilling zone center of the chest to the center of the abdomen the same pattern traced out on those headless paper targets home. pinned to the walls of Sherrill's wood-fram- e The killing was so complete, so clean and so terrible I still have trouble putting my anger into words," said Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy. UPI talked to criminologists, interviewed survivoVs and witnesses of Wednesdays massacre and friends and associates of the victims, to piece together the following rundown of the days events. 5:45 a m.: Sherrill, 44, stirs early. Unlike most mornings, he folds his nightclothes in a stack by the bed, not far from his collection of "Gun and Ammo magazines on the floor. He seems to know the room will be seen by others before the sun goes down. His night had been fitful. He placed calls to friends. He wanted to talk, not about anything in particular, just talk. He hung up abruptly on one call. Neighbors say they think they saw him frenetibike through the darkcally pumping his sleek race-styl- e ened streets sometime after midnight. Sherrill unsheaths three guns from their cases. He's obsessed with guns, has collected and cherished them since winning marksmanship awards in the Marines back in 1964. He still keeps the paper targets from those days, pasted in a book of memorabilia. So attached to firing guns marksmanship is one of the lasting accomplishments of his life he has rigged up a makeshift shooting range in his living room, using BB guns against bulls-ey- e targets clipped to boxes stuffed with paper. From a kitchen drawer he pulls out a box of wadcut-ter- " bullets he checked out of the Oklahoma Air National Guard armory days before. Hes a gunnery instructor and knows that wadcutters, while they make a clean holes in paper targets, also mushroom like opening fists inside a human torso. He arms two pistols, also borrowed from the Guard, and a weapon. He then fills three reload clips and places them, with his weapons, in hi9 leather mail bag. 6 a.m.: Not far from Sherrills home, Judy Denny, 39, wakens and dresses quickly. She fixes a hot breakfast for husband Ron and talks about the possibility of promotion at the Edmond post office. Shed been there only two months, transferred in from Kennesaw, Ga., but she is a good employee and has impressed her superiors. At any rate, she is glad to get out of Georgia. She was working at the main post office in Atlanta on March 6, 1985, when a madman named Steven W. Brownless stormed into the place, not far from her sorting booth, and shot and killed , two postal employees and wounded a third. Denny seldom talks about that day. 6 a.m.: For Mike Rockne, 33, it is a busy morning. He bolts down a cup of coffee thats all he ever eats for breakfast even though hes probably a bit hungry from post-offic- n e fine-tune- heavy-dut- y d d i long-distan- mail-sortin- Irving l hide re Leroy t;h Lero Pyle, watching, knows his life is in danger He dashes toward the east door, and makes it to the parking lot He's free, clear. But no. Sherrill has chased him outside There is another shot. Pyle collapses. Later, several of his children would see the heap that once was their father, covered in a plastic body sack. They would hold each other, and weep. Denny has seen all this before. The sounds. The fear The killer on the loose. Horrible events, incredibly, are like a recurrent nightmare She dashes unfolding again to the side doors. They are locked She rushes toward the rooftop door. Before she makes it, the killer is running back from the parking lot. She may have tried for the vault, but another worker got there first and closed the door. More shots ring out. Denny ducks into a cubicle of wire mesh the post office box area at the south side of the building. She probably sees Bigler fall. He drops in front of her, a hole In his back, wounded but not dead The killer strides by, silently, waiting for his victims to turn their backs on him, then pops off the shots like the training he received in military camp. Most of the dead are shot in the back. The killer walks past Dennys cubicle. There are three more shots. Denny is still alive, but three others there arent. The linoleum floor now is slick with blood. The killer comes back to Dennys cubicle. There are five huddled there. And he stands over them, calmly reloading, preparing for the execution Sherrill squeezes off perhaps seven shots into the concentrated forms, taking five additional lives. Denny, who fled from Georgia because of a killer's attack in an Atlanta poet office, breathes her last in Edmond, Okla. Sherrill then wheels and clicks off two more shots, downing a running employee across the central hall. He hears movement in the break room at the northeast section of the building. He runs up to find Leroy Phillips action-sequenc- uiii 4 I out h lit ' "iii-und (long! .lid to 0 ill A sin Mi diami , r, .shin t ill loud-- L he m ver filed his Weapons he carried in the J'h - end eU building where lie t on v There, he ealml'- p i;3 me ,rid t mis it reled target the t linui t lip m tun ,,j nor 40 extra r uioi to tin tenter n it. u 2 wal -- hud hi pun ju In mi t , (lf irith t Phillips dies, p To complete p seven minutes eat f - ' 1 'hi killt - i n tim- - h holt hot k on ihe steel h,u ell It was the only shot h, -- pistoi on - moie quitkK t fired to the head 'hat da. . "'her-f the some to him than hi 11s Police are pi There also is He long of plmne tin-o to ener, hoping 15 minuMs m each calls mg The assumption vv ith tm ni 11 is alive, hof.ng he talk hve hostages im in-ue workers the that is postal statistic s for one reason or anoihtr But the phone on the calls afur they begin ring the plop keeps yanking office is h ivmg H i uble uh the phone corn ing The post nt ler id e pany don t know that Th But the tactical i,nns outside So the victims who on then up feel the killer is longing i, mg and win art heard writhing an the m"! out into cry h It to t heir anguish thumping on the polished floor ait h and a h tlf nn an more th n an hour, nearly enter sluwly automatic weapon, 8 45 am.: Pojiie drawn Their footsteps echo as tln-- wjlk There are sounds now, only she k and stum "i uisbelief there at e n The nun murs oi the L mg ui i no longer living Pat Sherrill s day of reckoning is over I ftu-othe- g latafTcJa cuupunV For i Hc. o D'OpoH yOdf roifotHO 126 36frim or DtC Coor Print Firry (C h any uthe Extrft Set of Print FRkE No Coupon requifftO NoLrhl Nut good U n mOFF U HO 126 35mm Of eokw Hour PhotoVtiBNmQ limit on roiBdisc per coupon Coupon print film Not oood with any olher mutt accompany ENLARGEMENTS nPHOTOFINISHINGQ 4't 0C o0r coupcnoPena.acoum Coupon Oood Thru 8 Bfiftg us your FavOfte Cotor Punt Neqat e .u we do 6x0 or H4 coior enid'gpmer off our regular price Coupon must dcCur-fOd ru, th any other No timtl Not gooo b7 D JJ a no ra I ter , do' J sunt VIDEO TRANSFER r " b T Ck . j JL Dz, K3 TflJ ri ii'.H I1 a iisoteih ipti s ai . 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