By ViewHeadlines
Kirkersville shooting that caused the death of four people including a newly appointed police chief of a small village with five hundred residents and the shooter has shocked not just people in Ohio, but other parts of the nation as well.
A lone gunman with a history of crimes in the past shot dead two workers at a nursing home in the town before shooting the police chief and later killing himself too.
When the police chief who was appointed in the post merely three weeks ago, reached on the scene of the crime, the gunman shot him dead too.
Later, the gunman was also found dead. And there are reasons to believe that he might have shot himself too.
(An armed man gunned down a new village police chief on a street and then killed two employees in a nearby nursing home, where he later was found dead, a sheriff said. No nursing home residents were injured. Courtesy of NBC4 WCMH-TV Columbus and YouTube)
The 37-year old police officer, Steven Eric DiSario, who lost his life after being fatally shot by the gunman at the Pine Kirk Care Center nursing facility was not the lone fatality on the scene.
Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp said that other victims included Marlina Medrano, a nurse at nursing home and Cindy Krantz, a nurse’s aide.
In a tape of the 911 call released to the media, a man, apparently a hostages is heard telling the officers about the shooter and the scene of the crime.
The killer whose ex-girlfriend worked at the Pine Kirk Care Center nursing facility has been identified as Thomas Hartless, 43, of Utica.
Reports suggest that he had a criminal background and had been arrested for domestic violence and in 2010 pleaded guilty to abduction after taking a Newark woman and holding her in Coshocton County for several hours.
(Highway Patrol said an officer was shot while responding to an active shooter situation at a nursing home in Kirkersville, Ohio. Courtesy of WKBN27 and YouTube)
Police said that Hartless was in a relationship with one of the killed, Marlina Medrano and that the two had split.
Police officers said that the relationship “was not a very good relationship.”
His wife, Aryn’s step mother Vickie Armintrout said Aryn DiSario called this morning in fear because she knew her husband was on duty and couldn’t get any information on the shooting.
In the meantime, a detailed report in DaytonaDailyNews quoting his mother in law said, Armintrout said the couple have been married about seven or eight years.
They are a blended family each with kids from previous relationships. They have one child together and Aryn is pregnant, ready to give birth any day now.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Armintrout said.
“You just don’t know what she’s going to do now, you know? It’s just heartbreaking for the children and his wife.”
He had six children and his wife is expecting the seventh child, their second child together.
(The slain police chief, Steven Eric Disario, had headed the Kirkersville Police Department for only about three weeks, Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp said. Courtesy of NBC4 WCMH-TV Columbus and YouTube)
The slain police chief has been described as an exemplary father and a great husband by his relatives. DaytonaDailyNews report said that the couple met while living in the Columbus area, and DiSario was close with all five of their children.
Armintrout said “His oldest stepdaughter… he’s like her only father. So he’s been so wonderful to her…I feel really bad for his mom…They’re all really good people, a really good family.”
In the meantime the sheriff said that when the police officials came to the nursing home they found Medrano and Krantz deceased inside and the suspected shooter dead nearby.
He went on to add that none of the 23 residents at the facility were injured.
*Editor’s note: Our condolences to the Kirkersville Police Department. May Police Chief Disario rest in peace. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.
