This 2006 image provided by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department shows William H. Spengler Jr., 62, who served 17 years in prison for the 1980 slaying of Rose Spengler, 92, inside her home. Authorities say Spengler set a house and car ablaze Monday, Dec. 24, 2012 in Webster, N.Y., and then opened fire, killing two firefighters and wounding two others. After exchanging gunfire with police, Spengler also killed himself. AP Photo/Monroe County Sheriff’s Department
NEW YORK – A convicted felon who committed suicide after shooting dead two firefighters he lured into an inferno wrote in a note that killing people was what he liked to do best, local media said Tuesday.
William Spengler, 62, also had three different weapons and an arsenal of ammunition, according to reports citing local police, including a .223 Bushmaster rife – the same make used in the recent elementary school shooting in Connecticut that left 26 people dead, including 20 children.
“I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I like to do best – killing people,” read the rambling two to three page note discovered in the wake of the Christmas Eve incident in the town of Webster, ABC affiliate WHAM quoted police as saying.
WKBW meanwhile quoted Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering as saying that Spengler had “armed himself with three different weapons and an arsenal of ammunition” and that the weapons found were a Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver, a Mossberg 12-gage pump shotgun, and a Bushmaster .223 rifle.
Pickering called Monday’s incident in the Rochester suburb a “clear ambush on first responders,” according to WKBW. However, the shooter’s motive remains a mystery.
Webster police did not immediately return a call for comment.
Spengler was found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 17 years for his grandmother’s death in 1980, according to police.
The incident in Webster came 10 days after a shooting rampage at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, that saw a disturbed young man gun down 20 children, aged six and seven, and six adults.
The shooter, Adam Lanza, had killed his mother at their home before heading to the school, where he eventually took his own life.