**Inside the minds of workplace killers**

By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY

A choking haze filled the hallways, spreading like an impenetrable fog.
Larry Hansel, a technician who\'d been laid off from Elgar, a San
Diego-based electronics company, shot out the company switchboard and
set off homemade bombs. They were diversionary tactics. As fire scorched
the walls and employees scrambled for cover, Hansel wielded a 12-gauge
shotgun and searched the second-floor corridors for executives on his
hit list.

![](media/image1.jpeg){width="1.25in" height="1.25in"} **Larry Hansel is
serving a life sentence for killing two in 1991 at a San Diego
electronics company**

He found at least some of the victims he was looking for. Hansel shot
and killed a vice president and a sales manager. Then, as stunned
employees looked on, he calmly mounted his bike and pedaled away, a
shotgun tucked under one arm.

That was more than 10 years ago. Today, serving a life sentence for the
workplace killings, Hansel still wants to kill.

\"I didn\'t know the two killed very well except that they were upper
management,\" Hansel, 54, wrote in a letter to USA TODAY from California
State Prison in Sacramento, where he is serving a life sentence for the
two 1991 murders. \"If I had the chance to do it again, I\'d respond
with more determination.\"

Hansel is, in many ways, typical of employees who turn lethal. He says
his attack was justified. He planned his crime. And he was angry about
an incident at work: Hansel said in his letter that he attacked because
he was laid off after being told not to talk about religion or
philosophy at work.

A workplace killer is likely to be a 37-year-old single man who has been
with a company at least four years (about 3% of attackers are women).
His attack is often a final, self-destructive act that follows personal
problems in his life and at work. Often, he is the one whose temper has
worried co-workers and bosses. And he doesn\'t kill at random. Most
workplace killers harbor grudges and know exactly whom they\'re looking
for.

These are among the findings of a USA TODAY investigation into employees
who kill, an investigation that also found employers\' lax attitudes
toward workplace violence leave many workers at risk.

**USA TODAY** compiled a database of 224 fatal incidents spanning nearly
30 years, from 1975 through 2003, to track the outcomes and motivations
of employees who kill.

![](media/image2.jpeg){width="1.875in" height="2.1770833333333335in"} A
woman reacts after learning that a loved one was shot this month at
ConAgra in Kansas City\-- By Shane Keyser, AP

**USA TODAY** also interviewed --- in person, by letter or phone --- 18
people in prison for killing, or trying to kill, current or former
co-workers. They included employees who have bludgeoned co-workers with
claw hammers, shot victims execution-style in the head and slit their
own children\'s throats.

The research, along with interviews with survivors and employers,
reveals new information about the traits shared by workplace attackers,
who each week kill an average of one co-worker and leave at least 25
seriously injured.

These killers are markedly different from the typical murderer. The
workplace attacker is more likely to be white, male and older than the
typical murderer, according to James Alan Fox, a criminologist at
Northeastern University in Boston and co-author of the recently released
*The Will to Kill: Making Sense of Senseless Murder*.

According to Fox\'s research, 73% of workplace killers are white,
compared with 46% of murderers in general. More than half of workplace
killers are over age 35. In the general population of murderers, only
about a quarter are 35 and older.

\"To the 20-year-old, losing a job isn\'t as critical,\" Fox says. \"The
50-year-old will respond much differently. He\'ll feel life is over.
He\'ll feel there\'s no hope.\"

**Motives for workplace killings**

USA TODAY\'s analysis found that the most common motivator behind a
workplace killing is a firing, which preceded about 60 of the 224 fatal
attacks. The second most likely trigger is an on-the-job argument, a
fight or disagreement.

But those aren\'t the only catalysts. Workplace attackers are likely to
turn violent after, or during, a disciplinary action, such as being
written up for tardiness or poor performance. Others kill when they
return to their workplaces to rob; co-workers are witnesses who then
become victims.

And in some cases, the killer will single out a particular victim: a
female employee, for example, who is stalked and attacked.

A killer will generally react within days or weeks of a triggering event
such as a firing, although som e employees have returned to kill years
after being fired. Others have hunted down colleagues in their homes.

Earlier this month, at a ConAgra Foods meat-processing plant in Kansas
City, Kan., Elijah Brown, 21, opened fire on his co-workers in a locker
room and break area, killing five before shooting himself. Police are
still trying to determine the motive for the 10-minute rampage.
Co-workers have said Brown had a recent dispute with employees. Police
have said the killings did not appear to be random.

In 1995, fired Bank One employee Jerry Hessler targeted co-workers where
they lived. He kicked in the front door of a home in Columbus, Ohio, to
kill employee Brian Stevens and his wife, Tracey, who also worked at the
bank. He killed their 5-month-old daughter, Amanda, whom Tracey held in
her arms. He also killed P. Thane Griffin, the father of a woman who
rejected his advances years ago. Hessler died of a heart attack in 2003
while on death row in Ohio.

Few show mercy, often killing co-workers even as they plead for their
lives. They shoot victims in the back and kill them as they cower under
desks or in bathroom stalls. They tie some up first and make others lie
on the floor before they\'re executed.

\"Please, please, I won\'t tell on you. I promise. I won\'t. I promise.
I promise. I promise. I swear.\" Those were the last words --- captured
on a 911 tape, along with the gunshot that silenced her --- of Stephanie
Guzzardo, 27. The manager at Calendar\'s Restaurant & Bar in Baton Rouge
was shot in the chest after begging for her life, and her final words
were played at trial. She and another employee were killed in 1995 by
Todd Wessinger, a former dishwasher who is now on death row.

**A final act of desperation**

The workplace killer will typically attack with a gun, but other methods
have been used. A maintenance worker used a pitchfork to stab a
co-worker in the face and chest, killing him. A handyman set fire to the
hotel where he worked, killing 15. A manager was convicted of
first-degree murder for spiking a water cooler with cyanide, which
killed a secretary, who collapsed after taking a drink.

More than half of workplace killers are white, according to an analysis
of 1997-to-2001 workplace homicides done by the Department of Labor for
USA TODAY. They are most likely to work in the services industry,
followed by retail trade. In the cases analyzed by USA TODAY, the
youngest killer was 17; the oldest was 73.

Among the killings analyzed by USA TODAY, the most people killed by
gunfire in a single case was 14 in a 1986 post office shooting in
Edmond, Okla.

That\'s unusual, however. The average workplace attacker will kill two
employees. Secretaries, security guards, customers and anyone else who
gets in the way can fall victim, according to the newspaper\'s analysis,
which was based on court records and testimony, lawsuits, transcripts,
published news reports and interviews with survivors, prosecutors,
defense lawyers, convicted killers and family members of victims and
attackers.

Killers will often plan their crimes, sometimes dressing up for the
event. One attacker donned a \$200 black suit, another wore a T-shirt
with \"Psycho\" written on it as he fired at workers, and several
dressed in combat fatigues. They may make hit lists, plan their escape
routes, watch violent movies and, in some cases, leave behind notes or
videotapes to help explain their rationales.

Some have been hospitalized for mental health issues or have been on
psychiatric medications before they killed.

They often have a paranoid personality,\" says Fox of Northeastern
University.

Many say they\'re not monsters and are misunderstood. Others express
scant remorse. A minority say they\'re sorry.

Most employees who kill will never get a chance again. Few are found not
guilty by reason of insanity. Most --- eight out of 10 --- die at the
scene, are sentenced to death or serve life in prison. Otherwise, the
average sentence imposed is nearly 25 years.

**Lives of loss or failure**

Most workplace attackers don\'t kill in a rage. Survivors typically
describe their attackers as dispassionate.

\"I was calm. I was no longer me. Like someone else in my brain took
over,\" James Davis, 56, said in a handwritten letter from death row in
North Carolina.

In 1995, he killed three fellow employees and wounded others in a
shooting spree in Asheville at toolmaker Union Butterfield. \"I went
from tunnel vision to total blackout. When I got my vision and my mind
back, I looked and seen what had happened. I did not know who I was. In
the end, I self-destructed.\"

Auburn Calloway, 52, tried in April 1994 to take over a Federal Express
plane where he was riding in a jump seat. The off-duty flight engineer
attacked the three crewmen. He severely beat at his victims with a claw
hammer, cracking bone. He is serving life in prison.

The attack seemed to come out of nowhere. The pilots were talking about
the scenery below when Calloway struck. The cockpit voice recorder
transcript picked up the sound of a hammer hitting their heads.

\"Ow.\"

\"God.\"

\"God, God almighty! God, God, God. \... He\'s going to kill us.\"

A fight ensued. \"Sit down, sit down, get back in your seat, this is a
real gun, I\'ll kill ya,\" Calloway said.

Later, a pilot asked for help. \"Center, listen to me. Express 705,
I\'ve been wounded, we have an attempted takeover on board the airplane
\... hurry!\" One pilot landed the plane after the others wrestled
Calloway to the floor. All three suffered serious injuries.

Today, in calls and letters to USA TODAY, Calloway says his trial
wasn\'t fair. He blames his attack on a sleep-related malady.

\"None of the mental health \'experts\' at my trial had the requisite
experience in sleep medicine pathology to have discovered the \'mental
disease or defect\' I labored under during my uncharacteristic behavior
on board FedEx Flight 705 in 1994,\" he said.

Like Calloway, many workplace killers hope someday to get out of prison.
In the letters, many say their sentences are unfair and that they are
innocent.

And some, such as Hansel, are still angry. He killed two executives with
a shotgun after setting off bombs, believing he was on a mission that\'s
been misunderstood.

\"I sacrificed myself,\" he wrote, \"to try and change management.\"

Contributing: Tom Ankner

**Find this article at:**\
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