Webster Residents Survey Ruins After Homes Are Burned in Plot to Kill Firefighters

The man shot and killed two firefighters and injured two others before killing himself on Monday, the authorities said.

For those whose homes were destroyed, it was a day to take stock and grieve over what was lost on Lake Road.

John Kohut stared at the spot where his house once stood and saw only embers. “I just wanted to see if there was anything left,” Mr. Kohut, 68, said as he stepped over burned floorboards and charred concrete. “There is nothing.”

“You can’t even tell where the refrigerator or stove or anything was,” he added. “It is hard to make any sense of it.”

As people in town prepared for a winter storm and those left without a home sought shelter elsewhere, the police said they were still searching for clues about what had motivated the gunman, William Spengler Jr., to go on his deadly rampage and deliberately target firefighters.

But Mr. Spengler, 62, seemed to make his intentions clear in a typewritten note recovered by investigators.

“I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I like doing best — killing people,” he wrote in the note.

Human remains found inside the Spengler home were believed to be those of Mr. Spengler’s sister, Cheryl Spengler, 67, the authorities said. The two shared the home, and those who knew them said they did not get along.

Gerald L. Pickering, the chief of police in Webster, said Mr. Spengler set fire to a car early on Monday in a trap for emergency responders. As the firefighters arrived, he said, Mr. Spengler shot at them with a semiautomatic assault rifle; firing from a nearby berm where he was hiding, he killed the firefighters Michael Chiapperini, 43, and Tomasz Kaczowka, 19. They were members of the West Webster Fire Department, a volunteer force.

Outside their fire station, a memorial of candles, cards and flowers continued to grow, and firefighters from across the region arrived to offer their condolences.

“We are all brothers,” Gene Preston, 71, a member of the nearby North Greece Fire Department, said at the crime scene. “When one bleeds, we all bleed.”

“It is unbelievable and unspeakable,” he added. “In all my days of fighting fires, not once did I pull up to the scene and think I would be shot at. You think water supply and human life — in that order. Being shot at is not part of our training.”

Separate funeral services for the two firefighters have been scheduled for Sunday and Monday.

Two other firefighters, Theodore Scardino and Joseph Hofstetter, were seriously wounded in the attack but were recovering, officials said.

In a statement issued through the University of Rochester Medical Center, the two firefighters said they were “humbled and overwhelmed” by the outpouring of support.

As residents surveyed the wreckage of their homes and the town mourned those killed, many offered recollections of their dealings with Mr. Spengler, who moved back to Webster in 1998 after serving a 17-year sentence for killing his grandmother with a hammer.

Despite what he had done, Mr. Spengler did not hide himself away, neighbors and relatives said. He was frequently seen tinkering on one project or another in his yard, quick to chat with neighbors and let them know his mind.

Nick Marino, 25, whose home near the Spengler house was damaged in the fire, said he had spoken to Mr. Spengler several times.

About a month ago, he recalled Mr. Spengler’s complaining to him about his tax bill. But what Mr. Marino remembered most about that conversation was Mr. Spengler’s outfit. Despite it being bitterly cold, he wore only cutoff jean shorts, T-shirt and sandals.

He seemed like “an old hippie,” Mr. Marino said, but not someone dangerous.

Like many others interviewed in Webster this week, Mr. Marino was unaware of Mr. Spengler’s violent history.

Marc Fiore, 45, said he thought of Mr. Spengler as “kind of a busybody.”

“I did not know his past, but I talked to him,” he said. He described him as awkward but not outwardly threatening.

Before his mother, Arline, died in October, Mr. Spengler visited her nearly every day at St. Ann’s Home, in northeast Rochester, according to people who worked there. He was often seen joking with the attendants.

A relative said it was possible that Mr. Spengler and his sister were feuding over who would inherit the family home after her death.

Now that home is part of the ruins on Lake Road.

Michael D. Regan reported from Webster, and Marc Santora from New York.

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