New York Woman Charged in Connection With Ambush of Firefighters

William Spengler had picked out the semiautomatic rifle and shotgun used in the ambush and went to the sporting goods store with the neighbor when she bought them for him, U.S. Attorney William Hochul said.

The neighbor, Dawn Nguyen of Rochester, was arrested Friday. She faces a federal charge of knowingly making a false statement for signing a form indicating she would be the legal owner of the guns, Hochul said. She also was charged with a state count of filing a falsified business record, State Police Senior Investigator James Newell said.

Shortly before her arrest, Nguyen told The Associated Press that she didn't want to talk about Spengler. A number listed in the name of her lawyer, David Palmiere, was disconnected.

The charges stem from the purchase of an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun that Spengler had with him Monday when firefighters Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka were gunned down. Three other people were wounded before the 62-year-old Spengler killed himself. He also had a .38-caliber revolver, but Nguyen is not connected to that gun, Newell said.

Police used the serial numbers on the rifle and shotgun, which were purchased on June 6, 2010, to trace them to Nguyen, Hochul said.

"She told the seller of these guns, Gander Mountain in Henrietta, N.Y., that she was to be the true owner and buyer of the guns instead of William Spengler," he said. "It is absolutely against federal law to provide any materially false information related to the acquisition of firearms."

"It is sometimes referred to acting as a straw purchaser and that is exactly what today's complaint alleges," he said.

The federal charges carry a maximum penalty of ten years imprisonment, a fine of $250,000 or both.

During an interview late on Christmas Eve, Nguyen told police she had bought the guns for personal protection and that they were stolen from her vehicle, though she never reported the guns stolen.

The day after the shootings, Nguyen texted an off-duty Monroe County Sheriff's deputy with references to the killings. She later called the deputy and admitted she bought the guns for Spengler, police said.

That information was consistent with a suicide note found near Spengler's body after he killed himself.

Nguyen and her mother, Dawn Welsher, lived next door to Spengler in 2008. On Wednesday and again on Friday, she answered her cellphone and said she didn't want to discuss Spengler. Her brother, Steven Nguyen, told the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper of Rochester that Spengler stole the guns from Dawn Nguyen.

Spengler set a car on fire and touched off an inferno in his Webster home on a strip of land along the Lake Ontario shore, took up a sniper's position and opened fire on the first firefighters to arrive at about 5:30 a.m. on Christmas Eve, authorities said. He wounded two other firefighters and an off-duty police officer who was on his way to work.

A Webster police officer who had accompanied the firefighters shot back at Spengler with a rifle in a brief exchange of gunfire before the gunman killed himself.

Spengler spent 17 years in prison for killing his grandmother in 1980. He had been released from parole in 2006 on the manslaughter conviction, and authorities said they had had no encounters with him since.

Investigators still haven't released the identity of remains found in Spengler's burned house. They have said they believe the remains are those of his 67-year-old sister, Cheryl Spengler, who also lived in the house near Rochester and has been unaccounted for since the killings. The Spengler siblings had lived in the home with their mother, Arline Spengler, who died in October. In all, seven houses were destroyed by the flames.

Investigators found a rambling, typed letter laying out Spengler's intention to destroy his neighborhood and "do what I like doing best, killing people."

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2 Firefighters Are Killed in Shooting Rampage Near Rochester

“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,” Mr. Spengler, 62, wrote, in a note the police recovered.

It had been 32 years since he beat his grandmother to death with a hammer in the Lake Road house next to his.

As Christmas Eve dawned in this suburb of Rochester, local authorities say, Mr. Spengler set fire to a car, as a trap. When an engine company came roaring down the street, he started shooting at the first responders, most likely from his Bushmaster .223-caliber rifle. It was the same type of semiautomatic weapon used in the school shooting 10 days earlier in Newtown, Conn.

“He was equipped to go to war to kill innocent people,” the Webster police chief, Gerald L. Pickering, said of Mr. Spengler.

The authorities say Mr. Spengler fired shots that killed two volunteer firefighters from long range and seriously wounded two others, and set a “raging inferno.” The police found him dead on a berm about five hours after the siege started, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

On Tuesday, the authorities added another likely victim: Cheryl Spengler, 67, the gunman’s sister. Chief Pickering said “human remains” were found at the shooter’s house, 191 Lake Road, that they believed were of Ms. Spengler. The Monroe County medical examiner’s office did not return requests for comment on the identification of the remains or the cause of death.

Mr. Spengler’s note, Chief Pickering said, contained no motive, just ramblings, and spoke only to a murderous intent. He said he was not at liberty to disclose it in full because of the investigation.

As investigators tried on Tuesday to determine reasons for the brutal acts that shattered the holiday peace of a close-knit town, details emerged about Mr. Spengler and his bitter relationship with his sister. A relative said it was possible the two were in a dispute over who would inherit the family home after their mother’s death in October.

The siblings had such antipathy for each other that they lived on separate sides of the house, a former neighbor, Roger D. Vercruysse, said Monday.

“He hated his sister, but he loved his mama,” Mr. Vercruysse said.

Mr. Spengler was 30 in the summer of 1980 when he killed his 92-year-old grandmother, Rose. According to newspaper accounts from the time, he lied to his mother, saying he had found her at the bottom of the stairs. He accepted a plea bargain for manslaughter and went to state prison for 17 years.

A 1997 transcript said Mr. Spengler abruptly cut a parole hearing short when he discovered that he did not need to be there, displaying an irascible, unrepentant attitude. He was released in 1998 and moved back home.

“If you kill a family member, I don’t know why you would ever be out of jail,” Shirley Ashwood, 63, a first cousin of Mr. Spengler, said in a telephone interview from Rochester. “It frightened me, and that’s why I and my family stayed away from him.”

She added: “If you’re going to kill your grandmother, you’re going to kill anybody.”

Mr. Spengler adored his mother, however. When Arline Spengler was in a nearby nursing home, Mr. Spengler would visit her each day, Mr. Vercruysse said.

Arline Spengler died on Oct. 7, at age 91. In the weeks to follow, Cheryl Spengler apparently told a relative that she had hired a lawyer because there could be issues about inheriting the house. “I could see a fight brewing, right after her mom passed,” the relative said.

An account from an unintentional first responder bolstered officials’ descriptions of the harrowing siege. John Ritter, a police officer from the nearby town of Greece, said in an interview in his home on Tuesday that he was driving to work around 5:35 a.m. on Monday when he suddenly came upon the scene. He had no scanner in his car, nor did he have a weapon.

“I came around the corner, and the fire truck is in the road backing up on the left,” said Officer Ritter, showing a deep bruise on his left breast area and cuts on his left arm. “I hear popping. Several pops. Suddenly my windshield explodes and there’s a hole right in front of my head. I was in shock. I leaned over into the passenger seat and slammed it in reverse around the corner, out of the line of sight.”

Chief Pickering said another officer from his department had returned fire from his own rifle. The chief did not reveal that officer’s name.

Funeral arrangements were being made for the volunteer firefighters who were killed: Michael Chiapperini, 43, and Tomasz Kaczowka, 19. The two firefighters who were severely wounded, Theodore Scardino and Joseph Hofstetter, remained in stable condition, in the intensive care unit at Strong Memorial Hospital.

In the chaos, seven houses burned and 33 residents were displaced.

Chief Pickering said all people were accounted for. Displaced residents were waiting Tuesday night to return to their homes along Lake Road.

John Kohut, 68, whose house burned down in Mr. Spengler’s attack, described him as quiet, socially awkward and “kind of rough” from his years spent in prison.

Last summer, Mr. Kohut had asked him if he wanted a beer because it was a hot day. “He said, ‘No, because I’m on meds,’ ” Mr. Kohut recalled Tuesday, while waiting to be let back onto Lake Road.

Liz Robbins reported from Webster, and Joseph Goldstein from New York. Reporting was contributed by Alain Delaquérière, Patrick McGeehan and Michael D. Regan.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 25, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the given name of Mr. Spengler’s sister. She is Cheryl Spengler, not Cherly.

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2 Firefighters Killed in Western New York

Authorities used an armored vehicle to help residents flee dozens of homes on the shore of Lake Ontario a day before Christmas. Police restricted access to the neighborhood, and officials said it was unclear whether there were other bodies in the seven houses left to burn.

The gunman's sister, who lived with him, was unaccounted for. The gunman's motive was unknown.

William Spengler fired at the four firefighters when they arrived shortly after 5:30 a.m. at the blaze in Webster, a suburb of Rochester, town police Chief Gerald Pickering said. The first police officer who arrived chased the gunman and exchanged shots.

Spengler lay in wait outdoors for the firefighters' arrival, then opened fire probably with a rifle and from atop an earthen berm, Pickering said.

"It does appear it was a trap," he said.

Spengler had served more than 17 years in prison for beating his 92-year-old paternal grandmother to death with a hammer in 1980 at the house next to where Monday's attack happened, Pickering said. Spengler, 62, was paroled in 1998 and had led a quiet life since, authorities said. Convicted felons are not allowed to possess weapons.

Two firefighters, one of whom also was a town police lieutenant, died at the scene, and two others were hospitalized. An off-duty officer who was passing by also was injured.

Another police officer, the one who exchanged gunfire with Spengler, "in all likelihood saved many lives," Pickering said.

Emergency radio communications capture someone saying he "could see the muzzle flash coming at me" as Spengler carried out his ambush. The audio posted on the website RadioReference.com has someone reporting "firefighters are down" and saying "got to be rifle or shotgun — high powered ... semi or fully auto."

Spengler lived in the house with his sister, Cheryl Spengler, and his mother, Arline Spengler, who died in October. He had originally been charged with murder in connection with grandmother Rose Spengler's death but pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter.

A friend said William Spengler didn't seem violent but hated his sister. Roger Vercruysse lived next door to Spengler and recalled a man who doted on his mother, whose obituary suggested contributions to the West Webster Fire Department.

"He loved his mama to death," said Vercruysse, who last saw his friend about six months ago. "I think after his mama passed, he went crazy."

Vercruysse also said Spengler "couldn't stand his sister" and "stayed on one side of the house and she stayed on the other."

The West Webster Fire District learned of the fire early Monday after a report of a car and house on fire on Lake Road, on a narrow peninsula where Irondequoit Bay meets Lake Ontario, Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn said.

The fire appeared from a distance as a pulsating ball of flame glowing against the early morning sky, flames licking into treetops and reflecting on the water, with huge bursts of smoke billowing away in a brisk wind.

Two of the firefighters arrived on a fire engine and two in their own vehicles, Pickering said. After Spengler fired, one of the wounded men fled, but the other three couldn't because of flying gunfire.

A police armored vehicle was used to recover two men, and eventually it removed 33 people from nearby homes, the police chief said. The gunfire initially kept firefighters from battling the blazes.

The dead men were identified as police Lt. Michael Chiapperini, 43, the Webster Police Department's public information officer; and 19-year-old Tomasz Kaczowka, also a 911 dispatcher.

Pickering described Chiapperini as a "lifetime firefighter" with nearly 20 years in the department, and he called Kaczowka a "tremendous young man."

Kaczowka's brother, reached at the family home Monday night, said he didn't want to talk.

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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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Woman Helped Firefighters’ Killer Get Ambush Gun, Police Say

According to the police, the woman, Dawn Nguyen, 24, bought a Bushmaster semiautomatic rifle and a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun from a gun shop more than two years ago on behalf of William Spengler Jr., who as a felon was not permitted to buy or own a gun.

Mr. Spengler apparently used the rifle on Monday to kill the firefighters, whom he lured to his home in Webster, N.Y., near Lake Ontario, by starting a fire, the authorities said. After shooting at other emergency responders, Mr. Spengler shot himself in the head with another weapon, a handgun, an autopsy revealed. The fire destroyed seven homes.

Ms. Nguyen went with Mr. Spengler to buy the weapons at a shop in June 2010, according to a criminal complaint filed by the United States attorney in the Western District of New York.

When the police asked her about the purchase after the shooting, she claimed the guns were for her own protection. She also said they had been stolen from her car, although the police said no report had been filed to support that claim.

The complaint said Ms. Nguyen had told a friend that she bought the weapons for Mr. Spengler. The police said that assertion was corroborated by what Mr. Spengler wrote in a suicide note, in which he said a neighbor’s daughter helped him acquire the guns.

Since the guns were not intended for her, the complaint said, she made a false statement when she bought them, a felony that is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Ms. Nguyen is “the person who purchased that rifle and that shotgun found next to William Spengler,” William J. Hochul Jr., the United States attorney for the Western District of New York, said at a news conference in Rochester on Friday.

Ms. Nguyen’s lawyer could not be immediately reached for comment.

The Webster police chief, Gerald L. Pickering, said that based on the distance between Mr. Spengler’s hiding place and where his victims were found, he most likely used the Bushmaster.

A similar gun was used in the Newtown, Conn., school shootings, which prompted a renewed debate about the nation’s gun laws. Much of the discussion has been focused on whether military-style assault weapons like the Bushmaster should be banned.

On Thursday, the State Police released the autopsy results of the two firefighters who were killed and their attacker.

Michael Chiapperini, 43, died as a result of a gunshot wound and Tomasz Kaczowka, 19, died as a result of two gunshot wounds, the police said. Mr. Spengler, 62, was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot to his head.

Funeral and memorial services are planned for Mr. Chiapperini and Mr. Kaczowka during the weekend. Hundreds of firefighters and police officers from around the region were pouring into Webster on Friday.

The police have also recovered human remains in Mr. Spengler’s home, which was among the buildings that burned, but the remains have yet to be positively identified. Earlier this week, Chief Pickering said the police believed that the remains belong to Cheryl Spengler, 67, Mr. Spengler’s sister.

The two had fought bitterly in the past, friends and neighbors said, and they may have been involved in a dispute over who would take ownership of the family home following the death of their mother, Arline, in October. Mr. Spengler served 17 years in prison for the 1980 murder of his grandmother, whom he killed with a hammer.

It remained unclear what motivated him to target emergency responders, but he made his intentions clear in the note he left behind: he wanted to kill as many people as he could.

When the police arrived at the scene of the fire just before dawn on Monday, they were met by a fusillade of bullets. A SWAT team was called in to help thwart the gunman. As the gun battle raged, the fire spread.

The autopsy report showed that Mr. Spengler was not struck by any bullets fired by law enforcement officers.

Michael D. Regan contributed reporting.

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At Least 2 Firefighters Near Rochester Shot Dead at Fire Scene

William Spengler, 62, shot and killed himself after a gunfight with a police officer in Webster, a Rochester suburb, Webster Police Chief Gerald Pickering said.

"It was a trap set by Mr. Spengler, who laid in wait and shot first responders," Pickering told a news conference.

Separately, a police officer in Wisconsin and another in Texas were shot and killed on Monday, according to police and media reports.

The attacks on first responders came 10 days after one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history that left 20 students and six adults dead at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, and intensified the debate about gun control in the United States.

Spengler was convicted of manslaughter in 1981 for beating his 92-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer, according to New York State Department of Corrections records. After prison he spent eight years on parole.

"We don't have an easy reason" for the attack on the firefighters, Pickering said, "but just looking at the history ... obviously this was an individual with a lot of problems."

Spengler opened fire around 5:45 a.m. after two of the firefighters arrived at the house in a fire truck and two others responded in their own cars, Pickering said.

Pickering appeared to wipe tears from his eyes at an earlier news conference when he identified the dead firefighters as Lieutenant Michael Chiapperini and Tomasz Kaczowka. Chiapperini was also a police lieutenant.

The injured firefighters, one of whom was in critical condition, were identified as Joseph Hofsetter and Theodore Scardino. Off-duty Police Officer John Ritter was hit by gunfire as he drove past the scene.

Pickering said police had found several types of weapons, including a rifle used to shoot the firefighters. As a convicted felon it was illegal for Spengler to own guns.

Police had not had any contact with Spengler in the "recent past," Pickering said.

Four houses were destroyed by the fire and four were damaged, Pickering said.

COPS TARGETED

Police Officer Jennifer Sebena, 30, was found dead on Monday in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, suburb of Wauwatosa, police said.

Sebena was on patrol between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. and wearing body armor when she was shot several times, police said. She was found by another officer after she did not respond to calls from the police dispatcher.

In Houston, Texas, an officer with the Bellaire Police Department died after a shootout at around 9 a.m. and a bystander was also killed, according to local media reports.

A spokesperson for the Houston Police Department was not immediately available for comment. A police officer answering the telephone confirmed media reports but declined further comment. A suspect was in the hospital, according to reports.

Before Monday's killings, the Washington-based National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund reported that 125 federal, state and local officers had died in the line of duty this year.

Forty-seven deaths were firearms-related, 50 were from traffic-related incidents, and 28 were from other causes, it said.

(This story is corrected with spelling of gunman's name throughout, Spengler not Spangler)

(Reporting by Chris Francescani; Editing by David Brunnstrom and M.D. Golan)

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