Sheriff: Investigators piece together Ky. rampage; relative says cold breakfast started it

Sheriff: Investigators piece together Ky. rampage

JACKSON, Ky. — A sheriff says investigators are still piecing together exactly what happened before a man killed his wife and four other people before committing suicide in an eastern Kentucky trailer park.

Breathitt County Sheriff Ray Clemons said Sunday morning that investigators were still trying to figure out what led 47-year-old Stanley Neace to go on the shooting rampage Saturday.

A relative and Neace’s landlord said the man had been facing eviction and was enraged when his wife served him a cold breakfast.

A neighbor says he has heard Neace firing a gun in the past. 50-year-old Robert Collins says Neace often walked down to a nearby river to take practice shots.

The bodies of Neace and the five victims have been taken to the state medical examiner’s office in Frankfort for autopsies.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

JACKSON, Ky. (AP) — For months, Stanley Neace had shown increasing hostility to his neighbors in rural eastern Kentucky, to the point his landlord started eviction proceedings. On Saturday, Neace snapped over how his wife cooked his eggs, and killed her and four others with a shotgun before shooting himself.

Neighbors in the roadside mobile home park said Neace stormed across several lawns in his pajamas and fired dozens of shots from a 12-gauge pump shotgun. When the rampage ended, Neace and his wife lay dead, along with the gunman’s stepdaughter and three neighbors.

Trooper Jody Sims of the Kentucky State Police said Neace, 47, killed the five people in two mobile homes around 11:30 a.m., then went to his home and turned the gun on himself.

Neighbor Steve Smith saw the rampage from the window of his mobile home. When he walked outside, Smith said Neace took a shot at him but missed.

“He chased his wife around that Jeep shooting at her,” Smith said, pointing to a SUV parked outside his mobile home. “I heard her screaming and running.”

Sims said that when state police arrived about an hour after the gunfire began, they heard a single gunshot and found Neace’s body on the porch in the unincorporated community of Mount Carmel in Breathitt County, which is home to about 16,000 people.

Sherri Anne Robinson, a relative of two of the victims, said witnesses to the shootings told her that Neace became enraged when his wife did not cook his breakfast to his liking.

“She tried to run to tell my family and he shot them too because they found out about it,” she said.

The victims were identified as the gunman’s wife, Sandra Neace, 54; her daughter Sandra R. Strong, 28; and neighbors Dennis Turner, 31; Teresa Fugate, 30; and Tammy Kilborn, 40.

The names of the victims were provided by Kentucky State Police, while Robinson described their relationships. Fugate is Robinson’s sister, Turner is her cousin and Kilborn was a witness who happened to step onto the porch of another mobile home when she heard the commotion.

Robinson said Fugate was shot in front of her 7-year-old daughter.

“Her daughter said, ‘Please, please don’t shoot me,’ and he said, ‘All right, you can leave,’ and she ran out,” said Robinson, who spoke to her niece after the shootings. “She went and told her neighbors, and the neighbors called the law.”

Robinson said Neace had never appeared threatening to her, but that he was known to have a violent history. Sims could not confirm that Neace had a criminal record.

County prosecutor Brendon Miller said his dealings with Neace came on nonviolent issues involving child support and he was in Miller’s office a month ago regarding a traffic ticket.

Sims said when police arrived at the mobile home park about 90 miles southeast of Lexington, they heard a single gunshot, then found Neace’s body on his porch.

They found victims in two other mobile homes. Other neighbors fled the trailer park in fear for their lives during the shootings.

“Over eggs?” Robinson said. “I thought that was crazy. Really. I mean just because his eggs weren’t hot?”

Landlord Ray Rastegar said Neace received monthly disability checks from the Social Security Administration, though he didn’t know what his disability was. Rastegar said he had begun the process of evicting Neace, who had lived in the trailer park for about seven years, because he had become more hostile toward neighbors in recent months.

“He was unpredictable,” Rastegar said. “Little things would set him off.”

Smith said Neace ended up mumbling to himself on the porch of his trailer, pointed the shotgun at his head and pulled the trigger.

“He’s been trouble ever since he’s been here,” Smith said. “He’s always been trouble.”

Talbott reported from Nashville, Tenn. AP writer Janet Blake in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report.