By Nick Madigan | nick.madigan@baltsun.com
6:48 PM EDT, October 30, 2009
A man who police said was motivated by a dispute over his estranged wife walked into a mail-order company Friday in eastern Baltimore County and shot the firm's boss, killing him, according to a colleague of the dead man who was a few feet away when the gunman opened fire.
As panicked employees fled through a side door, the 45-year-old gunman, Dennis Leon McLaughlin, then walked out the building's main entrance, put the gun to his temple and fired a fatal shot, another witness said. He was pronounced dead an hour later at Bayview Medical Center.
The first victim was Wayne Lee Keary, 59, the owner of Keary Advertising Co., a direct-mail company on the 7200 block of Rolling Mill Road. Keary died at about 12:30 p.m. in the red-brick building less than a mile from Eastpoint Mall.
Bill Toohey, a police spokesman, said Keary's shooting was the result of "a domestic dispute believed to involve Mr. McLaughlin's wife."
Diane Withrow, a 13-year veteran of the firm, said the gunman was well known to employees at the company because he had turned up on previous occasions over the past couple of years and threatened violence because of his wife Shari's connection with Keary.
"It's been going on a while," Withrow said of the relationship between her boss and Shari McLaughlin, who had previously worked at the company.
"I should come here and shoot everybody," Withrow quoted McLaughlin as saying on one occasion after walking into the firm's offices to confront Keary. After that threat, Keary obtained a restraining order against McLaughlin, she said.
Withrow said she was inside the office a few feet from the shooting when it occurred. She described the "multiple shots" that erupted from the assailant's handgun, and then hearing a single shot beyond the building's main entrance. Keary was lying "on his side by the door, and it was real smoky," she said. "I saw lots of wounds in his upper body. A couple of chairs had been knocked over."
Chris Ashley, 28, who works across the street at McCarthy Tire Service, said he heard gunshots from the Keary building and looked over to see a man emerging "with a wild look on his face" and a gun in his hand as employees streamed from another door, some of them yelling and screaming.
"He kind of pulled the gun to the side of his head and fired," Ashley said. "He fell down like a sack of potatoes."
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun
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