By Eric Robinette, Staff Writer
3:46 AM Sunday, March 13, 2011
MIDDLETOWN — Lt. Rodney Muterspaw said he doesn’t know why a 26-year-old Middletown man shot his estranged wife’s boyfriend to death Saturday in the parking lot of Frisch’s Big Boy on Dixie Highway, then took his own life. But he does know the result of the murder-suicide could have been much worse.
“It was a terrible scene; it was awful,” Muterspaw said of the shootings. “We’re lucky it didn’t go inside the restaurant.”
Firefighters were spraying the blood-stained pavement with water hoses Saturday outside the restaurant where 55-year-old Ernie Sexton was shot while sitting in his blue Ford F-150 pickup truck. James J. Riley, the shooter, turned his 12-gauge shotgun on himself after firing multiple shots through Sexton’s windshield. Police towed Sexton’s bullet-riddled truck from the scene along with Riley’s red 1996 Buick Century.
In addition to the shotgun, Muterspaw said police recovered a sawed-off AK-47 assault rifle and three fully loaded magazines in Riley’s trunk.
“That says to me that he intended to do more than what he had done,” Muterspaw said.
In other words, Muterspaw believed Riley may have also planned to go after his estranged wife, Renae Riley, who was a waitress at Frisch’s and who had been dating and living with Sexton.
“That’s a gun that can do some serious, catastrophic damage to someone,” Muterspaw said of the AK-47, which is illegal for civilians to own. He said Middletown police plan to trace the weapon in hopes of finding out how Riley came to possess it.
A distraught Renae Riley, 27, emerged from the restaurant several hours after the shooting, tears streaming down her face. Muterspaw said the woman told police she had no idea her estranged husband was planning to do anything like this. She told police she had spoken with him a week ago and he showed no signs of anger toward her or Sexton.
“She was stunned and overwhelmed with the news,” Muterspaw said, noting police are still investigating Riley’s motives for the shootings. “It was hard for her to comprehend what happened.”
A waiter at Frisch’s, who asked not to be named, described his co-worker Renae Riley as “reserved” and someone who did not talk about her life outside of work. He said Riley and Sexton had been seeing each other for the past few months and that Sexton had come to the restaurant to eat and see her.
“Everybody was just shocked about what happened,” he said. “It was totally out of the blue.”
Muterspaw said James Riley has a criminal history and had recently been arrested for an incident in town, though he did not elaborate further.
Sexton was an independent contractor and a well-known, local bluegrass musician. His nephew, Tony Hale of Middletown, performed with his uncle in the group, Tony Hale and the Bluegrass Favorites.
“It’s caught us all off guard. It’s a terrible loss,” Hale said, noting he received numerous calls and condolences Saturday.
“I’ll miss him a lot. He was my mom’s brother, and he got me into bluegrass.”
Sexton played lead and rhythm guitar in the Bluegrass Favorites Band and was often a big audience draw.
“Ernie had his own style,” Hale said. “People came to listen to us to hear him play. He had an intuitive style and a lot of people really enjoyed him.”
Hale said he hopes to stage a memorial show within the next couple of weeks to help Sexton’s family.
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