Auburn, NY --In April 2006, Batavia authorities accused David F. McNamara of a felony for firing a semi-automatic rifle, similar to the ones used by the military, in the direction of homes and a church.
McNamara told authorities he was adjusting the sight on the AR-15, the civilian version of M-16 assault rifle used by the military.
Genesee County Assistant District Attorney William Zickl took the shooting very seriously charging McNamara with reckless endangerment in the first degree, a felony.
“It’s a powerful military, law enforcement, long range target shooting or hunting weapon. Not a gun one would be shooting in their city back yard. It was incredibly bad judgment he displayed,” Zickl said.
Auburn Police say McNamara, 34, is a person of interest in the murder of Katie Socci, 29 of Auburn, the mother of his child and his ex-girlfriend.
Socci was discovered missing from her Swift Street home early Wednesday. After a day-long search, police found her body in a shallow grave in a field off Dunning Avenue.
Preliminary autopsy results by the Onondaga Medical Examiner’s Office showed that Socci had been asphyxiated, by either being strangled or suffocated.
Her death has been ruled a homicide. No one has been charged with Socci’s murder.
Police have named McNamara as a person of interest in the case. He is being held in the Cayuga County Jail for violating probation. He pleaded guilty January to forging a prescription for a narcotic, and in February was sentenced to three years of probation.
McNamara and Socci were both nurses.
She graduated from Cayuga Community College’s nursing program in 2003, spent several years as a traveling nurse and most recently worked as a surgical intensive care nurse at Upstate University Hospital.
Friends and family say Socci was a devoted mother to the couple’s 18-month-old daughter Sydney Renee McNamara.
Socci’s neighbor, Linda Diel said the young woman told her she was fearful of McNamara.
Auburn police said they have no records of being called to the Swift Street home for allegations of domestic abuse.
McNamara graduated from Genesee Community College’s nursing program in 1999.
Records at the New York State Office of Professions shows that he was licensed as a registered nurse in New York in September 1999, but did not begin practice here until October 2004.
McNamara lists his profession as contract nurse on his Facebook page.
On February 13, 2007, the state suspended McNamara’s license after he admitted to charges of “withdrawing narcotics for personal use” while in Batavia.
His license was reinstated on June 27, 2007. He paid a $500 fine, completed a two-year probation, and is listed by the state as a registered nurse and is licensed until 2013.
In April 2006, Batavia authorities accused McNamara of felony reckless endangerment for firing the assault rifle in the backyard of a city home.
“The claim was that he was sighting this rifle. There appeared to have been a target that had been set up,” Assistant District Attorney Zickl said.
However, there wasn’t an adequate back stop for the target, a church was in the direct line of his fire, and homes were nearby, he said.
“That’s the reason he was only charged with a reckless act as opposed to an intentional act. There didn’t appear to be a particular human target,” Zickl said.
The risk posed by firing a high-powered rifle in a residential area was huge, he said. “The occasion for a really, really, bad outcome based on his firing that rifle was very close,” Zickl said.
Records show that McNamara pleaded guilty to felony reckless endangerment. He was given a one-year interim supervision. When the year was up McNamara was allowed to withdraw the plea and instead pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor, the assistant district attorney said.
In July 2008, while working at the Batavia Nursing Home, records show McNamara was accused of criminal mischief. He was also accused of pharmacy violations under the state education law.
McNamara was accused of criminal mischief for damaging packages of the narcotic fentanyl, at his work, records show. The violations of the education law stem from the statutes that have to do with someone adulterating or misbranding drugs, the district attorney’s office said.
“He was in one way or another helping himself to medications intended for patients,” Zickl said.
On Sept. 14, McNamara was again in trouble, this time in Cayuga County. He was charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree, second-degree forgery, and seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.
McNamara was accused of forging a prescription to obtain the narcotic hydrocodone from a Rite Aid drug store in Auburn, according to Cayuga County records.
In February, he pleaded guilty to third-degree forgery, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to a three-year probation.
Wednesday, police investigating Socci’s murder took McNamara into custody for violating his probation by going into a bar. He is scheduled to be arraigned on that charge on Monday.
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