by Richard Lezin Jones, The New York Times
DOVER TOWNSHIP, N.J. - This blue-collar Jersey Shore town was reeling today from the second rampage in two months in which a police officer is said to have stormed into his neighbors’ homes and shot several people to death.
This morning, an officer was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, 12 hours after the authorities say he fatally shot five neighbors here then drove 20 miles to Barnegat Township, where he shot and wounded his police chief.
The shootings came just weeks after a retired Newark police sergeant on Feb. 21 walked from house to house in his neighborhood only a mile from the site of Tuesday’s killings and fatally shot four people, including his granddaughter, the police say. The retired sergeant then put down his gun and surrendered to the police. He is now charged with murder.
After the killings on Tuesday, more than 100 police officers searched through the night for a single suspect, Officer Edward L. Lutes Jr. of the Seaside Heights Police Department. He was found dead in his car in the driveway of a stranger’s home in Barnegat Township about 10 this morning.
Although the authorities would not discuss a motive for the shooting rampage, court records show that a year ago, one victim, a next-door neighbor, was acquitted of charges that he had sexually molested the officer’s 11-year-old daughter.
The authorities would not say whether they thought the shootings were linked to that case, noting only that Officer Lutes, 42, was involved in unspecified disputes with his neighbors.
“There were several matters that were the subject of the ill feelings,” said Gregory J. Sakowicz, the executive assistant prosecutor of Ocean County, who refused to elaborate. “There was a great deal of acrimony between Mr. Lutes and his neighbors. Certainly, it wasn’t a random shooting.”
Family members and neighbors said the rampage was the culmination of a tumultuous five years during which Officer Lutes was divorced, lost his fiancée in a fatal car crash, initiated a bitter lawsuit against the fiancée’s insurance company and watched as a man who he firmly believed had molested his daughter was acquitted in January 2001 after 50 minutes of jury deliberations.
His sister Karen Lutes said the events had weighed heavily on her brother, who she said had been briefly prescribed antidepressant medication last year.
“He was depressed off and on,” Ms. Lutes said. " `I have no luck’ was his standard saying lately.”
Neighbors recalled that unhappiness as they discussed Officer Lutes today, remembering him as a tightly wound man who was mostly indifferent to his neighbors, meticulous about maintaining his lawn and sometimes given to dramatic mood swings.
“He was a nasty guy and then he could be a nice guy,” said Christine Woldanski, 16, an acquaintance of his daughter who lives around the corner from his home on Second Avenue. “The guy made no sense to me.”
Another neighbor, Cara Reilly, said she had been uneasy around Officer Lutes since an incident a decade ago when a child on a bicycle had accidentally shattered the taillight of Officer Lutes’s pickup truck.
“He was just screaming, I mean, he blew it all up out of proportion,” said Ms. Reilly, 20. “The kid was crying, saying, `I’ll pay for it.’ All he could say was, `Look what you did to my car.’ After that, my mom said, `Don’t go near him.’ We were all afraid that he was going to snap or something.”
Besides seeking a motive, investigators said today that they were still trying to piece together the precise sequence of events in the shootings. Family members said that Officer Lutes, a 17-year police veteran and a highly skilled marksman who was a member of the county’s elite tactical response unit, ended his 7 a.m.-to-3 p.m. shift a bit early on Tuesday, went home and began barbecuing with his girlfriend, her daughter and his 11-year-old.
After the meal, another of his sisters, Lisa Smith, said, Officer Lutes washed the dishes and lay down briefly. “He got up and got dressed and said he had something to take care of,” she said.
The police said that just before 9:30 p.m., Officer Lutes went to the home of Dominick J. Galliano Jr., 51, who lived just down Second Avenue.
Mr. Galliano was arrested in March 2000 and charged with sexual assault in the second degree, endangering the welfare of a child in the third degree and lewdness in the fourth degree.
Court records show that Officer Lutes’s daughter had accused Mr. Galliano of exposing himself and asking her to touch his genitals. He was acquitted after a two-day trial.
What happened when Officer Lutes appeared at the door remains unclear, the police said. Investigators said that they did not know whether words were exchanged, a struggled ensued or Officer Lutes simply began firing. When it was over, however, Mr. Galliano was dead - officers found him in a bathroom - as were his 25-year-old son, Christopher, who was discovered lying by the front door, and his wife, Gail, 49, who was found in a bedroom.
Officer Lutes then crossed the street to the George Street home of Gary Williams, behind his own home. Again, exactly what happened then is unclear, the police said. But when Officer Lutes left, both Mr. Williams, 48, and his wife, Tina, 46, were dead. A son of the couple escaped out a window, suffering a sprained ankle.
The authorities believe that Officer Lutes then climbed behind the wheel of his late model blue Buick Regal and headed south.
At about the same time, officials said, the police began responding to calls of gunshots near George Road and Second Avenue. Police quickly identified Officer Lutes as a suspect and the authorities called James Costello, chief of the Seaside Heights Police Department and Officer Lutes’s boss, at his home in Barnegat.
Chief Costello prepared to drive to Dover Township to assist the authorities. As he walked out of his garage, he recognized Officer Lutes’s car and approached.
“The chief thought he came to turn himself in,” said Guy P. Ryan, a spokesman for Chief Costello’s family. “The chief talked to him.”
At some point, the police said, Officer Lutes opened fire, striking the chief once in the right wrist and twice in his left leg. As the chief fell, Officer Lutes climbed back into his vehicle and fled.
Chief Costello was taken to Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune, where he was in stable condition today.
After the shooting of Chief Costello, the police began a huge manhunt for Officer Luets that included helicopters and experienced search teams on the ground.
Just before 10 a.m. today, 83-year-old Josephine L. Torrone walked out of her home on Dogwood Drive in Barnegat to fetch her morning newspaper when she noticed an unfamiliar blue car sitting in her driveway with its engine running.
“I looked in and I saw a man laying there,” Mrs. Torrone said. “I couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or what. I didn’t really look that much, to be honest with you, but I saw what looked to me like gun shells and bullets all around him.”
She summoned the police, who said Officer Lutes had suffered what was apparently a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was found with an undetermined amount of ammunition and weapons in the trunk. An MP-5 semiautomatic weapon issued by the Seaside Police Department, the weapon the authorities believe was used in all of the shootings, was in the front seat.
And back on Second Avenue and George Road in Dover Township residents of the low-slung houses and modest ranches in the neighborhood where the shootings occurred clustered around Officer Lutes’s home, where a light was still on downstairs and a plaster cast of child’s handprint sat in the front window.
And not too far away, Cara Reilly stood reflecting on a second instance in two months where carnage has visited her community.
“That was so close to home,” she said of the earlier shooting. “And this, I know this guy. It’s insane.”