This undated yearbook photo shows Robert A. Hawkins, identified by police as the man who opened fire with a rifle at a busy Omaha, Neb., department store Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007. (AP Photo/Yearbook photo via KETV-TV)

Published: 12/6/07, 7:05 PM EDT
By ERIC OLSON
AP News

BELLEVUE, Neb. (AP) - A high school dropout with a criminal past, Robert A. Hawkins had struggled to overcome depression. But friends thought he was making strides.

Then, about two weeks ago, he lost his girlfriend. A week later, it was his job. His friends worried he would regress.

"He was a very helpful young man, but he was quiet," said Debora Maruca-Kovac, a surgical nurse whose family took in Hawkins after her 17- and 19-year-old sons befriended him.

"He didn't cause a lot of trouble. He tried to help out all the time," Maruca-Kovac said. "He was very thankful for everything. He wasn't a violent person at all."

But police said it was Hawkins who went into an Omaha shopping mall on Wednesday and began a shooting rampage that killed eight people. It ended when he turned his high-powered rifle on himself. The rampage was as troubling as it was puzzling for those who knew him.

Hawkins, 19, had been in trouble before. There was a felony drug conviction in March 2005 and the disorderly conduct charge seven months later. He was due in court later this month on charges he contributed to the delinquency of a minor.

But Maruca-Kovac said she saw nothing foreshadowing the horror Hawkins would inflict during his last moments alive. She remembered a gentle young man who loved animals. She regarded him so benignly that when he showed her an AK-47 semiautomatic rifle the night before his attack, she thought little of it, the Omaha World-Herald reported.

But she had a feeling of despair soon after she learned about Wednesday shootings. By then, she had learned of a suicide note that Hawkins had left behind.

"I had a feeling it could be him," she said.

She said she and her husband let Hawkins stay with them after he left or was kicked out of his family's house. Court records show that at least once he was termed a ward of the state, which legally removed him from his parents' custody.

With Hawkins living in her home, Maruca-Kovac could see he had a drinking problem and was an occasional marijuana smoker. He enjoyed music and video games - "normal teenager stuff," she said.

"He was depressed, and he had always been depressed," Maruca-Kovac said. "But he looked like he was getting better."

The son of a woman who had custody of Hawkins until about a year ago said he was helpful in the yard and around the house.

"As far as foster kids go, he was pretty normal," said Ben Glass, 31, the son of Hawkins' former foster mother Mary Glass. Hawkins lived with the family for about a year. "He was actually one of the easier ones to get along with."

Hawkins had earned a GED after dropping out of Papillion-La Vista High School. He got a driver's license after moving in with the Maruca-Kovacs and five months ago started working at a McDonald's restaurant near their raised ranch-style home in a middle-class neighborhood in Bellevue, Maruca-Kovac said.

He was fired from that job this week, Maruca-Kovac said. Two employees of the McDonald's who were eating there Wednesday said they had been told not to talk to anyone about Hawkins.

Hawkins was not on any medication for mental illness, but he had been treated in the past for depression and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Maruca-Kovac said.

Hawkins lived with several friends for a couple days at a time before landing at Maruca-Kovac's house last year, she said.

"He was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted," she said. "I felt sorry for him. I let him stay, and we tried to get him on his feet."

Maruca-Kovac, who works at Nebraska Medical Center, said she was getting ready for work Wednesday when Hawkins phoned her at about 1 p.m., telling her he had left a note. She tried to get him to explain.

"He said, 'It's too late,'" and hung up, she told CNN. She then called Hawkins' mother.

In the note, which was turned over to authorities, Hawkins wrote that he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore.

"Now I'll be famous," he wrote.

Maruca-Kovac went to the medical center, where victims of the shooting soon began to arrive.

Gunman's suicide note, images released

By SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press Writer
12/07/07

OMAHA, Neb. - Police released the first surveillance images and a three-page, handwritten suicide note on Friday of a teenage gunman who killed eight people in a mall shooting rampage.

The three still images show Robert A. Hawkins, 19, the shaggy-haired assailant, raising an assault rifle to fire in front of a department store mannequin in the Westroads Mall in Omaha.

The images at first show Hawkins walking into the mall unarmed, wearing glasses, a black zippered sweat shirt over a black T-shirt with a white logo. Six minutes later, he returns and strides through an entrance decked with holiday decorations, an apparent bulge under his clothing. In the last image, he is shown with his sleeves rolled up, aiming the AK-47 to fire.

In his three-page, handwritten suicide note, Hawkins wrote that he 'just snapped' in a letter that combines love for his friends and family and hate for his random victims. The gunman left the note Wednesday at the house where he lived.

"I know everyone will remember me as some sort of monster but please understand that I just don't want to be a burden on the ones that I care for my entire life," 19-year-old Robert Hawkins wrote. "I just want to take a few peices (sic) of (expletive) with me."

He apologized to his friends in one page of the note, saying, "I've been a peice (sic) of (expletive) my entire life it seems this is my only option."

He said his friends would be better off without him, and told them to remember the good times they had.

"Just think tho I'm gonna be (expletive) famous," he wrote.

He was more apologetic in another page addressed to his family.

"I'm so sorry for what I've put you through I never meant to hurt all of you so much and I don't blame any one of you for disowning me," he wrote.

"I've just snapped I can't take this meaningless existence anymore I've been a constant disappointment and that trend would have only continued."

He added, "I love you mommy. I love you dad," and expressed love for several other people.

The third page was his will: "I'm giving my car back to my mom and my friends can have whatever else I leave behind."

The images appear to contradict earlier reports that the gunman had a military-style haircut and entered the mall wearing a camouflage vest.

Moments after Hawkins entered the mall, authorities would be flooded with 911 calls about the gunfire. One was from Jodi Longmeyer, a human resources manager at the Von Maur store, agonized with the operator while barricaded in an employee locker room at the store.

She saw Hawkins step off the mall elevator on the third floor. He was dressed in dark clothes. She saw his gun, watched him open fire. Minutes later, shaking and scared, Longmeyer was able to get into a security room, where she described what she could see on live surveillance of the department store.

"Oh my gosh," she told the dispatcher. "It looks like the gun is lying over by customer service. It looks like he might have killed himself," Longmeyer said, her voice rising as she started to sob.

The shoppers killed were identified as Gary Scharf, 48, of Lincoln, and John McDonald, 65, of Council Bluffs, Iowa. The six employees killed were Angie Schuster, 36; Maggie Webb, 24; Janet Jorgensen, 67; Dianne Trent, 53; Gary Joy, 56; and Beverly Flynn, 47, all of Omaha.

Jorgensen's family said Friday they gathered soon after the tragedy at the police command center to pray for the victims and their families, including Hawkins. But they still haven't come to grips with what happened, family members said.

"We're waiting for her to walk in the door, late from work," son-in-law Randy Shaefer said.

State officials, aquaintances and police have described Hawkins as having a troubled past. He had broken up with a girlfriend recently and lost his job. Acquaintances said he was a drug user and that he had a history of depression.

Hawkins spent four years in a series of treatment centers, group homes and foster care after threatening to kill his stepmother in 2002, state officials said.

In August 2006, social workers, the courts and his father all agreed: It was time for Hawkins to be released — nine months before he turned 19 and would have been required to leave anyway.

After reviewing surveillance tape, the suicide note and Hawkins' last conversations with those close to him, police said they don't know — and may never know — exactly why Hawkins went to the mall and opened fire.

About an hour before the shootings, Hawkins called Debora Maruca-Kovac, a woman who with her husband took Hawkins into their home because he had no other place to live. He told her he had written a suicide note, Maruca-Kovac said. In the note, Hawkins wrote that he was "sorry for everything" and would not be a burden on his family anymore.

___

Associated Press writers Nate Jenkins in Lincoln, Neb., and Oskar Garcia, Anna Jo Bratton and Henry C. Jackson in Omaha contributed to this report.

Here is the transcription of Hawkin's note:
family:
I'm so sorry for what I've put you through I never meant to hurt all of you so much and I don't blame any one of you for disowning me I just can't be a burden to you and my friends any longer You are all better off without me. I'm so sorry for this.

I've just snapped I can't take this meaningless existence anymore I've been a constant disappointment and that trend would have only continued. just remember the good times we had together

I love you mommy

I love you dad

I love you Kira

I love you Valancia

I love you Cynthia

I love you Zach

I love you Cayla

I love you Mark (P.S. I'm really sorry)

___

friends

To all of my friends I'm so sorry for what I've done to you and put you through. I've been a peice of (expletive) my entire life it seems this is my only option. I know everyone will remember me as some sort of monster but please understand that I just don't want to be a burden on the ones that I care for my entire life. I just want to take a few peices of (expletive) with me. I love all of you so much and I don't want anyone to miss me just think about how much better you are off without me to support. I want my friends to remember all the good times we had together. Just think tho I'm gonna be (expletive) famous. You guys have always been there for me I'm just sad that I'm gonna have to go this alone. You guys are the best friends anyone could ever ask for. That's all I have to say is that I (expletive) you guys.

P.S. I didn't eat that (expletive) sandwich or the toielet thing either!

___

my will

I'm giving my car back to my mom and my friends can have whatever else I leave behind

Signed (Hawkins' signature)

Social (his Social Security number)
end of note

this shows his handwriting





Robert Hawkins, the 19-year-old gunman who on December 5, 2007, killed eight people and took his own life at the Von Maur Department Store at Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska, is captured in this surveillance footage released to Reuters December 7, 2007

This is so sad ... such a senseless thing to have happened.