Dec 6, 2007 9:17 am US/Pacific
Omaha Mall Shooter A Dropout With Criminal Past
BELLEVUE, Neb. (CBS) ―
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.
Police
said Hawkins, 19, 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.
"He came to us
like a little lost puppy. He was always very sensitive and caring,
always wanting to know how everybody was doing," Debora Maruca-Kovac, a
surgical nurse whose family took in Hawkins after her 17- and
19-year-old sons befriended him, told CBS' The Early Show. "He just
needed a chance to get on his feet."
"I was fearful that he
was going to try to commit suicide," she told The Early Show. "But I
had no idea that he would involve so many other families."
Maruca-Kovac added, "I feel so sorry for him, that he was so lost and alone that he had to resort to this."
Hawkins
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 SKS semiautomatic
rifle the night before his attack, she thought little of it, the Omaha
World-Herald reported.
"He was a very helpful young man, but he was quiet," she said.
"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 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."
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.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
