NEWINGTON -- Otho Brown turned to see his employee sprinting toward him with a gun in his hand and rage in his eyes.

Brown, the president of the Connecticut Lottery, backpedaled across the gravel parking lot, his palms raised defensively, saying, "No, Matt!"

But Matthew Beck kept coming.

As frightened lottery employees watched in horror from the nearby woods, Brown stumbled and fell. Beck walked up and stood over his boss. From among the trees, Beck's co-workers began yelling.

"I was screaming, 'Matthew, don't! Matthew, don't!' and people in the woods are screaming," said Barbara Doody, an accountant who worked with Beck. "Then Otho put his arm up in the air."

Brown, lying on the ground, pleaded for his life. Beck stood for a moment, breathing hard, one pant leg stained with blood. He leveled his pistol at Brown.

"And then he just shot him, twice," said accountant Marion Tercyak, her voice breaking as she recalled the scene. "People were screaming and crying in the woods. Ott was lying on the ground. Matt walked around him, still pointing the gun at him, and shot him a third time."

"There was no expression on Matthew's face," said Doody. "Nothing."

Then, as a police car screeched to a halt nearby, Beck raised the gun to his own head. Two shots were heard. Beck crumpled to the ground.

This horrific scene, played out in seconds that seemed to take an eternity, transformed the Friday morning routine for dozens of lottery office workers into a nightmare of blood, fear and betrayal.

Betrayal because Beck was one of them, a quiet accountant whose demeanor at work gave no hint that he was capable of a cold-blooded attack that would leave four high-ranking lottery officials dead. Lately, he had been embroiled in a labor dispute with his bosses, and co-workers said they had noticed some subtle changes in Beck's behavior and appearance -- but nothing suggestive of violence.

"A few months ago he began to change," said John Krinjak, a lottery field administrator. "He got into a shell, he was moody. He cut his hair in a military style. He seemed to lose weight."

Doody arrived for work at 7:50 a.m. at the nondescript warren of offices she shared with Beck and the other accountants who keep track of the lottery agency's millions. It is a maze-like collection of cubicles and small offices, connected by narrow hallways to still more offices in the one-story concrete-block building.

Doody found Beck at his desk talking to a former supervisor, Michael Logan, a data processing manager. Beck "had a look on his face like he's real ticked off," she said.

Even though he had been at work for about a half-hour, Beck had not removed his tan leather jacket. When Linda A. Blogoslawski Mlynarczyk, the lottery's chief financial officer, walked by and suggested that Beck take his coat off, he replied, "No."

Logan finished talking to Beck and walked away. Beck "just stayed at his desk, staring out into space," Doody said. After a few minutes, Beck stood and also walked off.

Police say Beck went to Logan's office at the back of the building, pulled a large military-style knife from his jacket and stabbed Logan in the stomach and chest. He then backtracked to the front of the building toward Mlynarczyk's office, where he walked in on a meeting in progress and pointed a semiautomatic handgun at Mlynarczyk.

"He walked in and put his hand up with the gun and said 'bye, bye' to her and shot her three times," said Karen Kalandyk, who was sitting next to Mlynarczyk. As other workers dived under the table, Beck walked out into the hallway.

Back in Beck's office, at the other end of the building, his fellow accountants said they heard the shots but did not immediately know what was going on.

"We heard pop, pop, pop. I just thought something dropped," said Tercyak. "I had never heard a gun before and didn't recognize the sound. Then people started yelling, to get out of the building."

In the hallways, chaos reigned. Frederick Rubelmann, the vice president of operations, was running and yelling for people to get out when Beck suddenly appeared from around a corner and shot him.

Panicked employees spilled from the building, many still unsure of what was happening. Some believed there was a fire and headed for the large parking lot at one end of the building, where they are directed to congregate during fire drills. Many workers in one part of the building jumped through the windows to escape.

"Fred Dupuis, the security guard, is yelling, 'Get in the woods, get in the woods!' But we're all following Otho into the parking lot," Doody said. "I mean, he's our leader.

"Then Otho says to us, 'Don't stop! Get in the woods,' and he continues walking into the middle of the parking lot," she said.

Some witnesses said it appeared Brown realized he was one of Beck's targets and deliberately lingered in the lot to draw Beck away from the others. Tercyak was on the edge of the marshy woods, about 50 feet from Brown, when she saw Beck burst from a doorway and run toward the parking lot.

"Matt came running out, really fast, and just overtook everyone. Matt caught up with Ott. Ott was backpedaling, and he tripped and fell down," Tercyak said.

After Beck shot Brown, a white unmarked Newington police car pulled up. Two detectives got out, one drawing his gun. Tercyak and Doody said Beck put his gun to his head and they heard two shots.

Some witnesses believed one of the officers shot Beck before he shot himself, but police officials said no officer fired a weapon.

As the officers called for medical assistance, shocked lottery workers trickled from of the woods, some of them blood spattered, others crying and shaking. One of them was Shannon O'Neill, a lottery field representative, who later fought to keep her composure as she shared her belief that Brown had steered the gunman away from frightened employees like herself.

"I think Mr. Brown knew what was going on. I think he was a hero," said O'Neill. "I'm sure he saved a lot of people's lives today."

Courant Staff Writer Mark Pazniokas and the Associated Press contributed to this story.