Hartford (CT) Courant, by Staff

SPECIAL REPORT: The Lottery Shootings

By John Springer

"We heard, 'pop, pop, pop.' I just thought something dropped..."

NEWINGTON -- A silent and seething employee went on a bloody rampage at Connecticut Lottery Corp. headquarters Friday, killing four senior lottery officials before committing suicide as police closed in.

Lottery President Otho Brown, 54, and former New Britain Mayor Linda A. Blogoslawski Mlynarczyk, 38, were among the victims of what is believed to be the state's deadliest workplace slaughter.

Also killed were Frederick Rubelmann III of Southington, 40, vice president of lottery operations and administration; and Michael Logan, 33, of Colchester, the agency's information systems director.

The killer used a handgun and a knife. Police identified him as Matthew E. Beck, 35, a state lottery accountant involved in a seven-month dispute with the agency over job duties and pay.

Co-workers said Beck, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, appeared tormented by something when he showed up for work Friday morning at Connecticut Lottery headquarters at 85 Alumni Road. He sat at his desk refusing to speak to co-workers or to remove his tan leather jacket.

Finally, he stood up from his chair and walked past at least a dozen offices toward the administration suite. It was there, police and eyewitnesses said, that Beck began his killing spree.

"It all happened in only a matter of minutes," said state Public Safety Commissioner John Connelly.

Amid the hysterical screams of co-workers who ran in blind terror at the sound of gunfire, witnesses said, Beck showed no emotion as he systematically sought out and killed superiors who had been involved in a union grievance he filed last year.

Police said Logan was the first to die, stabbed in the chest and stomach with a military-style knife. Officials were uncertain Friday whether he was also shot.

Beck then shot and killed Mlynarczyk, the lottery's chief financial officer, with a semiautomatic handgun for which he had a permit.

"We heard, 'pop, pop, pop.' I just thought something dropped. People started yelling to get out of the building," said Marion Tercyak, a state lottery accountant who worked in the same suite of offices with Beck. "Security and Ott [Brown] were yelling for people to keep running, to run into the woods."

After Logan and Mlynarczyk were killed, chaos broke out among some of the more than 100 state workers assigned to lottery headquarters. Unsure of what was happening, employees flooded out of the building and tried to find cover behind cars, trees and bushes. Beck shot Rubelmann inside the building as he tried to direct workers to safety, police and witnesses said.

Outside in the parking lot, Brown was screaming for workers to run into the woods behind the building. From about 50 yards away, workers watched helplessly as Beck chased Brown into an overflow parking lot that was empty of cars.

Barbara Doody, who is also an accountant, said she thought Brown was trying to lead Beck away from the frightened employees.

Brown stumbled and fell to the gravel lot, enabling Beck to catch up to him. Witnesses said Brown pleaded for his life as Beck stared down at him dispassionately.

"I was screaming, 'Matthew don't, Matthew don't!" Doody said. "Then Otho puts his arm up in the air. That's when Beck walks right up to him and pulls the trigger. There was no expression on Matthew's face. Nothing."

As police arrived moments later and drew their weapons, Beck put his pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. Beck was airlifted to Hartford Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

At an afternoon news conference that attracted more than 100 print and broadcast reporters and photographers to Newington Town Hall, Connelly, the state public safety commissioner, said that Beck suffered from job-related stress and had returned to work Feb. 25 after a four-month medical leave. The leave of absence appeared to be directly related to an unresolved grievance Beck filed in August in which he complained he was forced to perform duties not in his job description, Connelly said.

Beck was performing a computer-related job in Logan's division but was still being paid as an accountant, a position that generally is paid about $2 an hour less than the computer job, according to state records. Beck earned $45,400 a year.

Connelly said state police believe that their investigation will show that Beck was deeply resentful about the way his grievance was handled and the way he perceived he was being treated. The victims did not appear to be targeted randomly and were all involved in the grievance process.

Gov. John G. Rowland raced to the scene after aides interrupted a morning meeting to tell him about the shooting. Rowland, who appointed Brown and Mlynarczyk, ordered state flags lowered until sundown Monday. Friday's lottery drawings were postponed.

Rowland tried to console some of the lottery office workers, some of whom appeared to be in shock as they boarded two school buses so detectives could interview them at the town hall. About 25 grief counselors also consoled the workers, who were brought to the town council chambers and kept away from members of the media who had come to the scene from across New England and the New York metropolitan area.

"Most of us have picked up newspapers in the morning and read about these unnecessary tragedies occurring, but it always seems to occur somewhere else, presumably a faraway place," Rowland said at the news conference. "This morning, we learned that these unnecessary tragedies can even occur in our own communities and in our state."

Rowland said all four victims were dedicated public servants and that he was a friend of Brown and Mlynarczyk.

"Today, I call on the people of Connecticut to join together in prayer and to pray and remember the four deceased indviduals. It is one of the worst possible tragedies that can happen to a community and a state," Rowland said. "The whole state mourns this unexplained act of violence... . I pray this type of unnecessary act of violence never happens again."

U.S. Rep. Barbara B. Kennelly, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate, stood next to Rowland at the press conference and also offered condolences to the victims' families and grieving co-workers.

Chief State's Attorney John M. Bailey said the shooting was one of the worst workplace shooting incidents in recent memory and the first involving state employees in a government building.

Scores of investigators fanned out across the state Friday to notify victims' families and gather evidence and clues to what motivated Beck to apparently take his work frustrations out on senior lottery managers.

Beck, who was not married, rented an apartment in Cromwell before moving into his father's home in Ledyard around the time he took his leave of absence late last year. In January 1997, family members called Cromwell police to check on his well-being because they feared he might be suicidal, Cromwell police said.

According to a resume Beck submitted when he applied for a state auditor's job, he claimed to be a former security guard with experience with firearms and "tactical response training and situational analysis."

As the state's media assembled and what seemed like a fleet of unmarked state police cruisers continued to arrive at lottery headquarters, a large number of lottery office workers milled around outside as they waited for instructions and consoled each other. Several workers who appeared to be in shock were examined by paramedics. Nearby, Brown's body still lay covered in the parking lot.

Shannon O'Neill, a lottery field representative, said she was in the woods with co-workers when Beck moved in on Brown. She heard three shots and someone shout, "Ott's been shot! Ott's been shot!"

O'Neill and several other workers said they thought Brown was intentionally leading Beck away from the building.

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

A worker who knew Beck said that lately he seemed withdrawn, had lost weight and appeared sickly.

"He seemed like a normal, personable fellow," said John Krinjak of Manchester, a field administrator. "I did notice a few months ago that he began to change. He got into a shell; he was moody and he lost that joviality ... . He had a very severe look about him."

Newington resident John Dempsey said he never imagined that anything so horrible as a mulitiple murder had occurred when he heard all the ambulances and police cars scream down Alumni Road.

"I am just shocked. Things like this seem to be happening too often these days," said Dempsey, whose neighbor works in the lottery office. "You would think it being a prize-claim center it would be a happy place."

Tercyak said the nightmare she and her co-workers lived Friday has yet to fully sink in.

"There's no way to deal with it. They had a lot of help for us, people to talk to. There's all the adrenalin, and they sort of hustle you along," she said. "And you really don't get time to stop and think about it. This is really going to hurt."

Later Friday, the governor visited Logan's wife and children in Colchester to express his condolences, and spoke with Brown's wife on the telephone. He will attend the funerals of all four of Beck's victims.

Nicholas T. Manno, vice president of marketing for the Connecticut Lottery Corp., was appointed as its acting chief executive officer pending approval by its board of directors.

Staff writers Lyn Bixby, Matthew Hay Brown, Lisa Chedekel, Andrew Julien, Al Lara, Jon Lender, Edmund Mahony, Mike McIntire, Mark Pazniokas and Hilary Waldman contributed to this report.

© 1998, The Hartford Courant

SPECIAL REPORT: The Lottery Shootings

By Mike McIntire, Al Lara and Matthew Hay Brown

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.

© 1998, The Hartford Courant

SPECIAL REPORT: The Lottery Shootings

By Andrew Julien, Lyn Bixby and Colin Poitras

NEWINGTON -- In the hours before Matthew Beck hunted down four top lottery officials, he would place at least two telephone calls. One was to a newspaper reporter; the other was to his union steward to find out how much longer it would take to resolve a grievance against his employer.

But the portrait of Beck that emerged in the hours after the massacre in Newington was far more chilling than a simple picture of a disgruntled lottery accountant impatient to resolve a dispute over pay.

Beck was a 35-year-old man who friends say had tried to kill himself, who had taken four months away from work because of stress, who had a permit to carry a gun and boasted in a resume about being "skilled in a variety of weapons" and having "received tactical response training and situational analysis."

At the Beck family home in Ledyard, a sticker on the front screen door of the light blue cape reads: "Warning!! Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again."

When the news about the shooting flashed around the state, Richard Plourde knew who had pulled the trigger. A close friend of Beck's, Plourde said Beck had been very depressed for the past year and seemed to be harboring a lot of anger. He returned to his job only 10 days before the shootings.

"You could see it was coming," said Plourde, of Griswold. "He was like a time bomb ready to explode."

Beck, who never married, enjoyed guns and had quite a large collection, Plourde said.

"He was really into paintball, you know, that soldier of fortune-type stuff," Plourde said.

A combination of personal problems and difficulties at work tormented Beck, said Plourde. Beck suffered an emotional breakdown about a year ago and was hospitalized twice in 1997, at least once at the Elmcrest psychiatric hospital in Portland, Plourde said.

But even with the treatment, Plourde said, Beck just couldn't seem to shake his anger.

"I guess all those things mounted up," said Plourde. "He held a grudge against everybody. For the past year or so it seemed like nobody could do anything right."

Beck's call to The Courant Thursday was never answered because the reporter was out of town. But a few months ago, Beck traveled to The Courant's Broad Street headquarters to expose what he thought were flaws in the way the lottery was run.

Beck laid out his concerns with the precision of an accountant, but became so intense during the interview that spots of white spittle appeared at the corners of his mouth.

That visit, in early November, was about the same time Beck left his $45,400-a-year job at lottery headquarters in Newington for four months because of stress. Neighbors said he moved out of his own apartment in Cromwell around the same time.

Co-workers noticed changes in both Beck's appearance and manner as he drew more and more into himself.

"He cut his hair in a military style; he already was losing his hair," said John Krinjak. "He seemed to lose weight. He had a very severe look about him... . It got so when I saw him, I got the feeling if I didn't say hello, he wouldn't have either."

His supervisor, Karen Kalandyk, said that when Beck returned to the office last week, he seemed different, shunning small talk with his colleagues. "He was like talking to a stone," Kalandyk said. "Some people were afraid of him. I wasn't, but I guess I was wrong.''

To what extent Beck's grievance sparked Friday's shootings is unclear. Shortly after moving from the Department of Special Revenue to the newly created Connecticut Lottery Corp., Beck, an accountant, took on additional duties in data processing at the request of his bosses, union officials said.

When he realized he was making less than others doing the same work, Beck asked his union to file a grievance. The papers were filed on Aug. 18, 1997, bringing Beck and several of Friday's victims closer together in a contentious process.

Michael T. Logan had been one of Beck's supervisors. Frederick Rubelmann III was one of the officials who handled the grievance. Both were involved in the early stages of the dispute.

Linda A. Blogoslawski Mlynarczyk, who was the lottery's chief financial officer, met with him on Feb. 27 -- one week before the shooting -- to discuss his new duties working solely as an accountant.

It was Otho R. "Ott" Brown who headed the entire operation. His signature is on a letter offering Beck a job in 1996. "Congratulations," Brown wrote. "I look forward to working with you in this new venture."

In dollars and cents, Beck's grievance does not appear to be about huge sums of money. According to state payroll records, the difference between the data processing job Beck was doing and the accounting job was, on average, about $2 an hour.

Beck had already won on a critical point -- that he had been doing duties not in his job description, union officials say. The negotiations over how much back pay he was entitled to were just getting under way.

"He was unsure when he was going to get his money," said Joseph Mudry Jr., the steward at the Administrative and Residual Employees Union. "It was just frustrating."

But although Mudry said Beck was frustrated with the process, he said Friday that Beck gave no indication of any deep hostility when he spoke with him about 9:30 a.m. Thursday. Mudry said he often chatted with Beck; Thursday's conversation was their second this week.

"There was no indication of him doing anything like this," Mudry said. "He seemed fine."

Still, Mudry said Beck wanted to get out of the lottery division. He had applied for several other jobs, including positions at the state auditors office and Central Connecticut State University.

"He just didn't feel comfortable working with the lottery," Mudry said.

Neighbors and associates said Matthew Beck had lived alone in Cromwell for about a year. He rented a small apartment at 4 S. Park Place.

Cromwell police said that 14 months ago they received a call from a friend of Beck's who was worried about his well-being. The friend told police Beck was depressed and had attempted suicide before, according to the police report.

Beck graduated from Ledyard High School in 1980 and earned a bachelor's degree at the Florida Institute of Technology in 1984.

Before taking a job with the state Department of Revenue Services in 1989, he had worked as a taxpayer representative for the Internal Revenue Service in Hartford and as a security officer for Globe Security Systems.

In his resume, Beck claimed that he held "top secret security clearance" while employed with Globe. Plourde said he and Beck became close friends when Beck was a security officer at the United Nuclear uranium plant in Montville.

Plourde said he and Beck played golf frequently and were about to take a trip to Mexico together when Beck became ill last year.

"I got a call from his dad who said Matt would not be able to go because they took him to the hospital," Plourde said.

Beck's father, Donald, said Friday night that he already had told state troopers all that he knew. He said he could only apologize to the families of the victims.

"But I know that doesn't help them, and it doesn't bring them back," he said. "It was an awful thing."

He said he had no explanation for what his son did.

"I saw him this morning before he went to work, and he appeared perfectly normal and in good spirits," he said. "I know he had a grievance going and he thought there were a lot of things there and maybe there are. But that doesn't excuse what happened."

He started weeping. "I can't excuse him, and I can't bring anybody back, including him."

Reports from Courant Staff Writers Matthew Hay Brown, Lisa Chedekel, Lee Foster, John Moran and Stephen Ohlemacher, Courant Librarian Sandy Mehlhorn and The Associated Press were included in this story.

© 1998, The Hartford Courant

SPECIAL REPORT: The Lottery Shootings

By Lyn Bixby

NEWINGTON -- Matt Beck called me Thursday. He left a message on my voice mail saying he wanted to talk about lottery-related issues -- either in person or by phone.

I would have called him, except I was out of town, and I didn't check my messages until I got back to the newsroom Friday morning. It was too late.

In our only face-to-face meeting last fall, Beck was intense, bitter and clearly on edge. I remember remarking to a colleague that I was relieved he didn't have a gun.

He had called the newspaper and asked to talk to a reporter about the lottery. He was directed to me because my beat is gambling.

He was a short, slight man, and when I met with him last November, his eyes were wild. He spoke with the precision of an accountant, enunciating his words sharply. His mouth grew so dry while we talked that frothy white spittle spots appeared at the corners of his mouth.

He said he wasn't working at the time because he was on a medical leave for stress. He was upset over the way he had been treated at work, but mostly he said he wanted to expose flaws in the system that compromised the integrity of the state lottery.

I told him I would take a look at his issues. I also suggested that he ask the state auditors to investigate some of his concerns relating to accounting and internal controls.

Beck was like many tipsters: He had a grudge. So you check out the information very carefully. But he didn't make any threatening remarks to me about anyone at the Connecticut Lottery Corp. And a lot of his information proved true.

I wrote about some of his issues, though his name did not appear in the stories. He said he didn't want his name published because he was worried that it could jeopardize his position with the lottery corporation. And I didn't want to use the name of a disgruntled employee when the information could be independently verified.

One of Beck's issues was the lottery's long-time practice of using inflated jackpot amounts in Lotto advertisements to spur ticket sales. That was actually exposed and ended by the corporation's board of directors a few weeks after I met with Beck.

Another of his concerns was that some lottery clerks had been cheating the system by "fishing" for winning instant tickets. They would randomly punch code numbers into the lottery computers and take the cash when they came up with a winner.

After our meeting at The Courant's Broad Street headquarters in Hartford, Beck and I talked several more times by telephone. He wasn't entirely happy with the stories. He said they could have been more critical of the lottery. Our last conversation was in December.

In the telephone message he left Thursday, there was no anger or anxiety or urgency evident in his voice.

Who knows what would have happened if I had been in the office and if we had met in person, as he suggested.

Would he have brought his knife and his gun?

Would a conversation with a reporter have been enough of an outlet to defuse the bomb that was about to explode? At least for a while?

The only certainty is that four people didn't deserve to die.

I knew one of them quite well, Ott Brown, one of the gentlest, most decent people anywhere. I often had to ask him questions he didn't want to hear, including questions raised by Matt Beck. And Ott answered every one of them -- with class.

© 1998, The Hartford Courant

SPECIAL REPORT: The Lottery Shootings

By Lisa Chedekel

NEW BRITAIN -- Ivonne Galinski sat at the desk of her Broad Street travel agency Friday morning, in the heart of the city's Polish community, and mechanically picked up a phone that would not stop ringing. Her eyes were rimmed red.

"Yes, we heard," she told a caller. "We can't believe it either."

A pause.

"Such a waste of a productive life."

A deep breath.

"Nope, nothing is safe. Nothing is sacred."

Mayor Lucian Pawlak turned away from the TV in his office, with the image of his predecessor, Linda A. Blogoslawski Mlynarczyk, filling the screen. He summoned his aides.

"We need to get the flags down," he said. "Please, get them down."

The city that had embraced Mlynarczyk five years ago by electing her its first female mayor embraced her again Friday, after learning she had been gunned down in a shooting at state lottery headquarters in Newington.

"She'll always be remembered as a woman who put the community first," said a dazed Pawlak, who defeated Mlynarczyk in her bid for re-election in 1995. "Of course, she'll always be remembered as our first woman mayor. Some of the girls in school still talk about her when I go into the schools and visit. So whether Linda knew it or not, she was a role model of sorts."

As news of Mlynarczyk's death spread through the city, she was remembered by politicians and residents as a driven businesswoman who had earned a place in city history by combining number-crunching with a love of public service.

A certified public accountant, she took a job as chief financial officer of the state lottery in September 1996, 10 months after losing out on a second term as mayor. Friends said she seemed happier in the lottery job.

"There were times she would call me from the office before 7 a.m., all excited about this project or that," said state Rep. Anthony J. Tercyak, R-New Britain, who knew Mlynarczyk all her life. "I think as much as she loved being mayor, she had found her niche in this job... . It was computers, numbers, people. That was exactly what Linda liked."

Mlynarczyk's 1989 entry into city politics earned her a reputation as someone who could beat the odds. She was the first Republican in more than a decade to win enough votes in the heavily Democratic city to secure a seat on the council without help from minority-representation rules. She beat Democrat Pawlak by 100 votes in the 1993 election to become the first Republican mayor in 22 years.

A month into her term, she managed to escape injury when a small plane flown by her future husband, Peter Mlynarczyk, sputtered and crash-landed in a Middletown cornfield. By the time a reporter arrived at the scene, the mayor was snapping photos of the plane and laughing about her good luck.

"If I've learned anything, it's that sometimes you can't sweat the small stuff," she said at the time. "Compared to New Britain politics, I would face this again any day."

Although she tangled with council Democrats over issues ranging from her fiance's serving as corporation counsel to her proposed sale of the city cemetery, Mlynarczyk rarely lost her temper or her focus.

Among her achievements, she stirred interest from developers in downtown, secured concessions from city unions, allowed public input in the hiring of a new police chief and helped retain the city's minor-league baseball team.

"She was the boss," said Joe Buzas, owner of the New Britain Rock Cats. "She really worked me over and made me realize I should stay. I have a picture of her in my office. I've been numb all day."

A month after her 1995 election loss, the Mlynarczyks were married. The couple remained in the city, sharing a house with Linda Mlynarczyk's mother, Pat Hoerle. Her father, Walter Blogoslawski, lives in Florida.

The Blogoslawskis' roots in the city compound the sense of loss, community leaders said. A fourth-generation city resident, Mlynarczyk's great-grandparents established a funeral home on Broad Street in 1900. She attended New Britain High School, where she was a cheerleader and valedictorian of her class, before going on to Fairfield University.

"Politics wasn't her life, but New Britain was," said Paul Carver, a former Republican alderman and a friend of Mlynarczyk's. He said her interest in the goings-on of city government did not fade after she left office, and she would offer reams of advice about financial matters if asked.

Richard Judd, president of Central Connecticut State University and chairman of the city police commission during Mlynarczyk's tenure, said he hoped she would be remembered as a "vibrant believer in New Britain."

Mlynarczyk had been one of the first big-city mayors to publicly endorse John G. Rowland for governor. When the state lottery job opened, members of the Rowland administration encouraged her to apply, friends said. She managed a staff of 28 and oversaw all accounting, purchasing and budgeting for the $700 million operation.

Friends and co-workers said that although Mlynarczyk rarely spoke of her time as mayor, her office at lottery headquarters was filled with pictures taken during that time. Among them was a photo she had used in campaign brochures in 1995, in which she posed with her dog, Clancy.

"I think she was proud of that time, but she was moving on with her life," said Marion Tercyak, Anthony Tercyak's daughter, who works as an accountant in the lottery office. "She had something to see through here -- we had all this new software coming in, and a whole new [accounting] system to learn."

Friday afternoon at the Haller Post in New Britain, seven stunned patrons of the Polish social club stared up at Mlynarczyk's image on the TV screen. One of them, Henry Skibniewski, put his head in his hands.

"It's painful," he said. "She's too young to go."

© 1998, The Hartford Courant

SPECIAL REPORT: The Lottery Shootings

By Hilary Waldman

On Friday morning, accounts of the shooting indicated Brown tried to save his co-workers.

"Ott" Brown was a gentle man with a bare-knuckles job.

Since the moment he came to Connecticut in 1993, Brown spent long days and much thought trying to persuade more and more people to gamble on a 7 million-to-1 long shot, a trying, controversial mission that put him at odds with some of the state's most powerful elected officials.

Selling the state on the lottery -- it was the kind of work that might have called for a tough guy, or maybe a snake-oil salesman.

But that was not Otho R. Brown.

Rather, the gray-haired, easy-smiling man who ran the state's lottery was a decent, soft-spoken, honest husband and father of a boy and twin girls who was devoted to his professional mandate: bringing more money into the state treasury.

"He was simply one of the biggest and most gentle men I've ever met," said Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who just last Tuesday went head-to-head with Brown at a public hearing.

Blumenthal spoke in favor of a bill in the legislature to ban midday daily numbers drawings, a sales-boosting initiative introduced by Brown on Feb. 2.

Blumenthal and Democrats on the legislative committee that held the hearing oppose the midday drawings, saying they will tempt more children and compulsive gamblers to play the game.

"At the end of my own appearance, I remarked to the committee it was not about personality or partisanship, and Otho Brown and I would probably go out afterward and have a cup of coffee together," Blumenthal recalled. "As I was standing outside the committee room [Brown] said, 'You did a real good job. Let's go out and get that cup of coffee.' "

Brown arrived in Connecticut only four years ago, after a 20-year career of government service in Delaware, including four years as director of that state's lottery.

In November 1993, he was chosen from a field of 58 applicants to head Connecticut's lottery, which at the time was part of the state Division of Special Revenue.

He is credited with boosting sales of instant tickets and introducing the multistate Powerball lottery to Connecticut during his tenure.

Two years ago, at the behest of Republican Gov. John G. Rowland, the legislature gave the lottery more autonomy by creating a quasi-public corporation to run the games. The idea was to allow the lottery to operate more like a business, with the hope that more efficient operations and more aggressive marketing would bring in more money for the state.

Brown, who was appointed in the last days of Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.'s administration, was tapped by Rowland to be president and chief executive officer of the new corporation.

But even after moving to Avon with his wife and three young children, Brown maintained much of the country-boy demeanor of his rural Delaware roots.

He was born Nov. 29, 1943, and grew up on a farm in Bear, Del., then a quiet backwoods that has since grown into a rapidly sprawling suburb. His father was managing editor of The Morning News, now The News Journal, in Wilmington, Del.

Until moving north, Brown continued to live on the family property. Only recently did he decide that his future would be in Connecticut and the Delaware house should be sold, said Brown's sister, Carol B. Harrington, of Bear.

As a young man, Brown was wiry, standing 6 feet tall and weighing 112 pounds when he won a high school wrestling championship, said his close friend and college roommate, Thomas Whittington, a prominent Wilmington, Del., lawyer.

At 54, Brown was still slender, although no longer a flyweight. Age, or the recent frustrations of his job, seemed to be taking a toll. His hair had faded to gray and thinned at the temples in recent years.

On Friday morning, accounts of the shooting indicated Brown tried to save his co-workers.

Whittington said he was not surprised. He had seen that quality before.

The two shared an apartment while they were students at the University of Delaware. They sublet a room to another student. One night, while Brown and Whittington were playing cards, they heard their tenant beating up his girlfriend.

Brown got up from the card table and challenged the abusive boyfriend, who Whittington said was much bigger than Brown. "It was like watching a bull and a matador," Whittington said. Brown won.

Brown and his wife, Denise, came to parenthood later in life, said Stephen Golding, former Delaware budget director, who hired Brown into his first state job as a budget analyst in 1983.

In addition to his wife and sister, Brown leaves a 9-year-old son, Alexander, and 8-year-old twin daughters Elizabeth and Marion. His father died in 1988, his mother died last May, and one brother was killed in an automobile accident in 1973.

Described as a doting father, he was "mesmerized" by his twins, Golding said.

Brown moved quickly up the ranks of Delaware's state government, landing in the executive office in 1986 as deputy chief of staff to then-Gov. Michael N. Castle, a Republican who is now Delaware's only congressman.

"In Delaware he was on the fast track," Castle said Friday.

Castle named Brown director of the state lottery in 1987, a job Brown kept until 1991. "He was a natural fit as a lottery director; he had good financial and management skills," Castle said. "He was businesslike and friendly at the same time."

Brown's affable personality and reputation for integrity won him respect, if not free rein, in Connecticut.

State Sen. Alvin W. Penn, D-Bridgeport and co-chairman of the legislature's public safety committee, which oversees legalized gambling, had frequent philosophical clashes with Brown. Penn liked to accuse Brown of turning the state into a "bookie."

Between complaints from Penn's committee and Blumenthal's office, Brown was forced to scuttle at least two of his money-making strategies, including one in which store clerks were asked to remind their customers that they could buy lottery tickets.

During the fiscal year that ended last June, Brown's lottery corporation took in $251 million for the state, falling short of the $260 million target. Brown had hoped a television bingo game would allow him to meet this year's profit target of $285 million. But Blumenthal said such a game would be illegal.

Despite their professonal differences, Penn said he always trusted Brown.

"Someone in the gaming process has to be of impeccable integrity, has to be above reproach, because he deals with so much money," Penn said. "I was glad to be able to say Ott was of impeccable reputation."

Information from The News Journal, of Wilmington, Del., is included in this report.

© 1998, The Hartford Courant

SPECIAL REPORT: The Lottery Shootings

By Josh Kovner

SOUTHINGTON -- Rick Rubelmann and Dave Valentine arrived home from work at the same time Thursday afternoon.

Valentine, a construction foreman, parked his pickup truck; Rubelmann, a vice president at the Connecticut Lottery, bounded out of his state car, and the 12-year neighbors on Southington's Summit Street picked up their running discourse about the Red Sox.

It was the last time Valentine saw his friend alive.

© 1998, The Hartford Courant

SPECIAL REPORT: The Lottery Shootings

By Dana Tofig and Tracy Gordon

COLCHESTER -- As Michael T. Logan's family grieved inside their handsome Melanie Lane home, neighbors comforted each other outside and tried to lend support to the family.

"He was a good husband and good father and this shouldn't have happened to him," one neighbor, who did not identify herself, said through tears as she headed over to the Logan home at 147 Melanie Lane.

Logan's death shocked the small, growing community of Colchester, especially the closely knit subdivision not far from the Salem town line where he and his family lived and quickly made close friends.

The Rev. Larry Ouimet, a friend of the Logans who was called to their home after they learned of the shooting, recalled Michael Logan as a devoted father, loving husband and a workaholic.

"He was a computer wizard. He was constantly helping people with their personal computers. People at work did love him," Ouimet said.

"He was a perfectionist. Everything he did was done very thoroughly," Ouimet said. "There was not a nicer guy you could meet anywhere."

The Logans, both of Irish descent and deeply religious, asked the community to pray with them.

Ouimet spent the day with the family, and afterward issued a statement from them. They asked that they be allowed to "deal privately with this senseless tragedy."

To anyone "wishing to be of support to us at this time, may we humbly enlist your prayers now and in the days to come," the family statement said.

"We are sadly stunned by the events of this morning in Newington and we appreciate the tremendous outpouring of concern and sympathy we are receiving," the statement said. "We are profoundly touched by the assistance of Governor Rowland, the Connecticut State Police, our priests, family, neighbors, and friends."

Most of the neighbors in the cul-de-sac declined to speak to the media; some said it was the family's wish. Logan, 33, is survived by his wife, Margaret, and two children, Bridget Elizabeth, 5, and Patrick Ryan, 2.

The children were with neighbors Friday and had not been told of their father's death as of late afternoon, neighbors and police said.

Still, even those who did not know Logan felt the loss and the shock Friday. Flags at town hall flew at half-staff.

"Everyone feels a sense of loss. A resident of our community was tragically taken away from us," said First Selectwoman Jenny Contois, who called state police to ask that the media be kept away from the Logan home.

"There's a sadness in town hall. You never think it's going to happen in our backyard," Contois said. "It's a sad day."

Gov. John G. Rowland visited the Logan's house about 3:15 p.m. Friday for about 10 minutes. A state trooper stayed with the Logan family all day.

Logan was raised and educated in Massachusetts, where he graduated from Marshfield High School in 1982. He was active in the Boy Scouts and earned the rank of Eagle Scout as a young adult. He and Margaret married in 1990, and moved to Colchester in 1993.

Logan worked as an engineer in Groton until 1996. He was hired by the state lottery in September of that year as a data processing technical analyst. Also in 1996, Logan, whose undergraduate degree was from Northeastern University in Boston, earned a master's in business administration from the University of New Haven. He was promoted to the post of lottery manager of information systems in March 1997.

Logan is also survived by his parents, Richard and Louise Logan, of Humarock, Mass.

Funeral services will be held from the Aurora-McCarthy Funeral Home, 167 Old Hartford Road, Colchester, on Monday, beginning at 11:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. A Mass will be celebrated at 1 p.m. at St. Andrew's Church on Norwich Avenue in Colchester, where Logan and his family were congregants. Burial will follow at the New St. Andrew's Cemetery in Colchester.

Calling hours will be on Sunday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the funeral home.

© 1998, The Hartford Courant

SPECIAL REPORT: The Lottery Shootings

By Helen Ubinas

NEWINGTON -- It looked like a movie set.

The town hall parking lot was filled with trucks from TV and radio stations from across the country.

Cell phones appeared glued to reporters calling in the latest information, planning live shots.

News helicopters hovered overhead while shocked residents watched it all as if it were happening on a movie screen.

"This is just completely unbelievable," Ann Giangrave said as she helped her three children into her minivan. "It's craziness much more suited to a big city."

Before Friday, the big news in the small town was a possible tax increase.

That was before a gunman killed four people and himself at lottery headquarters, prompting the world to descend upon a town that most could barely point out on a map.

"This is completely wild," said Jack Morris, who has lived in town for 13 years. "I've never seen anything like it."

Librarians fielded calls from the media, who wanted to know what kind of town Newington was, the size of its population. Mostly, they needed directions. When the media arrived, the librarians handed out an information packet, filled with anything anyone would ever want to know about the town.

"People have been calling with questions like that all day," said research librarian Mary Metheny. "ABC called asking where they could get lunch for their crew."

She gave them a few numbers.

"That's our job -- to be helpful," she said.

Just 7 miles south of Hartford, Newington is home to about 28,000 residents. It is a growing, but still close-knit, picture-postcard town.

"People know people's names around here," said Adam Frye, a student at St. Mary's School, who had a half-day of school Friday and was hanging around town following the events.

In the town manager's office, clerks answered calls from residents wondering if there was anything they could do, but mostly from news organizations looking for information, any information, about the shootings.

Across the way, a room was packed with reporters and camera crews waiting for the governor to arrive for a press conference.

Outside, Pat Kilray and Mike Parker took it all in. They had learned about it on the Internet and on CNBC.

"I turned on the TV and they were talking about Newington, Connecticut," Kilray said. "It was so weird ... we were top news."

The two were on their way to work out at a nearby gym when the crowd at town hall and at lottery headquarters caught their attention.

"It's sad, really... . It takes a bunch of people getting killed in some state building for the world to take notice of this town," Kilray said.

Minutes later, they watched the governor, surrounded by escorts, walk by.

"It's not every day that the governor shows up in this town," Kilray said.

Neighbors talked over their fences -- and over the din of whirring news helicopters 

"We were just talking about what makes someone do something like this," Richard Kammel said as he and neighbor Margaret Roa stood outside his home.

As the day wore on, residents talked about what Newington would be known for when the news died down, when TV cameras and reporters were called away to another, more timely story. When possible budget increases were once again big news in town.

"It's a sleepy town and always will be," said Joe Martinez. "In two weeks people won't remember where Newington, Connecticut, is ... that's just the way it is."

But just minutes after Martinez predicted the town's notoriety would soon fade, another frightening scene was playing out. Police, who believed a man had barricaded himself in his house with a gun, were quickly evacuating nearby houses and businesses shortly after 12:30 p.m.

During the standoff, snipers were posted in trees and rifle-toting SWAT team members laid under bushes around the modest multifamily home on East Cedar Street.

Wayne Nimmons, 51, quietly surrendered unarmed to police after the standoff that closed most of downtown along the Cedar Street corridor. Nimmons was alone. There were no injuries.

He was later transferred to Veterans Hospital in West Haven for psychiatric evaluation, police said.

"The town's just gone crazy today," said resident John Fitzpatrick.

Still another incident hit Newington at 3:20 p.m. Friday, when someone called the Department of Transportation's headquarters, on the Berlin Turnpike, and said that a bomb would explode in the building. The hundreds of employees were evacuated and state police were called in. No bomb was found. When Rowland was notified, he decided to let all the employees go home for the weekend.

© 1998, The Hartford Courant