The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Records show violent history for Ohio nursing home gunman
Suspect served time for abducting woman in 2009.
KIRKERSVILLE, OHIO — Court records show the man authorities say gunned down an Ohio village police chief and two nursing home employees Friday had a history of violence, including against the nurse who was among the slain.
The suspect, Thomas Hartless, 43, was found dead inside Pine Kirk Care Center.
Nurse Marlina Medrano, 46, nurse’s aide Cindy Krantz, 48, and Kirkersville Police Chief Steven Eric Disario, 36, were killed in the attack.
State and local authorities said Saturday the investigation was continuing and they had no new information to release on the deaths in the village of some 500 residents, roughly 25 miles east of Columbus.
Spokeswoman Jill Del Greco, of the Ohio attorney general’s office, said investigators had more interviews planned and learning more about the connection between Hartless and Medrano is part of their efforts.
Records show Medrano had obtained civil protection orders against Hartless, who was released from jail in April after his latest domestic violence case in March. State prison records show he served eight months in 2010 for the 2009 abduction of another woman.
“I am afraid to be alone with him, that he will hurt me for good,” Medrano wrote in her latest petition this month. The Columbus Dispatch reported that court officials said Friday that protection order was still in effect. Records show Medrano had reported injuries including a concussion and cuts requiring stitches.
The Dispatch reported that she had earlier told police he once showed her a hole he had dug and said he would put her in it if she didn’t stay with him. She also told police Hartless “doesn’t like police.”
A neighbor of Hartless, Connie Long, told reporters Medrano had taken shelter in Long’s home March 6 after Hartless attacked her. Long had posted a Facebook warning to the community that “a violent man” was loose after Hartless was released only weeks later.
Disario had headed the Kirkersville Police Department for only about three weeks, Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp said. He was the father of six children, with a seventh on the way, the sheriff said.
Authorities say Hartless had taken two passers-by as hostages in a wooded area behind the nursing home. Disario, responding to a report of a man with a gun, said in his last radio communication that he had the man in sight. The hostages escaped unharmed, as did all 23 residents of the nursing home.