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Employment Network News YOU CAN GET KILLED IN THE WORKPLACE LOCK HAVEN, Pa., Oct. 23 – A crazed laboratory technician opens fire with two pistols in a crowed paper mill here today, beginning a one-and-a-half-hour shooting spree that left six dead and six wounded. 
The police, family and friends, all at a loss to explain what made Leo Held go berserk, said that until the 39-year-old father of four strode into the Hammermill Paper Company plant here with guns blazing he was known to all as "a quiet, peaceful man devoted to his family." The police said Held shot five dead and wounded four others in the plant. Then he killed a sixth man and wounded two more in a trail of gunfire that took him to his home in Loganton, 17 miles southeast of Lock Haven. He apparently knew his targets and went for them, the police said. With icy calm, Held used a .38-caliber revolver and a .44-caliber Magnum while 40 to 50 employees watched struck dumb by shock. The shootings, which began shortly after 8 A.M., lasted just a few minutes. Then Held, a 21-year employee of the Hammermill plant, quickly turned and walked out the main door leaving fellow employees crouching behind machinery and desks in fear. He fired several times into the office and managed to hit Mrs. Ramm twice, wounding her seriously. Her husband, Schuyler Ramm, told a newsman later that his wife was the driver today in a car pool that had blackballed Held about three months ago "because of his reckless driving." But of the victims at the paper mill, at least two were not in the car pool or even close friends, according to victim’s relatives. They were Allen Barrett Jr., 45, a laboratory employee from Lock Haven, and Richard Davenport, 32, a quality control supervisor from Woolrich. The others killed there were Donald V. Walden, 31, of Lock Haven, paper manufacturing superintendent; Carmen H. Edwards, 62, of Mill Hall, superintendent of wastes and bacteriological control, and Elmer Weaver, 37, of Lock Haven, a laboratory employee. "I can’t believe this has happened." Mr. Brungard said. District Attorney Allan Lugg of Clinton County told a news conference that Held would be charged with murdering "the various victims involved." Mr. Lugg said Held had had neither a mental problem nor a police record and was regarded as "a respected citizen." The District Attorney said the arresting police "didn’t want to kill him" and wounded him in the hads and then in the leg and head. |
