By RYAN NAKASHIMA
Investigators found no suicide note or any other documents that could tell them what led Terry Ratzmann to the shooting rampage Saturday in this Milwaukee suburb, Police Chief Daniel Tushaus said Sunday.
However, officials said they were looking into reports that Ratzmann became upset during a church service a few weeks ago and walked out, and that he also may have been about to lose his job.
Ratzmann, 44, fired 22 shots, stopping once to reload, and then shot himself in the head at the Sheraton hotel, Tushaus said.
About 50 to 60 people were sitting in a meeting room when Ratzmann walked in from the back and started firing, Tushaus said. Witnesses told police he didn't say anything before he fired."At this point, we're unable to determine if he had specific targets or he just shot at random," police Capt. Phil Horter said.
At one point during the shooting, a friend of Ratzmann's confronted him and pleaded with him to stop shooting, Horter said.
"There were a few more rounds fired, and at that point the suspect took his life," Horter said.
Police searched Ratzmann's home in New Berlin, about two miles from the hotel, and seized three computers and a rifle, Horter said. Horter said Ratzmann may have been about to lose his job, but investigators would not identify where he worked.
Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher said he did not know why Ratzmann walked out of a recent church service. "Something upset him, and he walked out during that particular service two weeks ago," Bucher said.Ratzmann was affiliated with the Living Church of God, which had been meeting at the hotel every Saturday morning for four or five years.
The born-again denomination focuses on "end-time" prophecies, and places a strong emphasis on using world news to "prove" that these are end times. Dr. Roderick C. Meredith, recently wrote that events prophesied in the Bible are "beginning to occur with increasing frequency."
The Charlotte, N.C.-based group called the shooting "a terrible tragedy."
"We are cooperating with the authorities to find out what happened," the group said on its Web site.
Tushaus did not identify the victims but gave approximate ages. Two boys ages 15 and 17, a 72-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman died at the hotel. Three men ranging in age from 44 to 58 died later at a hospital.Four other people were hospitalized in serious condition.
Waukesha County's emergency dispatch center was flooded with 911 calls after the shooting, County Executive Dan Finley said. Some hotel guests remained locked in their rooms after police surrounded the building and would not allow anyone to enter or leave.
"We train for these incidents all the time and we hope against hope they never happen, but today was one of those days," Finley said.
After the shootings, police removed a pickup truck from the hotel parking lot.
The gunman lived with his mother and sister, who were being interviewed by officers as police collected evidence at their house, New Berlin Mayor Telesfore Wysocki said."We are in total shock and disbelief," the mayor said.
Neighbors said Ratzmann was a devout churchgoer and avid gardener who built his own greenhouse and shared homegrown vegetables with his neighbors. Shane Colwell, who talked to him regularly, called Ratzmann "so calm and so mellow."
"He brought me over a zucchini that was about foot-and-a-half long," Colwell told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "We ate it for a week."
Robert Blasczyk, another resident of Ratzmann's modest New Berlin neighborhood, said Ratzmann was a drinker, but that he could not believe he might be violent.
"He was the quietest guy in the world, the nicest," Blasczyk said. "I would have never believed this in a million years."
At the hotel, a small memorial took shape Saturday evening. Someone placed a red-and-white cross in a snow bank in front of the building. Another person left two stuffed animals and a note.