‘I like best killing people’: US killer of 2 firemen says in note

The ex-convict who lured two firefighters to their deaths in a blaze of gunfire left a typewritten note saying he wanted to burn down his New York state neighborhood and "do what I like doing best, killing people", police said Tuesday.

Police Chief Gerald Pickering Tuesday said 62-year-old William Spengler, who served 17 years in prison for the 1980 hammer killing of his grandmother, armed himself with a revolver, a shotgun and a semiautomatic rifle before he set his house on fire to lure first responders into a death trap before dawn on Christmas Eve.

Two firefighters were shot dead and two were hospitalized. Spengler killed himself as seven houses burned around him Monday on a narrow spit of land along Lake Ontario.

One of the weapons recovered was a .233-caliber semiautomatic Bushmaster rifle, the same make and caliber gun used in this month's school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, Pickering said.

The two- to three-page note left by Spengler didn't give a motive for the shootings, Pickering said. He declined to divulge the note's full content or say where it was found, but he read one line from it: "I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn down and do what I like doing best, killing people."

Pickering said authorities were still looking for Spengler's 67-year-old sister, Cheryl Spengler, who lived with him. Their mother, Arline, also lived there until she died in October.

Authorities said Spengler hadn't done anything to bring himself to their attention since his parole. As a convicted felon, he wasn't allowed to possess weapons.

ALSO READ

Change in Pak approach towards India unlikely: Hussain Haqqani

Sewage, strippers and Mariachis as Malcolm X's grandson lay dying

Cars made in Brazil are deadly: report

Shooting at Mother's Day parade in US, 19 injured