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Robert Lewis Dear, 57, is described by neighbors and law enforcement records in South Carolina as a man with a history of aggressive and odd behavior.(Photo: AP)
As a portrait of<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Robert Lewis Dear, the gunman who allegedly opened fire inside a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood Friday, begins to emerge, the dominant characteristics are that of an<span style="color: Red;">*</span>odd and aggressive individual often living on the fringes of society.
In Colorado, Dear, 57, called the rural town of Hartsel home, according to information on ColoradoVoters.info. Located in the center of the state<span style="color: Red;">*</span>about a 90-minute drive west of Colorado Springs, Hartsel's population<span style="color: Red;">*</span>is fewer than 700, with a density of one person for every square<span style="color: Red;">*</span>mile<span style="color: Red;">*</span>of ranch land. While little is know about his interactions there, a number of reports detail<span style="color: Red;">*</span>contentious run-ins with neighbors and law enforcement during Dear's earlier years living in<span style="color: Red;">*</span>North and South Carolina.
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James Howie, who lives near one of two Dear-owned properties in remote North Carolina, was<span style="color: Red;">*</span>asked to do foundation work at a Dear shack<span style="color: Red;">*</span>in Black Mountain, about 15 miles west of Asheville. After accompanying Dear to the job site, he declined the offer of employment.
"I wouldn't ride with that fellow from here to the mailbox now," Howie told the Asheville Citizen-Times Saturday, adding that Dear stuck him as more "crazy" than violent. "I was just glad to get home."
Dear's Black Mountain home is a small yellow edifice that<span style="color: Red;">*</span>lacks both electricity and running water. On one exterior wall hangs a cross made of twigs. Another nearby property features a decrepit mobile home which appears to have been abandoned.
A neighbor of Dear's Black Mountain property<span style="color: Red;">*</span>said she and her family "kept out of his way" when they would see their neighbor approaching along the area's unkept<span style="color: Red;">*</span>roads.
"He wouldn't really speak to anybody, he wouldn't wave," Mallory Nicoletti, 29, told the Citizen-Times.
The shack where Robert Dear reportedly lived near Black Mountain, N.C. A cross made of twigs hangs on one wall.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Leah Buletti, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times)
Another neighbor, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, told the Washington Post that Dear "was the kind of person you had to watch out for.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>He was a very weird individual. It’s hard to explain, but he had a weird look in his eye most of the time.”
Neighbors in the area said Dear rarely spoke about religion or abortion. The loner's<span style="color: Red;">*</span>main company seemed to be a mangy dog that looked so bad neighbors called animal control. But Dear's story gets more troubling when assessing his<span style="color: Red;">*</span>earlier, married years in South Carolina, where police records show<span style="color: Red;">*</span>a history of arrests for<span style="color: Red;">*</span>domestic violence, animal cruelty and being a peeping tom.
Robert Lewis Dear, far right, shown shortly after surrendering to Colorado Springs police after a long shooting rampage that left three dead.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Justin Edmonds, Getty Images)
In 1997, Dear's then wife, Pamela Ross, called sheriff's deputies in Colleton County, west of Charleston, and reported that her husband had assaulted her and locked her out of the house, according to arrest records.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>On Saturday, the<span style="color: Red;">*</span>Charleston Post and Courier<span style="color: Red;">*</span>contacted Ross, who divorced Dear in 2000.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“I know everyone has a lot of questions,” she said.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>“We all do. ... We’re living it just as everyone else is.”
In 2002, records show that Dear was accused by one<span style="color: Red;">*</span>neighbor of leering at her from the bushes, and by another of shooting his dog with a pellet gun. A 2004 incident report indicates that Dear threatened to "do bodily harm" to a neighbor.
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Colorado officials have yet to release any details from their questioning of Dear, who surrendered to law enforcement after a rampage that left three people dead, including one police officer. Nine others were wounded. Although the location of the siege would seem to imply Dear had a issue with Planned Parenthood, even that organization's leaders have yet to say whether there is a link between Dear and the fierce national rhetoric between abortion opponents and<span style="color: Red;">*</span>supporters.
That said, Dear's former North Carolina neighbors remember a man filled with grievances.
“He complained about everything,” one neighbor told the Washington Post. “He said he worked with the government, and everybody was out to get him, and he knew the secrets of the USA. He said, ‘Nobody touch me, because I’ve got enough information to put the whole U.S. of A in danger.’ It was very crazy.”
Robert Lewis Dear lived in this mobile home in Swannanoa, N.C., until about a year ago.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Leah Buletti, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times)
Dear lived in the run-down<span style="color: Red;">*</span>mobile home in Swannanoa, N.C., until about a year ago.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>At that point, he moved to rural Colorado, where, according to the Post, real estate agent Jim Anderson sold Dear a<span style="color: Red;">*</span>$6,000, five-acre parcel. Dear<span style="color: Red;">*</span>then spent another $4,000 for a pull-behind trailer that served as his living quarters. Anderson said there was nothing unusual about Dear, and while he did not see him toting weapons, even that would not have raised suspicion.
“Out here everybody has a gun,” Anderson said. “There are bears and mountain lions.”
By Saturday afternoon, FBI agents had arrived at Dear's North Carolina shack, seeking more clues to Friday's brutal crime.
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