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EuroLauncher

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2005-10-19

Posts: 299

Re: 2 dead in Johnson Space Center shooting

Police say a NASA contract worker who barricaded himself in a Johnson Space Center office building Friday has killed himself and a hostage.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/p … 2/1069/ENT

srmeaney

Member

From: 18 tiwi gdns rd, TIWI NT 0810

Registered: 2005-03-18

Posts: 976

Re: 2 dead in Johnson Space Center shooting

What the world is going on with NASA? First a crazy Astronaut now a Contractor with Hostage? What happened to psych testing and security control areas?

Mars_B4_Moon

Member

Registered: 2006-03-23

Posts: 9,310

Re: 2 dead in Johnson Space Center shooting

Message From the Administrator
Last Friday, April 20th, NASA engineer David Beverly was murdered in his office at the Johnson Space Center, shot by a co-worker who subsequently committed suicide. The co-worker was an on-site contractor who believed, mistakenly, that David was trying to have him fired. Another co-worker, Fran Crenshaw, was taken hostage during the incident but was not otherwise harmed.

Nearly everyone reading this message will be familiar with these facts, played out as they were on national television. What most of you will not know, but should, is the kind of man who was lost in this sad event, and how David and Fran behaved as they struggled to defend themselves and each other....

....David was an engineer's engineer. He lived in the waterfront home that he designed, and which he maintained to exacting standards. He was known to friends as the guy who could and would fix anything that went wrong, at his home or theirs. He lived in that home with his companion of five decades, Linda, his sweetheart from junior high school days and his wife since college. Linda is a facilities management professional where, ironically, she often deals with the consequences of workplace violence.

Shortly after lunch on Friday, David and Fran were confronted in their office by the killer, a man whose own office was literally down the hall, and with whom David had had lunch that very day. Though dealing with the surreal situation of being threatened by a co-worker wielding a gun, both remained calm. David tried to reason with the attacker until the man raised the gun and shot him twice, and then left the room to lock the outer office door.

Though critically wounded, David attempted with Fran's assistance to barricade the inner office door with a desk, but was unsuccessful. The attacker returned and shot David again, this time with mortal effect.

The attacker, having barricaded himself in the office suite, then proceeded to tie Fran up, telling her that she was his hostage. After an extended conversation with Fran, and composing several suicide notes, the attacker shot himself. Hearing the shot, the Houston Police Department SWAT Team broke down the door and conducted Fran, who had freed herself, to the hospital for evaluation.

Despite her ordeal, Fran was determined to be unharmed, calm, and fully in possession of her faculties, and so was released from the hospital. She then drove immediately to the Houston Police Department, where she provided investigators with a careful recounting of the afternoon's events, after which she was dismissed.