Omaha Shooter Had History Of Depression
Posted December 6, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The 19-year-old who killed eight people and then himself inside an Omaha, Nebraska shopping centre had a history of depression, although the family that had been looking after him said he’d improved in recent months.
Prior to Wednesday’s shooting rampage, Robert Hawkins left a suicide note at the home of his friend’s family, who’d taken him in after he was kicked out of his own home for some unknown reason. In it, he said “how sorry he was for everything,” that he loved his parents, and that he “wasn’t going to be a burden anymore.” Nurse Debora Maruca-Kovac took Hawkins in after her two teenage sons befriended him.
“He was depressed, and he had always been depressed,” Maruca-Kovac said. “But he looked like he was getting better.”
The last two weeks appear to have been hard ones for Hawkins – he was fired from his job at McDonald’s and broke up with his longtime girlfriend. The teen earned a GED after dropping out of Papillion-La Vista High School, and Maruca-Kovac said for the most part he acted like a normal teenager.
He apparently called her at 1pm Wednesday telling her he’d left her a note in the bedroom but wouldn’t offer any more details – Maruca-Kovac found it on the floor by his bed when she returned home. On Thursday it was revealed that Hawkins apparently smuggled an assault rifle into the mall underneath his clothing.
In the note he included a “will,” which gave his Jeep Cherokee to his mother and suggested “my friends can have whatever they want.” Hawkins signed off the note saying that he’d now be famous.
