Journal worker kills 2, injures 1

-- An employee of The Providence Journal Co. fatally shot two coworkers, wounded a third, and may have then died in a car fire after a wave of violence yesterday morning that swept from the newspaper's production plant in the city to a suburban neighborhood in Warwick.

The police said that Carlos Pacheco, 38, a 20-year employee at The Journal, entered the building at 210 Kinsley Ave. at about 9:30 a.m., and shot a supervisor, Robert Benetti, 38, of Pawtucket. Benetti died.

Pacheco then shot and wounded a driver, Charles Johnson, 30, of Providence, as Johnson sat in his pickup in the parking lot.

Shortly after, the Warwick police found Matthew Fandetti, 29, shot dead in his house in Warwick, and a fourth person burned beyond recognition in a car parked in a lot near a baseball field and the Kenney Manufacturing Co., at 1000 Jefferson Blvd., in Warwick.

Detectives say they are waiting for the results of an autopsy to determine the identity of the burned person, but the destroyed car belonged to Pacheco, said Providence Detective Maj. Martin F. Hames. The handgun was also in the car.

Providence Police Chief Richard T. Sullivan said yesterday that the police were "99 percent confident" that the killer was among the dead. He refused to comment on a possible motive or whether there had been any threats of violence.

But Pacheco's sister and sister-in-law said he had been tormented by other employees over a union issue.

"They pushed people to sign into the union. They kept taunting him and taunting him and wouldn't leave him alone," said Patricia Bogacz, Pacheco's sister-in-law.

Richard Bergeron, principal officer of Local 64 of the Teamsters, said last night that he was not aware of any problems involving his union. Bergeron said that workers at the plant are not required to join the union.

All day yesterday, coworkers gathered outside the security gates at the plant, asking the questions the police were trying to answer about what happened.

Pacheco, they said, was friendly with the other three men. He was a hard worker, the "go-to guy," and had recently been promoted as an inserter. He was single, but lived with family in the city's Washington Park neighborhood. He had just bought a new black Nissan Maxima -- the car that firefighters found engulfed in flames with a body in the driver's seat.

After the police chiefs from Providence and Warwick answered questions about the deaths, the newspaper's publisher addressed the crowd of media outside the gates at the production plant.

"The Providence Journal has suffered a terrible tragedy," Publisher Howard G. Sutton said. "Our thoughts are with the families."

AT ABOUT 9:30 a.m., about 60 people were at work in The Journal's Production Facility on Kinsley Avenue.

Benetti was in the center room -- a large, warehouse-like room filled with sorting and insertion machines. His wife, Lora, and his brother, Joseph, also work in the production building.

The workers were readying the presses for the Saturday night run of The Providence Sunday Journal. Inserters were preparing to assemble sections of the Sunday newspaper that are printed in advance, such as the comics, the advertising circulars and the TV magazine.

Several other people were nearby, and the chief said some may have seen Pacheco with the gun, just before he aimed and fired at Benetti.

Then, Pacheco turned around and walked back outside -- where Charles Johnson, 30, was getting ready to go home.

Johnson had just finished his shift as a Journal delivery truck driver and was getting into his red Ford pickup, parked about 50 yards from the front door. He was in his truck, smoking a cigarette, when Pacheco walked up and shot him in the face.

Mark Colavita, a nine-year employee, drove into the lot and pulled alongside Johnson's truck. Colavita said he could see his friend inside the truck, mumbling into a cell phone.

The door was open, and Colavita said Johnson was slumped against the seat. Blood covered the front of his shirt.

"He said, 'I've been shot,' " Colavita said. "He kept saying, 'I think I'm going to die.' "

Colavita said Johnson asked him to call his wife and tell her, "Take care of my daughter."

Pacheco made three 911 calls, each time asking for the detective who had pulled him over on Route 95 earlier in the week. The last call came 10 minutes after the shootings at The Journal, according to state police Capt. Michael Iarossi.

Detective James Dougherty, who was driving an unmarked car that day, had noticed Pacheco "either driving at a high rate of speed, or weaving in and out of traffic," according to Iarossi. He stopped Pacheco and "just wanted to make sure everything was OK," Iarossi said.

Pacheco placed three calls that were received at the 911 dispatch center in North Providence, according to duty supervisor Walter Brown.

In the first call, at 9:28 a.m., Pacheco said that he had shot two people. In the second, at 9:40 a.m., he identified himself as Carlos Pacheco and asked to speak to a detective, James Dougherty, according to Brown.

The caller "said he would call back in five minutes, and if he didn't get to speak to [the detective], he would be very unhappy," Brown said.

At 9:45 a.m., "he made a third call where he just gave his name, and he was being transferred to state police, and he hung up," said Brown.

"He didn't stay on the phone long enough to be transferred," Brown said. "Maybe if he did stay on we might have been able to rationalize a little bit with him."

At 9:48 a.m., the 911 center received a call from the Kenney Manufacturing Co. about a car on fire, Brown said.

Pacheco's Nissan was parked in the middle of a lot next to the Kenney Manufacturing plant, at 1000 Jefferson Blvd., in Warwick.

Several cars were in the lot, but none was near the Nissan, which was parked in the center, between the company loading dock and a baseball field.

An off-duty Warwick firefighter doing maintenance in a Little League field nearby noticed the car engulfed in flames, said Warwick Fire Battalion Chief Andrew Baynes.

The firefighter found a dead man in the driver's seat, and a container beside him, Baynes said. He pulled on the driver's side door, but it was locked, so he rushed around to the other side of the car and yanked open the passenger door, Baynes said. He was too late.

Firefighters sprayed water on the fire, to no avail, Baynes said. The car had been doused in an accelerant that appeared to be a "polar solvent," such as turpentine or alcohol, and had to be doused with foam, he said. A second engine was called, putting out the fire in 12 to 13 minutes, he said.

The inside of the car was destroyed by flames, which roared so hot that the exterior was blackened, the taillights melted, and the tires burned.

Firefighters used power tools to extract the body from the car. As they did, police officers held up sheets and positioned themselves around the car, blocking the site from about a dozen reporters and camera crews.

The Providence police crime lab van was at the scene. The state fire marshal ordered the car towed to an impound area at the Quonset Industrial park. Meanwhile, the state police were reviewing the 911 tapes for the investigation.

BACK AT THE Journal plant, family members and employees were arriving in twos and threes, some tearfully calling the police and the plant for any word. Security guards at the gated entrance and exit kept people from entering the lot.

Donna Santagata, 39, of Smithfield, was frantic. Her older brother, John Mencunas, also of Smithfield, was working at the plant yesterday morning.

"He's like a father to me," she says. "He provided for me my whole life. They won't tell me anything."

Publisher Howard Sutton, Executive Vice President and General Manager Mark Ryan, Senior Vice President of Operations Robert Shadrick, and Executive Editor Joel Rawson were already inside.

"This is a very sad day for The Providence Journal and for Belo," said Robert W. Decherd, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Belo Corp., the parent company of The Journal. "We express our deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims. We also recognize how hurtful these events are for the entire Providence Journal Company, especially the friends and close colleagues of the deceased."

Others also arrived. Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. was driven up and immediately escorted inside.

Just before 1 p.m., Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty drove up and were also ushered inside. Fogarty later released a statement offering his condolences. "On behalf of all Rhode Islanders, I would like to express our deepest and most heartfelt sympathies to the families and loved ones of the victims of today's tragic shootings."

State Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr., of Smithfield, who is a business agent for Local 12N of the Newspaper Pressmen's Union, went inside. All four men were members of the Teamsters union, he said.

Tassoni said that he rushed to the plant after his daughter called him about 10:30 a.m. to say she had seen a televised report of the shootings. He was still dressed in the sweatshirt and jeans he had been wearing while gardening and painting at home when he received the news. Flecks of paint dotted his hands.

"When I got there the cops were coming out wearing vests and carrying machine guns," he said. "They didn't know at first whether [the gunman] was still inside."

"I can just imagine what the young ladies and men working in there are going through," he said. "They must be devastated.

Robert Varin, a distribution supervisor, said Pacheco called him on Tuesday and asked to meet for a drink on Saturday morning.

There was no message, but when Varin checked his caller ID, he said it was Pacheco's number.

"He said he wanted to ask me some questions," Varin said yesterday while waiting outside the plant. "He said he wanted some honest answers. I said, 'Carlos, what's wrong?' He said he wanted to have a drink with me on Saturday.' "

Pacheco was "a quiet kid, a great worker," Varin said. "He'd do anything you asked."

Varin called Benetti one of his best friends. He was "one of the nicest kids. Bobby never bothered a soul," Varin said. Benetti had a son and two daughters.

AT 11:05 a.m., a white-cloaked stretcher carrying the body of Benetti was wheeled out of the building and loaded into a black van. An employee paced and cradled his head, refusing to talk with anyone.

Susan Rochio arrived with her husband, Mike, and their two daughters. Susan had two brothers who worked there, Joseph and Robert Benetti.

Her niece had called, Rochio said, and told her that Robert was one of the men shot and killed.

They talked to someone behind the fence, then the family rushed back toward the car. Susan's face was red and tearstained. The two girls, Michaela, 11, and Gianna, 8, looked dazed.

MEANWHILE in Warwick, a relative of Fandetti had heard the news and called the police.

The relative asked the police to check on Fandetti, who had also worked in the production department.

It was 11:13 a.m. When officers went to 16 Adrian St., they found signs of a housebreak, said Warwick Police Chief Stephen McCartney.

Fandetti's twin sister Lynn DeSousa lives five streets over. Those at her house yesterday declined comment.

Adrian Street is a neighborhood of close-set one-story houses and towering oak trees that put most of the street in shade. Many people in the neighborhood said they knew Fandetti casually. They would always trade waves and hellos when they passed each other's houses, but even close neighbors in the densely settled neighborhood said they didn't know him that well.

Sue Wiggins, of 17 Brentwood Ave., was pulling weeds from around her rose bushes while a television reporter rehearsed his report in the street and the police removed evidence from the Fandetti's red house.

"I just knew him as a very respectful young fellow," she said. "Nice kid, nice family."

The answers to the shooting stayed with Pacheco. Even his family said they didn't understand.

"We are all in shock," said sister-in-law Bogacz. "He didn't have a violent bone in his body."

She said the family knew that Pacheco owned a pistol. He liked target shooting, she said.

Pacheco lived with his parents, Alda and Antonio Pacheco, at 151 Alabama Ave., near the Cranston city line.

By afternoon, Sutton, The Journal's publisher, called an impromptu meeting with Journal employees in the newsroom. He had already prepared a letter to be published in today's newspaper addressed to everyone who works at The Journal, offering his condolences.

With reports from Linda Borg, Marion Davis, John Hill, Bob Jagolinzer, Zachary Mider, Thomas J. Morgan, Bob Wyss and Karen Lee Ziner.

Holy crap. I went to school in Providence. And when I moved to New York, my first boss was a man named Carlos Pacheco (no relation to this one). I just had a bizarre trip down memory lane.

They pushed people to sign into the union. They kept taunting him and taunting him and wouldn't leave him alone," said Patricia Bogacz, Pacheco's sister-in-law.

Taunting him about joining the union or something else? I noticed he lived with his parents. Was that the nature of the taunts?

You gotta wonder if the guy showed symptoms of mental illness in the past. What a truly bizarre tale. I hope he really died in the car. Prayers for the families.

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Presumably the Journal will now have an added anti-gun tilt to its pages. (As opposed to an anti-forced-union tilt.)

An employee of The Providence Journal Co. fatally shot two coworkers, wounded a third...

Naturally, none of the coworkers shot back. Anyone care to wager that The Providence Journal Co. allows employees to carry on the job?

"Must be some anti-gun legislation coming up for a vote." My, such cynical ...err...astute comments.

on the contrary, anti-taunting legislation is scheduled for the next 3 months of debate... legislators are eager to pass a new law that will end this kind of needless needling before the schools open in november.... remember, it is all for the children....

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