EP. 238 - GEORGIA: 1999 ATLANTA DAY TRADING MASSACRE: MARK ORRIN BARTON

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In last week's episode we introduced you to a man named Mark Orin Barton. A good job, money. But underneath, Mark was deeply troubled. Throughout his life, he made risky and destructive decisions. He manipulated people. He seemed to always put himself before everything and everyone. But it all seemed to come to a head in nineteen ninety-three. That year, Mark's wife Deborah and her mother Eloise were brutally murdered at a campground in Alabama.

Mark was the prime suspect from day one, but investigators never made an arrest. And after a lengthy legal battle, Mark walked away with nearly$300,000 from Deborah's life insurance policy. He used that money to get into day trading during the dot com boom. But Mark's obsessive personality and love of risk-taking made his career a short one. Before long, he had lost everything: his money, his marriage.

And his grip on reality. In July of 1999, he bludgeoned his second wife and two children to death with a hammer. That's where we left off in part one. But he wasn't finished just yet. In fact, after leaving his apartment, he would make his way to his old day trading firms to commit one of the deadliest mass shootings in Georgia history. Today, we are walking you through exactly what happened that afternoon. The shooting itself.

The victims who lost their lives, the survivors, and the aftermath of this horrific tragedy. I'm Courtney Browen. And I'm Colin Browen. And you're listening to Murder in America.

In 1999, day trading was the hottest trend on Wall Street. The dot-com boom was in full swing. Internet stocks were skyrocketing. It seemed like anyone with a computer and some cash could strike it rich. And in cities all across the country, day trading firms were popping up to meet the demand. These weren't your typical brokerage houses. You didn't call up a broker and have them execute your trades.

At these firms, you opened an account, put up$25,000, sometimes$50,000, sat down at a computer terminal, and traded stocks yourself. In real time, using the software that the firms provided you with. Just like the professionals on Wall Street. It was fast. It was exciting. And for every guy who made a fortune, ten more lost their life savings.

But in 1999, no one wanted to hear about the guys who lost. They wanted to hear about the millionaires buying new convertibles and second houses, many of whom were trading in the Buckhead District in Atlanta. There you'd find glass towers, expensive restaurants, PMWs in every parking lot. If you wanted to make money, this was the place.

And in a cluster of buildings called the Piedmont Center, right off Piedmont Road, you'd find two of the most popular day trading firms in the city, All Tech Investment Group and Momentum Securities. Every day, dozens of people walked through their doors hoping to make a fortune. If you walked onto one of these trading floors in 1999, you'd see rows of traders sitting glued to their screens, numbers flashing green and red, charts refreshing every few seconds.

People leaning forward in their chairs, eyes locked on the ticker, fingers hovering over their mouse, waiting for the exact right moment to click. You'd hear keyboards clicking, computer fans humming, phones ringing, people muttering to themselves doing quick math in their heads. Every now and then, a shout of triumph when someone hit a big trade.

or a groan of defeat when the market moved against them. It feels like a casino floor, but with stock tickers instead of slot machines. Tense and electric, everyone chasing the same thing. Some people treat it like a job. They show up every morning, trade all day, and go home at night.

Others are just regular people trying to make some extra money on the side. Retirees, small business owners, people who heard the stories about ordinary folks getting rich off the stock market and wanted a piece of the action.

On Thursday, July 29, 1999, traders began filing into both Alltech and Momentum Securities around 9 a.m., just as the market opened. It had been a rough two weeks on Wall Street. The market was down. Investors were nervous. But that was a part of the game. You win some, you lose some. And today could always be the day that things turned around. So, the regulars took their seats. They logged into their accounts, and they got to work.

By early afternoon, the trading floor was buzzing. Some people were up, some people were down. But everyone was focused on their screens, trying to make the most of the day. No one had any idea that about 25 miles south, A wife and two children lay dead in their apartment. Their killer, 44-year-old Mark Barton, had just grabbed his keys off the counter. He walked outside to his green minivan. And he climbed into the driver's seat. Armed and ready. And his waistband.

A 9mm Glock and a 45 caliber coal. Both fully loaded. With extra ammunition on the side, just in case. From there, Mark pulled out of the parking lot and merged onto Interstate 75, the same highway thousands of commuters drove every single day. If you had been stuck in traffic next you wouldn't have noticed anything unusual. Just another car. Just another driver. The radio was on. Maybe talk radio. Maybe music. It didn't matter. Mark wasn't listening. He was thinking about what came next.

the faces of the people who he believed had taken his money, who had shut down his accounts, and sent him packing. In Mark's mind, what happened wasn't his fault. It was theirs. He passed a woman in a red sedan, singing along to something on her stereo. A man in a pickup truck, one arm hanging out the window. A minivan full of kids. Probably heading to a summer camp or a birthday party. None of them had any idea that the man in the green minivan next. Mark Barton looked like everyone else.

Else on that highway, just another face in traffic. The Atlanta skyline grew larger on the horizon. He knew exactly where he was going and who he wanted to see. People who would never see him coming.

The parking lot near Piedmont Center was full of cars baking in the hot July sun. Mark pulled his green minivan into one of the few empty spaces, stepped out, and straightened his shirt. He was wearing a pink shirt and slacks, and looked like any southern middle-aged dad, out to enjoy a day in the sun, and maybe swing by the golf course later. In fact, as he walked towards the Momentum Securities building, he was smiling.

Outside in the courtyard, a momentum day trader named Rick Penley closed his eyes as he leaned against a granite slab. It had been a tough day at the office. The market was continuing to slide. Some people inside were spiraling. Others shrugged, assuring everyone that the market would come around. And all he wanted, standing there away from the noise, was a cigarette. He popped one between his lips and dug in his pocket for a lighter. Then there was a click.

He looked up to see Mark Barton grinning at him, lighting the end of his cigarette with the zippo. Rick laughed. Thanks, Mark. Where the hell have you been? Mark tucked the zippo in his pocket and casually responded, Oh, I've been around. Then he added with a smile, Rick, you gonna stick around for the bloodbath this afternoon? Now, Rick assumed Mark was talking about the market. With the way the stocks were falling, it sometimes felt like a bloodbath to your account.

Rick had no idea what Mark truly meant, and it seems Mark took pleasure in that. Before Rick could even respond, Mark was bounding towards the front doors of momentum. Rick shrugged and took a drag of his cigarette. Mark had always been a person full of energy, always on the move. He thought nothing more of the interaction. At least he was.

Until later. When Mark walked into Momentum, several people looked up from their computers and nodded. Some waved. He was a familiar face around there. He had been trading at Momentum for months. People knew him by name and they liked him. Mark strolled up to the reception desk. where one of the office workers, Marcy Bookings, greeted him with a smile.

Leaning on the desk, casual and friendly, Mark told her, Listen, Marcy, I want to make a wire deposit into my account, but I need to talk to Justin first. I have two hundred thousand I'm prepared to put in, but I want to make sure he's willing to let me trade again. Justin was Justin Hoen, the branch manager, the man who had fired Mark. The man who Mark owed$185,000. But Marcy told him that Justin was actually out of the office.

You can try calling him if you'd like, she said. So that's exactly what he did. Mark stepped aside and called him. When Justin answered the phone, he was actually relieved to hear from Mark. With the amount of money he owed, Justin always figured that Mark would disappear with his death. But instead, here he was offering to pay it.

After Mark's spiel, Justin told him, Mark, it's great to hear from you. I'm at the store right now, but I'll be back in a few. If you're going to wire that in, go ahead and get started trading until I get back. So, Mark waited. He smiled at the people walking by. Someone asked him how his trading was going. Mark replied, Oh, you know how it goes. At some point he wandered into the break room. Joe Skipper, a fellow day trader, was there. Joe would later say quote, he had a smile on his face.

He looked me in the eye and asked me how I was doing. I told him, great. From there, Mark drifted back out to the trading floor. He laughed at someone's joke. He asked about someone's weekend. He commented on how hot it was outside. But the whole time, he kept glancing at the door, waiting for Justin Hohen to stroll in. His smile grew more and more tense with every passing second.

Justin was meant to be his first victim. But when Mark strolled into the coffee room and met the eye of Kevin Dial, the branch's co-manager, his plans changed. As Kevin approached the coffee pot, he couldn't help but notice that Mark's traditional, carefree smile was clouded by something else. His jaw was clenched. Despite the AC blasting in the room, beads of sweat peppered his forehead. An uneasy feeling washed over Kevin. Wanting to keep it at bay, he tried to make small talk. Hey Mark.

How's it going? Kevin said. Mark forced his tight smile even tighter. Hanging in there. They stood there talking for a few minutes about how trading had been going that day. It's pretty bad out there, Kevin said. Just a terrible day to be on the market. Mark shifted uncomfortably. Kevin assumed the conversation was over, until, oddly, Mark said, It's a bad trading day.

And it's about to get worse. Kevin almost flashed an uncomfortable smile. It was a strange thing to say. He turned to look at Mark to read his face.

And that's when he realized that Mark was right. Things were about to get worse. Because Mark Barton had pulled two guns from his waistband. Then, coldly, he pointed the Glock at Kevin's chest. He pointed the colt in the center of his back. Sandwiching him between the two powerful weapons. Then, he squeezed the triggers. In a fraction of a second.

The bullets exploded through Kevin's heart and pierced his left lung. They burst out of his body, leaving tennis ball sized holes on either side of his torso. Blood spattered like a fountain, coating the time zone clocks on the wall and raining down on the nearest desks. Instantly, he dropped to the ground. Kevin Dial was dead before he even had a chance to realize what was happening.

If anyone understood the value of life, it was Kevin Dial. At 34 years old, he had been sitting in a cold medical office facing a doctor who had a hard, sullen look on their face. They told him the words no one ever expects to hear you have an inoperable brain tumor. Kevin's whole world had changed in an instant. The doctors told him there was little hope. He had a year, maybe two, maybe three. But Kevin refused to let it define him. He took medication to prevent seizures.

He kept working, he kept living, he kept showing up every day with that same smile, that same warmth, that same ability to make everyone around him feel special. Kevin's father was Buddy Dial. If you're a football fan, you might recognize that name. Buddy Dial was an NFL wide receiver who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys back in the 1960s.

A year earlier, Kevin had transferred from Houston to Atlanta to open the Momentum office, but he was already planning the move back to Texas. The night before he died, he forwarded an email to a friend. It read, Every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that it is special. Every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God. Kevin's younger sister would later say, Kevin was my closest friend, and I loved him more than anything in this world.

After learning of his death, she said, I'm pretty sure you are with Elvis, having cocktails, trying to convince God to let John Belushi visit. That was Kevin, the man who could make anyone laugh and who reminded them that life was worth living. As Kevin Dial dropped to the ground, the sound of the two shots echoed through the office like an explosion. Traitors looked up from their screens.

Eyes went wide. In the wake of the ear splitting gunshots, there was a moment of complete silence. No one dared to speak. Everybody held their breath. Then, after that moment frozen in time, chaos erupted. Someone screamed. A chair crashed to the floor. A woman dove under her desk. A man shoved past a coworker and sprinted for the exit, knocking a monitor off a table in the process. But Mark didn't flinch.

In fact, he seemed to relish in the fact that everyone feared him. Finally, he had the power he had craved since he was in high school. He coldly stepped over Kevin's body and walked deeper into the office. Slow, methodical, his face blank, like this was something he had rehearsed. A hundred times in his head. Kevin and Justin had been the first targets. Now everyone was fair game. He held out both guns like a villain in an old movie. And taking his time, he stepped down the aisle of computers.

firing at anyone in his path. A fellow day trader, Andrew Zaprazala, looked up just in time to see Mark aiming right at him. Searing pain burnt in the side of his torso. Breathing felt like forcing fire into his lungs. Andrew gasped as he laid on the floor in agony. He thought to himself, We're all going to be killed here. He told The Times, quote, As I was hit and I fell to the floor, I'm lying there.

I'm keeping my eyes closed because I'm trying to move as little as possible to make sure he doesn't come back and shoot me again. End quote. Andrew had been shot in the ridge. One lung was punctured, and two ribs shattered. But there he laid, trying to push the pain away so Mark would think he was already dead. Around him, people were beginning to scream in agony as other shots rang out.

Andrew recalled, quote, there was a person that was hurt really, really bad. That sound will never get away from me. There was nothing I could do. Just a few desks over, 58-year-old Edward Quinn was trapped. He had no time to escape. After a lifetime of meaning, this was it. This was the end. Ed had spent 33 years at UPS, working his way up from entry-level package handler to Southeast Regional Director for Security. He'd been married to his wife Marie for 31 of those years.

And just a few weeks earlier, on the 4th of July, his grandson Bryce had been born. Ed couldn't stop talking about that baby. He was already making plans. He wanted to teach him about Notre Dame football, take him fly fishing, watch him grow up. He wanted to travel the world, golfing at every famous course he could find. That was his goal for retirement. But within that office, Mark turned toward him.

Edward Quinn turned his head as the bullet bore into his neck. Because he turned, the bullet exited, then re-entered his neck, where it sliced his jugular vein. He slumped onto his desk as blood pooled on his papers and keyboard. Edward Quinn had been a grandfather for 25 days. That's all he got. Mark Barton robbed him of more for no reason at all. One of his sons would later say he was the kindest man ever.

He left behind his wife Marie, his three children, and a grandson, who he never got to spoil like he so desperately wanted to. Yet Mark was unfazed. Around him, people were crying, screaming. The air was rancid with the scent of gunpowder. Smoke clouded the vision of all innocent people desperate to escape, crawling on their hands and knees, trying to find somewhere to hide. Some were trapped.

Frozen in fear, unable to move. Spent shell casings clinked against the floor, and through it all, Mark was calm. He kept scanning the room looking for his next target. At times, he even had a smile on his face, like he was playing around of paintball with his good friend. When he spotted forty two year old Russell Brown, his finger itched for the trigger. Russell was crawling on the ground, desperate to make his way towards the exit.

He couldn't believe his life had led up to this moment. Russell was born in Clarence, New York, a suburb of Buffalo. He was a star athlete in high school. Track, swimming. He was smart too. He graduated from the University of Miami with an accounting degree and became a CPA. His mother said he was a math whiz from the fifth grade on. She stated, numbers just made sense to him. That's why he loved day trading. His girlfriend said, like other people loved golf, he loved day trading.

Russell lived in a lakeside house in Cumming, Georgia with his longtime girlfriend. They had two parrots and two cats. It was a peaceful life. But here's what tells you who Russell Brown really was. He had been in law school, one quarter away from graduating, one quarter away from becoming a lawyer, and he dropped out because his father was dying. Russell wanted to be there for him. He spent every moment he could caring for his father in his final days.

He gave up his degree to be by his dad's side. His mother and girlfriend described him as so kind he couldn't bear to kill a bug. But as Mark stared at him, he didn't care about any of that. In his twisted mind, he saw nothing but an enemy, someone who made more money than he did. So he raised his pistol, and Russell's body slumped to the floor. Several people were now dead on the floor of Momentum Securities. Blood was pooling on the carpets. Bodies were slumped over desks, crumpled in corners.

And sprawled out in the aisles between the trading stations, those who were still alive were shaking in their hiding spots, waiting for this nightmare to end. But Mark wasn't done. He looked across the room one more time. By now, many people had already fled the building, or they were hiding. Some were wounded, some would carry bullets and scars for the rest of their lives.

Mark wasn't aiming for anyone in particular now, just anyone he could find. In a nearby inner office, two traders named Glenn Miller and Joe Skipper heard the shots. Shots that were between them and the exit. They had to save themselves. Panicked, they tipped over a large metal desk. Using both of their strength, they lodged the desk against the door. But they feared that it wouldn't be good enough. They both scrambled to the window, trying to see if there was any way they could escape.

But there was a problem. They were three stories up. As they contemplated whether they could survive the fall, a noise silenced them. Footsteps were approaching. Then the door shook. With a loud thud, Mark threw his body weight against it several times. Glenn and Joe watched in horror as the desk inched further and further into the room. Mark was two hundred and forty pounds. He was throwing his entire body weight against the door. Glenn and Joe had no choice.

They sprinted across the room, throwing their body weight against the desk. trying to keep the door closed. They strained against the force Mark was putting on the door. It seemed like at any instant, it was going to fly open, and Mark would mow them both down. But then, Seemingly out of nowhere, Mark stopped pushing. Heaving for breath, the two waited in silence, but they didn't dare let go of the desk. There they stood, panting, terrified, and unsure of what was going to come next.

Then they heard it. Mark shot two rounds through the door. A bullet whizzed by Joe's face, missing him by mere inches. It took everything in him to hold back a scream. Then, after yet another few seconds of agonizing silence, Mark's footsteps began to recede. Terrified he would come back, Glenn and Joe grabbed a computer monitor and hurled it through the third floor window. If it came down to it, if Mark came back to kill them, they would jump.

In the aftermath, Glenn told reporters, quote, I was ready to jump out of that third story window. It was all surreal. The sounds inside Momentum Securities were deafening. Screams, gunshots, the crash of computer monitors shattering. People were huddled under desks, hands over their heads praying for it to stop. Some were crying, some were silent, too terrified to make a sound.

Others were whispering to each other or calling loved ones to tell them they loved them, saying prayers they thought might be their last.

Then there was thirty year old Scott Webb. Scott was in another room when the shooting began, the closed office, where he was training a newcomer named Brad Shomel. When Scott heard the mayhem begin, he didn't hide from the action, he walked towards it. He cracked open the door of the office, trying to see what was happening, and that's when he locked eyes with Mark.

That's when he saw the two guns smoking in his former co-worker's hand. He tried to duck back into the office to call 911, wanting to save as many people as he could. And that's how we think Scott deserves to be remembered. He was born in San Mateo, California, but moved to Atlanta to pursue day trading. There, in spite of his busy schedule, he made the people around him a priority, regardless of how close they were.

A neighbor once said, a lot of single people don't take the time to really be kind to their neighbors. He was such a nice young man and always had time for a beautiful smile. That day, as Scott reached for his phone, Mark Barton squeezed the trigger on his 45. Scott was just 30 years old. He left behind his parents, his sister Liz, and nieces and nephews who called him Uncle Scotty. His family would have to fly his body back to California. Beside him, 24-year-old Brad Chommel hid behind a desk.

But Mark noticed him. He raised his gun and fired once, twice, three times. Three bullets tore through Brad's body at point blank range, one in his right shoulder, two above the waist, right in the center of his back. He went down, swallowing the unimaginable pain. He closed his eyes as the warmth of his own blood soaked his shirt, and he prayed. There was nothing he could do but lie on the ground, pray, and wait for Mark to leave. Slowly, Mark's footsteps faded.

He had walked out of the small office room and back into the main trading room to admire his work. Down the hall, in a completely different office suite, a woman named Melinda Batch was at her desk. She didn't work for Momentum Security. She wasn't a day trader. She worked for a different company that just so happened to be on the same floor. As far as she knew, it was a normal Thursday afternoon.

The summer sun was streaming through the windows, the air conditioning was working nonstop. Just another day at the office. Then she heard something. A sound she couldn't quite place. A series of pops coming from down the hall. She paused, listened. Tried to figure out what it was. In an era before mass shootings were common, no one immediately thought it was a gunman. Maybe it was construction, something falling. Whatever it was, it didn't make sense.

Then the door flew open, and in stumbled Brad Chomel, the trainee who had just been shot several times. Blood gushed from a wound in his arm. His shirt was soaked with red, from gunshots scattered across his chest. It was like seeing a dead man walking. Melinda rose from her desk. a shaking hand covering her shocked expression. Oh my God, she yelled. What happened?

Brad, barely able to catch his breath, told her, I've been shot. There's a maniac on the loose, suite three hundred. He's shooting people. At two fifty six PM, Melinda grabbed the phone and dialed 911. There's a man bleeding in my office. I'm in the management office. He said somebody was shot. He is in suite three hours. There's a man bleeding in three hundred.

But you don't know what's wrong with the man in in three hundred. The man in three hundred has been shot and is bleeding. Okay. The man is there's somebody in three pent Where I'm on the phone nine one one. They're on their way. Okay, ma'am. Yeah, I think they didn't call with me. Okay, how many people have been shot? I do not know. How old? Do you know about how old this man is that this guy that's leaving his week three heights? He's an adult. I do not know. It's because

Yes, yes, you sandy tree. They just made him sit down there. Yes, yes. Where did this happen? Within the last five minutes. I do not know. It's the alert. I do believe so. Did you know what part of the body was in this? Where is he got? In the arm. Upper part of his arm or lower part? Upper part or lower part? Sorry, what part of his body? His left upper arm. Can I unlock the door, please? Is there more than one room? I do not know. Is there an hysterious thing? There's it is covered in blood.

The police were on their way. But Mark was in no rush. He continued on as if he had all the time in the world. He calmly put the guns in his waistband and pushed through the glass doors, headed for the stairs. With the threat now gone, survivors were trying to help each other. A trader named John Cabrera moved through the floor, stopping at each person to offer a hand. He knelt beside a man on the floor, pressed his hands to the man's chest, and started CPR.

But after a few compressions, he knew. He would later say, I tried to administer CPR to one of them, but then I realized he was gone. From there, John looked around, spotted another man nearby, still conscious, still breathing, but fading. John crawled over to him. The man was trying to speak, trying to say something. John recalled. I went to the man who was still conscious on the floor, and I called his wife for him.

Meanwhile, Mark Barton was leaving the scene. He walked down three flights of stairs out into the lobby. Right past a security guard who didn't seem to notice him. Mark walked out the front doors of Momentum Securities and into the afternoon sun. The heat hit him immediately. It was nearing one hundred degrees. The humidity was thick in the air. Mark paused on the sidewalk.

He took a deep breath. His shirt was soaked through with sweat. His hands were slick. There was blood on his forearms, on his collar, spattered across his knuckles. He didn't wipe it off. He didn't try to hide it. He just stood there for a moment, watching the traffic roll by on Piedmont Road. Cars full of people heading home from work, heading to lunch. Heading to pick up their kids. None of them stopped.

None of them looked twice at the tall man in the pink shirt standing outside the office building. Behind him, people were dying. They were bleeding out on the floor, screaming for help. And out here, the world just kept moving. Mark waited for a gap in traffic. He then stepped off the curb and crossed Piedmont Road, slow, steady, like he was headed to a lunch meeting, like he was in no rush at all.

But he wasn't finished with his reign of terror just yet. Across the street was Altec, the other trading firm. Inside were people he used to work with, people he owed money to, people he intended on killing. No one at Altec knew that a shooting had taken place across the street, and Mark Barton calmly walked through the door. Through another lobby.

right past another security guard who didn't seem to notice him. He walked up another set of stairs onto the trading floor, and once again he found himself standing in a room of people who had no idea what was coming. Inside All Tech Investment Group, the afternoon was winding down. It had been another rough day. Some were trying to stay positive, others just sat there doing the math on how much they'd lost.

In the corner, a group of students worked on their training accounts, still learning the rope. On the other side of the room, a man was on the phone with his wife, telling her he'd be home by six. Another was arguing with a buddy about the Braves' chances this season.

Someone had just made a joke about the coffee. Too weak as usual. A woman was planning her vacation out loud to anyone who would listen. The market would close soon. People were already thinking about dinner and traffic and what they'd watch on TV that night. Then a man walked through the front door. People recognized him. He had traded there for months before switching to momentum. Nearby, twenty-two-year-old Meredith Forrester glanced up from her desk.

She wasn't a trader, just a staff member. Seven weeks into her first real job out of college, Meredith said, Mark Barton breezed in. I said, Hi Mark, and he breezed by. At one of the long trading tables near the center of the room, Fred Herter looked up from his screen. He and Mark had become friendly over the months, probably closer than anyone else in the office. Fred would later say, I actually greeted him. We exchanged some niceties.

But something was off. Mark was drenched in sweat. His answers were short, clipped. Fred stated, But at the time I didn't pay much attention. Mark kept walking toward the back offices. Someone noticed spatters of red on his hands, forearms, and collar. They figured he must have been painting. Mark didn't make eye contact with the people he was passing.

He was focused on Brent Doonan. If you recall, Brent was the co manager of Alltech, along with Scott Manspeaker. At the time, Brent was coaching some new employees in the back corner behind a large window. But upon looking up, he sees Mark Barton, his old colleague. Brent was actually thrilled to see him. It had been a while. And it seemed like Mark was happy to see him too. Brent would later say, quote, he gave me that same quirky smile he always had, end quote.

There was a pane of glass that separated the two. Mark, still smiling, motioned for Brent to come outside. Brent put up a finger, telling Mark that it would be a minute. But Mark didn't have a minute. He began to pace back and forth in front of the glass, like a lion in a zoo exhibit. After only a brief moment, he tapped on the glass with his knuckles. This time, his friendly expression was gone. Now, he looked angry.

Brent thought to himself, Good God, what does he want? Mark wasn't typically impatient, and Brent had never seen such an angry look on his face. So he motioned for Mark to come in. Instantly, Mark brightened, beaming as he strolled into the room. He then told Brent, Hey, I need to talk to you. It's important. Can I have a minute? Brent nodded. He told him he'd come out in just a second.

As Mark turned to walk out, he flashed a bright smile over his shoulder, telling him, Hurry up, Brent. You're really gonna love this. After walking out of the room, Mark spotted Altech's co-founder, Scott Manspeaker. He was in a small office with his assistant, Kathy Van Camp. Mark made his way over and engaged in some small talk. A few moments later, Brent Dunan emerged from the back room and joined them in the office.

Finally, Mark had them exactly where he wanted them. But instead of talking about why he was there, he did something strange. Mark reached up nonchalantly, and he closed the blind separating the office from the main trading floor. Then, as if what he had done was totally normal, he slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him. Kathy and Scott exchanged an uneasy look. But always one to break the tension, Kathy quipped, What's he gonna do? Kill us?

It was such a ridiculous suggestion that everyone in the room laughed. They had always referred to Mark as the Rocket. He was loud, animated. Friendly. They liked him. Sure, he had gotten himself into some trouble. But as far as they knew, he was a good person. They were about to be proved wrong.

Shortly after leaving the room, Mark reentered, once again closing the door behind him. In the book Murder at the Office, Brent describes what happens next in his own words. He calmly closed the door. Suddenly, an uneasy feeling crossed my mind. With the blinds closed, I felt shut off not only from the office but from the world. Mark turned and stood in front of me, roughly four feet away. Though I was nervous, I tried to be positive.

The fact that he entered the room with the remnants of a smile on his face gave me some reassurance that he was up to something good. Making eye contact with me as he turned from closing the door, Mark's smile faded, giving way to a cold, blank stare into a vacant nothingness. It was as if he was looking through me and not at me. Well, what is it? I asked, hoping to hear something good come out of his mouth. Ignoring my question, he spoke in a cool, calculated tone. Today is going to be visual.

I had but a brief second to ponder his carefully chosen words as he was on the move. What's that supposed to mean? I thought as I replayed his words in my head. His words and his expression did not match his initial jovial and excited demeanor. I had not even finished repeating his statement when it registered to me that something was terribly wrong.

After Mark said, Today is going to be visual, he lifted up his shirt, revealing the two guns he had already used to commit the massacre at Momentum across the street. He pulled the guns from his waistband and crossed. Toss them over one another, like a cowboy in an old western. For a brief instant, Brent wondered if it was a prank. He thought to himself, they're cap guns, kids' toys. Then Mark proved him wrong.

Two bullets ripped through Brent's body, one in his gut and one in his arm. Immediately, he collapsed to the floor. As he lay there, Brent watched his own blood spread in a widening pool on the carpet. My god, this is a good one. This is real, he thought. That son of a bitch just shot me. He would later say, I thought he was my friend. One second he's smiling, and the next second his face goes blank and you're on the floor after being shot. And sadly, Mark wasn't done yet.

More gunshots filled the room. Brent would later write this. As the sound of gunshots continued to ring out, I felt the pain intensifying. I felt like I'd been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. As my stomach strained and tightened in agony, I couldn't move. Neither could Scott Manspeaker. As soon as he saw Brent go down, he tried to run. But there wasn't any time. Mark turned to him and fired. Scott dropped to the ground.

Kathy Van Camp was standing near the door. She had no time to react either. Mark raised his gun and fired. The bullet tore through her skull and lodged behind her eyes. Everything went black. The three of them were on the ground now, bleeding. Brent recalled this. The way I landed, I couldn't see Scott or Kathy. Both were behind me. I didn't want to move, so I couldn't look for them. Barton would see that I was alive.

So I lay facing the computer printer exactly the way I landed. I saw the shell casings, the blood flowing under me. I am now ashamed of my thoughts as they jumped around quickly, escape, survive, and worry about the others later. But I suppose that's what goes through everyone's mind when they're dying or wounded.

Survival After shooting Brent, Scott, and Kathy, Mark swung the office door open to the room full of day traders. He stood in the doorway, a gun in each hand. His face was emotionless. Like he was walking out of a business meeting, not a room full of bodies. For a few seconds on the trading floor, no one moved. About two dozen people were scattered about the room. The ones closest to the office just stared, confused, trying to make sense of what they just heard.

of what they were seeing. One woman standing right in front of him was 53 year old Nell Jones. She looked right into Mark's eyes. She would later say, quote, he was someone who was very calm and determined. He looked like he had no feelings, end quote. She thinks she may have even smiled at him. Some instinct. Like maybe if she seemed friendly, he'd spare her life. But Nell was sadly mistaken. Just ten feet away, he raised his gun at her, pointing it directly at her face.

And then he pulled the trigger. But just as he did, Mark jolted forward. A shoulder pushed into his back from behind. Mark stumbled as he fired the gun. Because of this, the bullet shot off course. Just barely missing Nell's face as she stared at him wide-eyed. The bullet hit the computer monitor behind her instead, shattering it. Sparks flew, but Nell was still alive. All thanks to the person who body slammed Mark. And that person was someone Mark was certain he had already killed. Brent Dunan.

Brent knew he had to get out of there. After body slamming Mark from behind, he quickly ran towards the exit. Frustrated, Mark fired twice more at Brent. One shot ricocheted through his left arm, the other exploded out of his chest. But by that point Brent was in complete shock. He felt nothing but adrenaline pumping through his body. Underneath the fear, the uncertainty, and the reasoning, there was one thing driving him, his animalistic need to survive.

So, Brent made a run for it. As he stumbled along, his hand pressed to his chest. Where one bullet had passed through him with ease. He tried to put pressure on the wound, but blood spurted out from between his fingers. He thought over and over, there's nothing I can do to stop it. Brent had to use his other hand to support his failing body as he willed himself to make it to the elevator. He left a smear of blood on the wall as he limped along. In his book, Brent writes this.

Although I had been down this path a million times before, I felt as if I was in a surreal version of it. The hallway colors faded and the walls and carpets seemed to vanish as I found myself in a world of blacks, grays, and whites. The bright fluorescent lights in the ceiling hovered over me, their emittance was clouded by a misty haze of grey and white. Brent's body was starting to shut down. At this point, he had already lost two pints of blood.

His blue shirt had been completely dyed a deep brownish red. Brent didn't think he could do it. But he made it to the elevator on his hands and knees. In his book, he recalls pleading, please God, don't let me die. I don't want to die. In desperation, he reached up, pressing every button in the elevator that he could reach. Anything to get him off this floor.

He thought God answered his prayers as the doors began to close. But through the narrowing gap, Brent saw his worst nightmare. Mark Barton was charging towards him, gun raised. His finger tight and ready on the trigger. The gap closed just as Mark fired the bullet.

The doors had closed just in time. As the elevator moved to an upper floor, Brent gasped for breath and sat with his pain. When the doors finally opened, strangers rushed over. They didn't know what had happened, but they could see the blood. They grabbed whatever they could find paper towels, napkins, and they pressed them to his wounds, trying to stop the bleeding. Brent was safe, but downstairs the nightmare continued. The Conspiracy Files is the most explosive show on the internet.

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Upon firing into the crowd of people on the trading floor, the screening started immediately. The noise was deafening. Off the walls, computer monitors exploding, glass shattering, people screaming, chairs crashing to the floor. Someone knocked over a trash can as they ran. Papers flew everywhere. Account statements, trade confirmations, and coffee stain memos. fluttering down through the chaos like confetti. The lights buzzed overhead.

indifferent, bathing everything in that same flat white glow. A ceiling tile had been knocked loose by a stray bullet, It hung at an angle swaying slightly. The air was thick with gunsmoke mixed with sweat and fear. And underneath it all, a metallic scent. Blood. Already spreading across the carpet and scarlet pools, Chris Brennan was in the furthest corner of the office that afternoon. Past the twenty five foot row of trading desks, past the cubicles.

He was a part of the group of students that were learning how to trade. Chris was 47 years old, a former manufacturer's rep for a jeans company. He had paid$3,000 for a three-week boot camp to learn how to day trade. Earlier that afternoon, he and the other students were doing what they always did, running simulated trades, watching the numbers, paper trades.

Nothing real yet. Just practice. Then they heard the gunshots come from behind that closed office door. Chris Brennan later told the Times, I thought someone was banging on the filing cabinets. Except the sounds were more crisp and louder. He paused before adding, as if to explain himself, who expects to hear gunfire? Chris and his fellow students were confused. Then the office door swung open.

Chris said that Mark Barton started blasting people. He was shooting people at their terminals. As everyone started fleeing, running towards the exit, Chris and the other students stayed frozen. They weren't near an exit. If they tried to flee, they'd have to pass Mark. They knew they'd likely die. So they stayed put, pressed behind desks, against the wall, and into each other. Their bodies quivered as a terrified collective.

From where they crouched, they couldn't see Mark, but they could hear him. The crack of gunfire, the thud of bodies. Screams of anguish. Footsteps moving down that 25 foot row of desks. Someone was crying. Someone else was pleading. Then another shot. Chris Brennan would later say that he heard at least 15 to 20 shots.

And if you look up this story, that back corner where all those students were located is often referred to as the Amen corner, because piled into that back corner, all they could do was hold their breath and pray. They listened as the gunshots continued. They heard the gunman's footsteps moving one direction, then another, but never towards them. Chris later told the Times, quote, five of us were in the corner, not near the exit. I think that's what saved us, end quote.

But sadly, there were several people around the room that were directly in Mark's path. At the long conference table at Altec, Fred Herter saw Mark come towards him, guns raised. He later said quote, he started shooting, and I started trying to get under the table. On my way down, he hit me with one shot in my kidney area. End quote. Fred hit the floor. He would survive, but the bullet would stay lodged in his body for the rest of his life.

Defredz left. thirty nine year old Yusuf Leberzon never saw it coming. Two bullets tore through his skull. Yusuf collapsed, blood surrounding him on the floor. Somehow, he would survive. But the damage was catastrophic. Those bullets to the head left him with permanent physical disabilities that would alter the course of his life forever. Then to Fred's right, there was forty eight year old Allen Tennenbaum.

Alan saw the chaos erupting around him. He looked around frantically. But where could he go? Then Mark turned towards him. Alan was a native Atlantin, born and bred. He owned a grocery store called Great Savings, but that's not what people remembered about him. Alan was the president of Congregation Or Veshalom, a Sephardic synagogue in Atlanta. A man of deep faith, he jogged several miles each day and was planning a pilgrimage to Israel the following year, seeking the cathartic experience.

Of walking where his ancient ancestors had also walked. He had three children with his wife, Deborah, two daughters, and a young son, Scott, who was only three years old. His kids, his brother in law said, they were the most important thing to him. Fred Herter was beneath the table. He had been shot in the kidney. And then he watched as the people he was just sitting with dropped to the ground next to him. Fred laid still, trying not to move.

Trying not to breathe. He would later say, quote, Yusuf was lying down in his blood, end quote. On the other side of him, Alan. It was clear that Alan was already dead. Fred would later say quote, right from the beginning he was dead. He didn't move. He just laid on the floor, end quote. Across the room, Meredith Forrester had heard the popping sounds from the small office.

She would later say, quote, I thought maybe a computer monitor was shorting, or maybe there was a fire, so I turned to run out, end quote. However, she never made it. She later said, quote, as I was running out the door, I was shot in the back. I fell and I couldn't walk. I couldn't get up. End quote. Meredith lay on the floor, unable to move her legs. She would need two surgeries and a year of physical therapy before she could walk again. Not far from her was fifty-two year old Dean Delawalla.

He was sprinting for the exit when the bullet hit him. Dean had come to America from Pakistan and had big dreams of becoming a lawyer, and he made it happen through hard work. He built a career as an attorney, but the year before, he had given up his law practice to focus on options trading. He married a woman named doctor Gulshin Harji, who was a well respected doctor, and they had two kids together.

In fact, his beloved daughter, Shahawa, was turning four years old that very day. They had a party planned for that coming Sunday, where they would go to Chuck E. Cheese and play all the games. She had been looking forward to it all week, telling anyone who would listen about the ball pit and the cheese pizza and the ski ball.

Instead of a birthday party, the family would end up having to plan for a funeral. Dean's brother Fred would later say, The way it looks, the funeral may be Sunday. Dean Delawalla never made it to his daughter's birthday party. Shahalla turned four years old just as her father was taking his final breaths. Just down the hall, sixty year old Joseph J. Desert saw Mark coming towards him. He tried to dock behind a desk. But it wasn't enough. A single shot took him from everyone he loved.

Everyone who loved him. And truly, that list of people was longer than most of us can even dream of. Everyone called him Big Joe. He'd earned the nickname back at Marist, where he'd been a football star. Six decades later, it still fit. Not just because of his size, but because of his personality. Big heart, big laugh. He never had a bad word to say about anyone.

Joe was a retired real estate broker from Marietta. He didn't need to be at Alltech that day. He was just dabbling in day trading for fun. It was something to keep his mind sharp. He didn't have many relatives, but he had great friends. People who knew him talked about his kindness, his reliability, the way he'd encourage you when you were down, the way he'd make you laugh when you needed it most. But in an instant, Big Joe was gone. And seconds later, Jamshid Havash followed.

Jamshid was a 45-year-old refugee from Iran. He had fled during the revolution and come to America in hopes of a stable future. Instead, he found more violence. As he took his last breath on the carpet of Altec, His wife Roya and his seven year old daughter Tanaz were fast asleep in Tehran, where they were visiting relatives. When the family and Tehran got the call, they didn't tell Roya the truth. A family member later said, quote, We told Roya that Jamshit had been shot.

That he was in a coma. We knew it would take a long time to get home, a 20-hour flight from Tehran, and we wanted to give them some hope. End quote. Six days after the shooting, Roya and Tanaz finally landed in Atlanta, but Jamshid wasn't there to meet them. His daughter Tanaz kept asking, why wasn't Daddy at the airport? She didn't know yet.

She didn't know he was never coming home. Jamshid wasn't the only person at Alltech that fateful day who had fled another country to try and find safety in America.

Forty four year old Vadawadi Maradhara was originally from Trinidad. She and her husband, a pediatrician named Dr. Ketzerkoppel Maradlidhara, had moved to America in 1994 to escape the violence back home. They'd been held up at gunpoint on their own doorstep in Trinidad, and they thought they'd be safer here. They settled in Peachtree City with their two children and began new lives, bringing pieces of Trinidad with them that they loved, like Vadawadi's famous black rum cake.

She'd bake it for every occasion. Neighbors, friends, church members, everyone knew that cake. Her son Rishi, who always begged her to make it, would never taste it again. Because the day of the shooting, Adawadi was at Altec, not day trading or trying to make a fortune, she was simply in an office there taking a computer class. She was shot in the hallway by Mark Barton, a man she had never met. In the aftermath, her husband was exhausted with grief.

She has been with me all the time, he said, unable to use the past tense. She is my backbone. His eyes told all, but he said it nonetheless, so softly his very voice ached. I'm going to miss her a lot. Their son Rishi decided to skip his next semester at Georgia State. I'm going to take care of my dad, he said. Otherwise, every day he'll come back to an empty house.

Five people were now dead on the trading floor at Alltech Investment Group. Combined with the four victims at Momentum Securities, that was nine people that had been murdered in roughly 20 minutes.

By then, the screaming had faded to whimpers. The chaos had settled into an eerie stillness. In total, Mark Barton had fired 39 shots inside those two offices. He had done exactly what he came to do. As he stood there in the middle of that trading floor, smoke curling from his gun. Bodies at his feet. Mark Barton felt powerful. He hadn't felt this way in a while, but all around him people were crouched under their desk.

hiding behind chairs, cowering in corners. They were looking up at him with terror in their eyes. They were all willing to do anything, say anything, promise anything. If he would just let them live. Mark Barton, the failed chemist, the failed traitor, the failed husband and father, the man who couldn't stop losing. He felt like he had the power of God in that moment. He decided who lived and who died. It was the kind of control he never had over anything else in his life.

Mark Barton looked around the room one last time. Then he yelled out, I hope this doesn't ruin your trading day. With that, he tucked his pistols back into his waistband. He turned towards the door and walked out, no running, no panic. He simply stepped out the front door of All Tech Investment Group and into the warm July afternoon. The sun was still shining. Traffic was still moving down Piedmont Road. Atlanta was still going about its Thursday.

He walked across the parking lot, climbed into his green minivan, and drove away.

He drove past the swarm of first responders who had arrived at Momentum Securities across the street. They actually arrived on scene at 3 01 PM, five minutes after the first 911 call. The police didn't know what they were walking into. They didn't know that the shooter was already across the street, shooting up another building. All they knew was that someone had open fired inside Momentum Securities.

As they made their way into the building, they drew their weapons. The lobby was in complete chaos. People streamed down the stairs. A woman pushed past them, mascara streaking down her face. A man stumbled out of the stairwell, his shirt soaked red, holding his arm in pure agony. The officers moved towards the stairs. Three flights up. They pushed through the door on the third floor. Gunpowder still hung in the air. Desks were overturned.

Chairs knocked sideways. Computer monitors shattered. One officer moved through the room, stepping carefully around the shell casings that scattered across the carpet. The air smelled like a firing range. He had been a cop for years. He had seen car accidents, domestic disputes, drug deals gone wrong, but nothing like this.

Body slumped over desks. A man in the corner, eyes open, staring at nothing. Nearby, there was another man on the ground, his shirt dark with blood. His lips were moving, but no sound was coming out. The officer knelt beside him. Stay with me, he said. Help is coming. Somewhere behind him, a phone was ringing. It rang and rang, and no one answered. And as they walked room to room, clearing the building,

They quickly realized the shooter was gone. Who did this? An officer demanded. Did anyone see who did this? The survivors looked up from under their desk. Some were shaking, some were crying, but they all knew the answer. Mark Barton, someone said. His name is Mark Barton. En träfiberskiva över skyltfönstret hjälper lite. Ivs företagsförsäkring hjälper mycket.

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Around the same time, a flood of 911 calls came in from across the street. That's when the police knew that Mark Barton hadn't just shot up momentum securities. He had shot up Altec as well. By the time police arrived at Altec, Mark had already fled the scene, leaving a devastating amount of bloodshed in his wake.

They had two mass shooting sites on their hands, dozens of victims, and a gunman that was nowhere to be found. So, while a group of investigators went to work trying to locate Mark Barton, other first responders rushed into the buildings to assess the wounded. The doors flew open, and paramedics pushed through with their stretchers and medical bags, not knowing what they were about to see.

At momentum, a woman was on the floor near the entrance, clutching her side, her blouse soaked red. Nearby, a trader who hadn't been hit was kneeling beside a coworker, pressing a wad of paper towels against his chest. Whispering, stay with me, stay with me. Phones were ringing all over the office. Family members, friends, people who had seen the news and were desperately trying to reach their loved ones.

No one was answering. Computer screens still flickered with stock prices, green and red numbers ticking up and down as if nothing had happened. At Altec, it was the same. People down everywhere, blood pooling beneath desks. A woman sobbing in the corner, her hands over her ears.

A man crawling toward the exit, dragging his legs behind him. Someone was screaming for help from behind an overturned filing cabinet. The scene was a nightmare. Paramedics had no choice but to move quickly. Eventually they came across Brent Dunan.

He was the co owner of Alt Tech. The man who had taken three bullets and that small office, and then got back up and tackled Mark to save Nell Jones, only to be shot twice more. Paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher and rushed him into the ambulance. By the time he got to the hospital, he had lost almost all of his blood. Medical staff swarmed around him, machines beeping, voices shouting, hands pressing down on his wounds.

Brent could feel himself slipping away. His vision started going dark. His eyes wanted to close. He wanted to close them so desperately. But then a trauma surgeon named Dr. Harvey crouched beside him. He looked Brent right in the eye. If you keep your eyes open, you will live, he said. If you close them, you will die. Brent didn't close his eyes. The road to recovery after five gunshot wounds wasn't easy.

But Brent was determined to come out of this on the other side. He wasn't going to let Mark Barton win. Brent had been a star wrestler in high school, a competitor. Anger fueled his survival instinct. Less than two months after the shooting, Brent went back to work. He walked back into that trading room to prove to himself that Mark Barton hadn't broken him. But every time he stepped through those doors, his stomach turned. The smell of the carpet, the hum of the computer.

Then the gunshots, then the blood. It all came rushing back. At night, Mark Barton would visit him in his dreams. Brent would later say, quote, He was just standing at the foot of my bed, laughing, as if to say, I got you.

In the same office where Brent had originally been shot, paramedics found Kathy Van Camp on the floor. The woman Mark had shot in the face. The one who had gone blind the instant the bullet hit. Blood pooled beneath her head. She couldn't see anything, just darkness. But she could feel the warmth running down her face. She could taste the blood in her mouth. In that darkness she reached out, her hands searching the air. Hello? Is someone there? she asked.

Paramedics knelt beside her. They told her they were there to help and that she was going to be okay. Kathy managed a weak smile. I'm not looking my best, she told them. Beside her, Scott Manspeaker was being loaded onto a stretcher. He had been shot twice, once in the abdomen, and another time in the right forearm.

His injuries required four hours on the operating table, and he had lost three liters of blood. When Scott finally woke up, doctors told him he was lucky to be alive, and recovery would take six months. And then there was Nell Jones. The woman Brent Dunan had saved when he body slammed Mark from behind. That shoulder to Mark's back shifted the position of his gun as he fired. As a result, the bullet went right past Nell's face.

Inches from her skull. Instead of it killing her, it shattered a computer monitor beside her. And as soon as it happened, Nell ran. She found a broom closet and hid inside. Crouching in the dark, she listened as the gunshots rang out all around her. She heard the screaming. The footsteps getting closer than farther away. Then she heard the silence as Mark left the building. But even so, she didn't dare leave that closet.

Nell would later say that she doesn't know how long she stayed in there. Minutes felt like hours, but eventually, she heard new voices. Voices of the people who were there to help. Finally, Nell pushed open the door and stepped out. But the scene around her was horrific. There were bodies all over the floor, blood everywhere. She nearly tripped over the body of a woman lying just outside the closet door.

Nell had walked out without a scratch. No bullet wounds, no surgeries, no months of recovery. But the scars were there. Just not the kind you could see. She never forgot those few inches, the space between the bullet and her skull. She still wonders why she was spared. She would later say, quote, I can't let go of an illusion that Mark Barton did not really want to kill me. My illusion is I am special. The truth is, he had no reason to favor me. End quote. And he didn't.

He would have killed Nell if he had the chance. But much like Brent Doonan, Nell wanted to prove to herself that Mark Barton hadn't won. So she went back to trading. However, she soon found that it wasn't in her heart anymore. She lost money. She eventually went back to real estate law. She stayed in Atlanta and never left. These days, she's semi-retired. She finds peace in her garden, the quiet labor of pulling weeds, planting flowers, and watching things grow.

She would later say that the shooting, quote, reminded me how small and insignificant we all are on the big scale. Brad Shomel was still on the floor when paramedics arrived.

The twenty four year old trainee from St. Louis who had hidden behind a desk, the one Mark had tried to execute at point blank range with three shots. He had made a choice, to lie still, to play dead, to wait it out, and that choice had saved his life. Brad would survive. But those moments on the floor, the blood, the stillness, the sounds of footsteps walking away, would stay with him, haunting him for years to come.

Just down the hall, Meredith Forrester had barely been alive when paramedics reached her. She was just twenty two years old, seven weeks into her first real job. She wasn't even a trader, just a staff member. The bullet had severed one of the two main veins to her heart, hitting her spine, pancreas, and intestines. She had bled so severely that her doctors told her family that she had a one in one thousand chance of surviving. Two days earlier, there had been a severe blood shortage in the city.

If Mark Barton had committed this shooting two days sooner, Meredith Foster could have died. She needed two surgeries and a year of physical therapy before she could walk again. Eventually, she went from a wheelchair to walking on her own. She met her husband and had two beautiful daughters. After the shooting, she started volunteering for the Red Cross.

But it took more than 10 years before doctors cleared her to donate blood herself. Years later, people would ask her why. Why did Mark Barton do it? I think he was just crazy, she said, and I don't rack my brain trying to figure out why. That afternoon, paramedics loaded the wounded onto stretchers.

and rushed them to the ambulances waiting outside. The victims would be taken to a number of hospitals in the area. Grady Memorial, Northside, Saint Joseph's, Atlanta Medical Center, anyone that could take them. Most of the people that came in had catastrophic wounds. Mark had been using hollow point bullets, the very destructive kind. They enter your body and expand into a mushroom shape, leaving exit wounds the size of tennis balls.

One surgeon later described them as guided missiles. They don't just pass through, they shred everything in their path, and they're made to kill.

At hospitals across the city, waiting rooms were filling up. Family members rushed through the doors, desperate for information. Wives were still in their work clothes, husbands who had dropped everything and sped across town. There were parents, children, friends, all of them asking the same questions. Is he here? Is she okay? Can I see them? Nurses checked their lists. Doctors disappeared behind swinging doors.

Chaplin stood in the corners, waiting to be there for them when the families learned the news that no one wanted to hear. In the hallways people paced. They made phone calls, left voicemails that would never be returned. Some sat in silence, staring at the floor, afraid to look up. The TVs in the waiting rooms were all reporting on the same story. Breaking news. Mass shooting in Atlanta, Georgia. Aerial shots of Piedmont Center flashed across the screens. Police tape, ambulances.

And then that face. The driver's license photo of the shooter, Mark Barton. As soon as the police learned his name, they had put out an all points bulletin across the city. Every cop in Atlanta was looking for the same thing, a green minivan with Georgia Plate. A white male driver, armed and extremely dangerous.

The address on his license came back to a city called Morrow, a suburb of Atlanta. But when police arrived, neighbors told them Barton had moved. He lived in Stockbridge now, with his wife, Lee Ann. So, from there, officers made their way to Lee Ann's apartment in Stockbridge. Their patrol cars pulled into the parking lot. Doors opened, officers stepped out, a few kids' bikes leaned against the stairwell railing.

They walked up the stairs to the second floor and knocked on the door to apartment fifteen oh five. There was no answer. But they didn't need one. They had a warrant. So it's here where they went inside. The apartment was quiet. The lights were off. Officers move through the living room. And that's when they noticed a note on the coffee table.

It was printed on Mark Barton's personal stationery. Leanne is in the master bedroom closet under a blanket. I killed her on Tuesday night. I killed Matthew and Michelle Wednesday night. They move towards the primary bedroom. They open that closet door. And there on the floor, behind some boxes, under a blanket, they found Leanne. Her head had been completely bashed in. She had been dead for nearly two days.

Decomposition already settling in. She was twenty seven years old. A handwritten note rested on top of the blanket. A prayer to Jehovah. I give you my wife, Leanne, my honey, my precious love. Please take care of her. Next they moved to the children's bedroom. First, they found Matthew, then Michelle. They had been dead since Wednesday night, tucked into their beds, blankets pulled up, towels wrapped around their heads, so only their faces showed.

On top of Matthew's body, Mark had placed a video game. A note on top of him read another prayer. I give you Matthew, my son, my buddy, my life. On top of Michelle's body, a teddy bear, and another handwritten prayer. I give you Michelle, my daughter, my sweetheart, my life. The children looked like they were sleeping. Matthew Barton was eleven years old. Michelle Barton was eight.

Their father had killed them the night before, then carefully arranged their bodies to look peaceful and Then, the following morning, he set out to take the lives of more innocent people.

After the bodies were discovered, a little girl named Tiffany sat alone in the grass outside the apartment, bare feet tucked beneath the police tape, trying to see her friend one last time. She told reporters this. I'm just trying to get a sneak peek so I can see my best friend. I just saw them take a bag out. It was a big bag.

It must have been her mother. She continued in the honest, heartbreaking way that only kids can, saying this. I'm mad because now I can't go to Girl Scouts with her. She would whisper things to me when I really needed help with things. I wish she wasn't even there. I wish she was spending the night with us. It's so stupid. In the midst of her grief, another concern popped up. She looked at her mother, worried, and said

Is her cat dead too? As far as we were able to find, the cat was not killed by Mark Barton. What became of it after, we don't know. But as news of the murder spread all over the Southeast, families and friends of the Bartons were grieving. Leanne's family got the call that evening. Her sister Kelly couldn't process it. She would later say, You want to just keep hoping that the phone's gonna ring and she's gonna say I'm okay. But Leanne's father had no such hope, only raids.

After learning of the murders, he told the media, I hope he goes to hell, and I hope Mark Barton burns in it for 10,000 years. After the mass shooting, after finding the bodies of his wife and kids, police knew they were dealing with someone who had nothing left to lose.

The news spread quickly. Breaking news banners flashed across every television screen in Atlanta. Then every television screen in America. A mass shooting in Buckhead. Nine dead, twelve wounded. The gunmen still at large. His face was everywhere. Offices across the city went on lockdown. Receptionists locked their front doors and told everyone to stay away from the windows.

Managers gathered their employees in conference rooms and told them not to leave until police gave the all clear. At a law firm in Midtown, a secretary burst into tears. She had a friend who worked at Momentum. She had been trying to call her for an hour. No answer. SWAT teams swept through the parking decks and buckheads. Helicopters circled overhead. Police dogs sniffed the bushes along Piedmont Road. Officers went door to door, searching for any sign of the green minivan.

In Buckhead, restaurants emptied out. Shoppers abandoned their carts and rushed to their cars. A mother at Lenox Square Mall grabbed her two kids by the hands and practically ran to the parking deck. We're going home, she told them, right now. Schools in the area started getting calls, parents who wanted to pick their children up early. At a daycare center in Sandy Springs, a father showed up unannounced. Still in his suit and tie, he scooped up his three year old daughter into his arms.

I just needed to see her, he told the teacher. I just needed to hold her. All across Atlanta, people were calling their loved ones just to hear their voices. Are you okay? Where are you? Stay inside, lock the doors. And then everyone waited. Everyone's eyes were on the news, watching the door, wondering if the man who had just killed all those people might walk in next.

The whole city was holding its breath, and they had every right to be afraid, because Mark Barton wasn't ready to die. Not yet. Five hours had passed since Mark first walked into Momentum Securities, and he was still out there driving that same minivan, the one he had bought to raise his kids in, to cart them to scouts meetings and days on the lake. But now, the van was coated with dried blood. Sweat beaded his face as he tightened his knuckles on the steering wheel.

He turned on the radio and heard his name, his description, breaking news, the deadliest mass shooting in Georgia history. He then changed the station, but with each station change, he continued hearing the same things. Everyone in Georgia was talking about him, about what he had done. Maybe he smiled. Maybe he felt a swell of pride. He had done it. Mark Barton, the day trader, who finally snapped. But any satisfaction he felt, if any, was short lived.

Because soon enough, paranoia crept into his psyche. It had been his companion throughout life. No matter where he went, no matter how well he was doing, that paranoia followed him like a shadow. And here it was again, but worse than it had ever been before. Mark checked his mirrors. He changed lanes. His eyes flicked to the sedan behind him, then to the truck pulling up on his left. He gripped the steering wheel tighter. Wiped his palms on his shores.

The driver in the truck glanced over. Mark looked straight ahead, heart pounding. He kept driving. That morning, in his note to police, He wrote that he didn't plan to live much longer, just long enough to kill the people who had sought his destruction. But that was before he had pulled it off.

Before he walked out of those offices and no one stopped him. Now he needed a plan. A way out. Somewhere to go. As evening settled over the city, Mark Barton pulled into the parking lot of Town Center Mall in Kennesaw, about an hour outside of Atlanta. The parking lot was busy, buzzing with shoppers coming and going. Families loading bags into their cars.

It was a normal Thursday evening at the mall. A woman walked out of Rich's department store, bags in hands, heading towards her car. She didn't notice the man approaching her until he was close. Too close. He was tall, six foot four, looming over her. Don't scream or I'll shoot you. The woman froze. Her car was just a few feet away. So close. She looked at him. And something inside told her to run. So, she did.

She dropped her bags and ran across the parking lot, right towards the mall's entrance, towards people. Towards safety. And Mark Barton just stood there. He didn't chase her, he didn't fire, he just watched her go. Now it's assumed that he wanted to steal her car so he could flee the area, but clearly that didn't work. So instead, Mark got back into his own car. But just as he did, a woman named Manon Smith had pulled into the parking space behind him. She looked up to see a minivan.

A green minivan. Just like the one they had been talking about on the news. She tried to get a glimpse of the driver. She caught his reflection in the rearview mirror. She knew that face. Everyone in Atlanta did. Manan would later say, quote, It was this totally, totally freakish thing. I was absolutely positive it was him. I was shocked. You pull up behind a car, and here was this guy everyone is looking for. Nobody expected him in Kinnesaw. End quote.

So right there, Mannon pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911. The operators were skeptical at first, but then she described the van. She read off the license plate. And they believed her. Manon would later say, quote, I didn't want him looking back and seeing me on the phone reporting him. I really wanted to get off the phone. End quote. But just as she was reporting this to police, Mark Barton pulled out of his parking space, and he headed towards the exit.

It was at that moment that Mannon Smith made a decision, a risky one. She followed him. She tailed the green minivan out of the parking lot and on to Barrett Parkway. Mark Barton turned right towards I-75. Mannon Smith decided to turn left. She thought about following him further. But she got nervous and decided to leave that to police. She had done her part. And now, investigators knew where he was.

Mark Barton continued on to I-75, heading north. The sun hung low in the sky. Golden hour light washed over the highway. Cars were heading home from work, and families were on their way to dinner. And Mark Barton was drifting amongst them. He had already let her go, the woman in the parking lot. She ran and he just stood there. He couldn't pull the trigger.

Couldn't make his legs move. Five hours ago, he had walked into two offices and killed nine people without flinching. Now he couldn't even grab one woman in a parking lot. His hands trembled on the wheel. His shirt, still soaked through with sweat, The adrenaline that had carried him this far was draining out of him. His mouth was dry, his stomach empty. He was tired.

so tired that he didn't even notice the cop cars behind him. Officer Hugh Clements of the Cobb County Police was a few cars back. He had spotted the green minivan on I seventy five near Wade Green Road, and called in the plates to dispatch. When the confirmation came back, his heart raced. That was him. That was Mark Barton, Atlanta's mass shooter. Clemens kept his distance. No sirens, no lights. He radioed his position, requested backup,

and kept his eyes on that green minivan. One by one, more units joined, unmarked vehicles emerging onto the highway, patrol cars hanging back, blending into traffic. A quiet swarm formed behind Mark Barton, closing in quickly, yet at the same time staying practically invisible. Mark drove on. The highway stretched ahead. The sun sank lower. Then Mark flipped on his turn signal. He was getting off at Ackworth.

Klemets watched him take the exit. He followed him off the ramp, onto Georgia Route ninety two. He passed a service station on the left. Then, Mark pulled into a BP gas station. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A family was filling up their minivan at Pump 3. A teenager was walking out with a bag of chips. Officer Klements would later say, quote, he circled around slowly through the parking lot around the back. And when he came around adjacent to the car wash, he stopped.

end quote. Officer Klements pulled up behind him. He flipped on his lights. This was it. Corporal Curtis Endicott of the Ackworth Police Department came screeching into the lot from the other direction. He whipped his cruiser around and blocked the front of the van. Endicott later said, quote, A lot's going through your mind when you have a suspect of this magnitude. I was scared.

I didn't know what he might do. End quote. Seconds later, more police cruisers poured in, tire squealing against the asphalt. doors flying open, officers crouching behind their vehicles, weapons drawn. And in the midst of it all, Mark Barton just sat there. His engine was still running. Hands still on the steering wheel. Red and blue lights flashing all around him. For four hours, he had been free. Four hours of driving through Atlanta. While the whole city searched for him.

Four hours of considering his options. And now this cruisers everywhere. In front of him, behind him, boxing him in. He could hear them shouting, muffled through the glass. He could see them crouch behind their doors, guns drawn, all pointed directly at him. His heart pounded in his chest. Sweat ran down his temple. But Mark knew how this was going to end. They weren't going to drag him out of his van and put him in handcuffs.

And so, at around 7.55 p.m., on Thursday, July 29th, 1999, Mark Barton reached down and picked up his guns. His fingers wrapped around the grip of his 9mm and his 45 Colt. He raised both guns. one on each side of his head, the touch of cool metal against his temples, and for the last time, he squeezed the triggers. Just like that, It was over. Mark Orin Barton was dead at 44 years old. The officers outside held their positions for a moment longer, their guns still raised, waiting, watching.

Then slowly, one by one, they began to holster their weapons. Next door in the McDonald's parking lot. A fourteen year old girl named Dane Pritchett had been sitting in the backseat of a car. She was waiting for her brother to bring out her food. She had watched the whole thing. She would later say, quote, His head fell against the steering wheel.

Once Mark Barton was dead, an officer approached the van. He reached for the door handle and pulled it open. Inside, they found the nine millimeter Glock, the forty five calibre Colt. Two more handguns, and more than 200 rounds of ammunition. He had come prepared for more. But finally, the deadliest day in Georgia history was over.

As the sun set over Buckhead, police tapes surrounded the buildings of Momentum Securities and Altec. Officers guarded every entrance. Eventually, police released the names of the victims. At Momentum Securities, Kevin Dial, Edward Quinn, Russell Brown, Scott Webb. At All Tech Investment Group, Alan Tenenbaum, Dean Delawalla, Joseph Desert, Jamshid Havash, Vadawati Marlet Hara.

And in the apartment in Stockbridge, Leanne Barton, Matthew Barton, Michelle Barton. 12 people dead, 12 lives taken by one man over the course of three days, 12 more wounded, some of whom would never fully recover. In the days and weeks that followed, Atlanta tried to make sense of what had happened. The victims were laid to rest one by one.

Alan Tenenbaum was buried first, rushed because of Jewish law forbidding funerals on the Sabbath. Over a thousand people came. Dean Delawala's funeral fell on what should have been his daughter's Shahala's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Jamshid Hamash's wife and daughter were still flying back from Tehran when he was buried. Twelve funerals, twelve families shattered.

Back in South Carolina, Mark's mother Gladys released a statement that read, There is no explanation for a tragedy such as this. Even though I am deeply hurt by the actions of my son Mark, I loved him very much. A family friend said Mark had called his mother the day before his rampage. He sounded awful. The conversation had upset her. What was said in the conversation, we'll never know. Both of them took it to the grave.

In 2002, Gladys passed, never making a public statement about the tragedy again. Over the next few weeks and months, the news cameras descended on Stogbridge, on Buckhead. On the BP gas station in Ackworth, where Mark had taken his own life, reporters interviewed survivors, they talked to neighbors. They dug into Mark Barton's past, and the more they learned, the less sense it made.

Eric Blair, who worked down the hall for Mark as a sales manager, said quote, I never saw the guy without a smile on his face. Never, not once, end quote. Mark Barton wasn't some loner muttering to himself in a corner. He was friendly, chatty. The guy who said hello in the hallway. The guy you'd grab coffee with. Melvin Bryant was 17 years old. He babysat Matthew and Michelle. He knew Mark as the dad who would come home and joke around with them.

Melvin would later say, quote, he's pretty cool for an adult. He was like a child at heart, always playing games with us, like Nintendo. I can't put the person I know with the man that shot those people, end quote. But that's the scariest thing about Mark Barton. He was good at hiding his dark side. He was charming, manipulative.

He could put on a front when he wanted to. However, there were people who saw that dark side of him. People who always knew he was a dangerous man. The ones that knew that more than anyone. were the family members of his late wife Deborah. It wasn't long after the mass shooting when the media caught wind that Mark had been the prime suspect in his first wife's murder six years earlier.

They learned about the insurance policy, the affair, the blood in his car, the evidence that was mishandled in Alabama. The district attorney at the time, Richard Igu, told reporters he was the number one suspect all the way through and still was. But you heard in part one, they never charged Mark Barton with the murders of Deborah Spivy and her mother Eloise. Despite all the circumstantial evidence, he walked free.

And as luck would have it, he seemed to have found a loophole in the system. And because of that, he had six more years. Six years to remarry, to move to Georgia, to pocket$300,000 of Deborah's life insurance, only to lose it all to day training. And then finally he snapped, killing his other wife, his two children, and nine other people at the trading firms. When word spread that Mark likely murdered Deborah and Eloise, Six years before the mass shooting, the community was furious.

It was becoming painfully clear if investigators in Alabama had done their job. If they had properly investigated the murders, Mark Barton likely would have been behind bars. He never would have married Leanne. He never would have murdered her and her two children, and he would have never walked into those offices. Twelve people would still be alive today. It also came out that after the murders of Deborah and Eloise, a psychologist had evaluated Mark Barton in nineteen ninety one.

four, after his daughter Michelle made comments that he was sexually assaulting her. After that evaluation, the psychologist told investigators that Mark Barton was, quote, capable of homicidal thought and homicidal action, end quote. However, nothing was done. Georgia investigator Jerry Wen had been appalled by how Alabama handled the 1993 case.

In reference to the murder investigation, he said, quote, things should have been done that they didn't do. If they had done their jobs, maybe twelve people wouldn't be dead today, end quote. And no one felt that weight more than Bill Spivy. Deborah's father, the man who had lost his daughter and his wife in nineteen ninety three, had now lost his two grandchildren.

He told reporters, quote, The man who it appears killed my wife and daughter has also killed my two grandchildren. If what I have heard is true, that man has destroyed nearly my whole family, end quote. Sadly, to this day, the murders of Deborah Spivy and Eloise Powell remain unsolved.

And to this day, Mark Barton remains the only suspect. Six days after the shooting, Atlanta came to a standstill. On August 4, 1999, thousands gathered at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church for a citywide memorial service. Traffic slowed across the city. Businesses stopped. For one moment, an entire city held its breath. Mayor Bill Campbell stood at the pulpit and gave his speech. So that they will know that it is a price not worth paying and not the worst.

And so, my friends, it all comes down to this. We are caught between heaven and earth on a journey. Why is no one, including our innocent children, immune from the evil of violence? Whether in Littleton, Colorado, in a home in Southwest Atlanta, an office building in Buckhead, violence continues to cast a deep shadow over our nation. This year the shadow has touched Atlanta like never before.

He shall sustain us, that the President and Hillary join the people of Atlanta in extending our deepest condolences. He lists the names of all of the persons, and we will not preclude that special moment when we call their names to light the candle. We cross the dangerous railroad tracks in Hateful, Georgia then. It does cause anger within me when I realize that it's more difficult to get a prescription filled than it is to buy a handgun.

And somewhere together we must find ways to protect our children. The families of victims wanted answers. They wanted someone to blame. And in the months that followed, that blame pointed in every direction. Some were furious with Alabama law enforcement. Others blamed the day trading firms themselves. Not knowing where to direct their anger, they were mad at AllTech for letting Barton invest over$400,000 without ever sitting him down or checking if he was mentally fit to keep trading.

When his account went negative, they just closed it out and let him walk across the street to momentum. They were also mad at momentum because they didn't verify anything either. Mark lied to them about his net worth, claimed he had$750,000 when he was drowning in losses. They never checked. In just six weeks, he lost another$185,000. No one ever met with him. Other people blamed the security company that worked at the two buildings.

Community members wanted to know why the guards were unarmed, but they were there to monitor elevators and report suspicious activity, not to stop a man with two guns.

With Mark Barton dead, the people affected by the tragedy wanted someone to blame. Within a year, ten lawsuits had been filed. Six survivors and the families of seven victims sued the day trading firms, the security company, the landlords, and even Mark Barton's estate.

The cases dragged on for years, but in the end, they didn't go anywhere. At the end of the day, the courts ruled that the only person to blame here was the shooter himself, so the lawsuits were dismissed. But people still wanted answers. Six weeks later, Congress held its first ever hearing on day trading. Senators wanted to know, how did this happen?

How can a man lose hundreds of thousands of dollars without anyone checking in on him? How is he allowed to move on to the next trading firm without verifying his history? Alice Wenzel, Scott Webb's mother, traveled to Washington to testify. She sat before the Senate subcommittee and told them about her son, about the phone call that changed her life. In July of 2000, the Senate released its final report. The title said it all: Day Trading. Everyone gambles but the House.

New regulations followed with stricter rules and more oversight. But for the families of the twelve people who died, it was too little, too late. On the one-year anniversary of the shooting, there was a sadness that seemed to take hold of Atlanta. It had been one whole year since many people in town had seen their loved one, one year since they kissed their cheek, heard their voice.

Held their hand. The day after the anniversary, on July 30th, 2000, cars filled the parking lot of the cathedral at Chapel Hill, a church in suburban Atlanta. About 2,000 people made their way inside. They hugged people they hadn't seen since the funerals. They found seats in the pews and waited for the service to begin. Dr. Golshan Harjee, the wife of Dean Delawalla, had organized all of this.

She stood near the front of the church, greeting the families as they arrived. She wanted them to have a chance to come together, to support each other, to find some kind of peace. Liz Webb was there, Scott Webb's sister. She had visited the building where her brother died. She thought it might help, but it didn't. It never leaves, she said, wiping tears from her eyes. It never goes away. Jamshid Havash's sisters were there, Shala and Sinaz.

Shalis said quote, every single day it's a reminder. Every single day I can't forget that day, end quote. Scott Webb's mother Alice had flown in from Illinois. She said quote, I guess I've cried all I can cry. This was, of course, a tribute to Scotty and a way of being able to say it is true. It really did happen. I'm looking at these pictures and I'm thinking Scotty is going to call me. He was everything a mother could want. End quote.

Reverend Earl Pollock, the church's founder, spoke to the crowd. He urged them to find a way forward, to find forgiveness, even if they considered Mark Barton's actions unforgivable. He said, quote, sometimes survival depends on our ability to cry, to feel the hurt, end quote. Hugh Thomas was there too. He was thirty five, a father of two.

He had been working in a travel agency on the first floor of the building when the shooting started. He wasn't injured, but he heard it all. He said, quote, it'll never go away completely because there will always be a scar. The lesson I learned from this was never leave home without kissing your children or telling your wife you love her. You may leave and never get to see them again. End quote.

Eventually, survivor Brent Doonan left Atlanta. He sought counseling and moved home to Wichita, Kansas. Six months after the shooting, he was set up on a blind date. The date led to marriage, and later a son named Jackson. He rebuilt his life piece by piece and even wrote a book about that day called Murder at the Office, which was a primary source for this episode.

In it, he wrote, You have two options, be a victim and let it control your life, or be a survivor and talk about it. At the end of the day, he's dead, I'm alive, and I'm moving on. Scott Manspeaker, All Tech's co-founder, who was with Brent during the shooting, also pulled through. His brother-in-law would later say, He's a good guy, very friendly. He gets along with a lot of people, he'll talk to anybody.

After he recovered, Scott bought out Brent's stake in Alltech and tried to keep the business going. But within a few years, day trading centers had become relics of the past. The industry wasn't what it used to be. So eventually, Scott closed up shop and moved back to Wichita as well. Brent and Scott's assistant, Kathy Van Camp, who was with them during the shooting, also survived, but she would never see again.

The world she had known that morning, the faces of her friends, the blue sky outside, the glow of a computer screen, was gone forever. She would also lose much of her sense of taste and smell, the things we all take for granted, the smell of coffee in the morning, the taste of a home cooked meal, gone. Over the years, she endured 15 surgeries to try and repair the damage. In 2003, she and her husband moved to Oregon, and then later to Hawaii, quote, because I was too cold.

She wanted to get as far away as she could, from the place where her world went dark. Now she lives just a block away from the beach. She often sits seaside with her husband, who describes as best he can the surfers getting thrown from their board. She can hear the waves. She just can't see them. Adjusting to her new normal has been a struggle. Losing her sight meant losing her independence in a lot of ways. Unless she has a guide, she usually remains in her apartment.

Kathy would later say quote, many blind people are independent. They can get on public transportation. I couldn't get the hang of it. I'm forgetting more and more what the world used to look like. It's like a picture you saw ten years ago. Unfortunately, the last thing I saw was Mark Barton's face. End quote.

For over two decades now, the survivors of this massacre and the families of the victims have had to carry their grief. Back in 1999, mass shootings weren't common like they are today. For many, every time another mass shooting occurs in the United States, It's like ripping off the scab on a wound that you so desperately want to heal. They know exactly what it's like to lose someone in such a violent and senseless way. In this story, the children who lost their parents had to grow up.

The grandchildren, who never got to know their grandparents, were told stories of people they never met. And the man responsible never had to answer for any of it. Mark Barton didn't spend a day in prison. He didn't sit in a courtroom and face the families of the people he slaughtered. He didn't have to look into the eyes of the children he orphaned. He didn't have to explain why he killed Leanne, or Matthew, or Michelle.

He didn't have to explain why he walked into those offices and opened fire on people who had done nothing to him. He took the easy way out, two bullets at a gas station and Accord. And when he died, any answers he had died with him. The family of Deborah and Eloise never got justice either. Over thirty years later, their murders remain unsolved.

They were killed in the same manner with the same kind of weapon used to kill Leanne, Matthew, and Michelle. Everyone knows who did it. But like everything else, Mark Barton took that truth to his grave. In honor of the victims of the 1999 Atlanta day trading massacre, we have made a donation to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

NAMI is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. If you'd like to learn more or make a donation yourself, you can visit NAMI.org. Hey everybody, thank you for listening to this week's episode of Murder in America Part What? Watch the Toxic Avenger now on

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This was a story that Courtney and I were unfamiliar with, but As you know here on the show, we like to cover these stories because we feel people need to really consider these stories and consider the impact that this sort of violence has on America because we're still seeing things like this happening all the time. All over the country. If you want to help support the show and support what we do, please consider joining us on Patreon.

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Anyways, y'all, we'll be back next week with another episode of the show. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Colin Brown. I hope y'all have a great weekend if you're listening on Friday, and we'll catch y'all in the next one.