Gunman at Pa. health club was bitter over women

[August 06, 2009]  BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- Neighbors and friends mourned the losses of three women killed in a shooting rampage during an exercise class at a Pittsburgh-area gym as the shooter's online diary revealed a man who was ignored by women and referred to an "exit plan" to avenge his rage.

George Sodini went to a sprawling L.A. Fitness Club, turned out the lights on the Tuesday night "Latin impact" dance-aerobics class for women, and opened fire with three guns, spraying dozens of bullets before committing suicide.

"He just had a lot of hatred in him and (was) hell-bent on committing this act, and no one was going to stop him," Allegheny County Police Superintendent Charles Moffatt said Wednesday.

His 4,610-word Web diary appeared to be a nine-month chronology of his plans to end his misery with a shocking act of carnage at his gym. He couldn't understand why women ignored him, despite his best efforts to look nice. He hadn't had a girlfriend since 1984, hadn't slept with a woman in 19 years.

"Women just don't like me. There are 30 million desirable women in the US (my estimate) and I cannot find one. Not one of them finds me attractive," the 48-year-old computer programmer lamented.

It was unclear when the Web diary was posted and whether it had been updated online repeatedly since November or posted in its entirety recently.

The violence rocked the town of about 5,300 people just outside Pittsburgh.

Killed were Heidi Overmier, 46, of Carnegie, a sales manager at an amusement park; Jody Billingsley, 37, of Mount Lebanon, who worked for a medical-supply company; and Elizabeth Gannon, 49, of Pittsburgh, an X-ray technician at Allegheny General Hospital.

"She can't be gone," said Gannon's next-door neighbor and close friend, Carl Rady, who knew her for 35 years and said she loved to work out and pamper her dog. "It can't happen that way."

Six patients remained hospitalized, including the aerobics instructor, Mary Primis, 26, who was listed in fair condition. Primis is pregnant but said doctors told her the baby is fine.

Sodini did not have a relationship with any of his victims, according to police.

In his Web diary, Sodini wrote of planning the attack since at least November and said he tried to carry it out when the same weekly aerobics class met Jan. 6 but "chickened out," he wrote.

His anger stemmed from unfulfilled desire: The women at his gym "look so beautiful as to not be human," he wrote. He complained that women "don't even give me a second look ANYWHERE" even though he was tan and fit and claimed to dress well and smell nice.

He listed his status as "Never married." In a chilling addition, he recorded the date of his death as Aug. 4, 2009.

On that evening, he walked into the health club wearing black workout gear and a headband, and entered the class with multiple guns.

Jordan Solomon, 14, said she thought it was weird when a man walked into the all-female class and put a black duffel bag on the ground and reached into it.

"All of a sudden all the lights went out and I turned around, he started firing. I turned around and I saw him holding a gun," she said. She ran out of the room and into the parking lot, bolting into a restaurant where she told the workers to call 911.

Sodini did not have a criminal record, and he legally bought the guns he used, police said.

Sodini's family issued a brief statement: "Our hearts and prayers are with the victims and their families and we pray for the full recovery of the survivors."

Sodini graduated in 1992 from the University of Pittsburgh with a degree in computer science and had worked as a systems analyst at a Pittsburgh law firm since 1999.

A neighbor, Connie Fontanesi, said Sodini was so anti-social that "we really didn't learn anything personal about him."

[Associated Press; By MICHAEL RUBINKAM]

Associated Press writers Joe Mandak, Ramit Plushnick-Masti, Genaro C. Armas and Jennifer Yates contributed to this report.

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