Shootings Leave 3 Men Dead at Edwards AFB

An apparent grudge between two airmen led to the first multiple slaying in the history of one of the nation’s most storied air bases Saturday, leaving three men dead, including a military police officer.

A gunman killed the MP and a fellow senior airman before shooting himself once in the head with a 9-millimeter Glock pistol in his military dormitory, Air Force officials said. Dead are Tech. Sgt. Robert B. Butler, 34, the MP; Senior Airman Darrick Moore, 27, who was the first person shot; and Senior Airman Devaughn L. Brown, age unknown, believed to be the shooter.

“This kind of incident is a shock not only for me but the rest of the base,” Col. Ed De Iulio, the MP’s commander, said at a news conference. “It’s tough on me.”

The wife of one of the dead men said the shootings occurred after a grudge was renewed at a base sports bar late Friday.

Senior Airman Adriana Moore, 25, said her husband, Darrick, ran into Brown, an old acquaintance of his, at the Stripes bar Friday night. Moore said her husband and Brown had argued two weeks earlier, after her husband convinced a woman not to go out on a date with Brown.

On Friday, the two men went outside the bar to discuss their differences. They came back and his wife said Moore later left again to arm himself and returned.

“That is when I got suspicious,” said Adriana Moore. “The only reason he did that was because he knew something was going to happen.”

In the confusion in the bar, Adriana Moore lost track of her husband. The next thing she knew, both Brown and her husband were gone.

What happened next is unclear, but about 2 a.m., Butler stopped a man on suspicion of driving under the influence who was driving Moore’s blue GMC pickup near headquarters in the center of the 300,000-acre base, authorities said.

Butler radioed for backup, authorities said at the base news conference at the Air Force Test Pilot School. When military police responded moments later, they found Butler dead near his patrol car from a single gunshot wound. Butler’s weapon was still holstered.

Butler’s father, Philadelphia Police Officer Joseph Butler, said by phone that military officials told him his son was shot once in the face. The elder Butler, a 35-year veteran of the Philadelphia force, said he was in shock. His son had served as an MP for eight years.

Robert Butler leaves his wife and three children--two girls and a boy, ages 3, 5 and 7. His wife, Takako, said she had not yet told the children that their father isn’t coming home.

“He was a very kind person, a good father and a good husband,” she said.

Military police responding to Butler’s call for help saw a blue pickup truck leaving the scene of the shooting and pursued it. A man jumped out and ran toward a base dormitory.

Officers lost track of him and immediately shut down the dormitory and evacuated about 100 airmen.

Brown was found dead in the recreation room of the dormitory about 6:45 a.m. Saturday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.

Adriana Moore said Brown and her husband previously worked together. Moore was assigned to the 412th Logistics Support Squadron.

About two hours after Brown’s body was found, authorities discovered Darrick Moore’s body at the base landfill, about four miles northeast of the dormitories. Military officials were unsure whether Moore was killed at the landfill or elsewhere. They also said the 9-millimeter Glock pistol the suspect allegedly used to kill himself was not a military-issued weapon.

Military officials said they were continuing to investigate the killings and declined to confirm Adriana Moore’s account. Base authorities said it was the first multiple homicide in the history of the base, the site of some of America’s greatest aerospace triumphs.

Officials described Butler as a good cop who regularly attended church with his family.

“He was very well liked and highly respected,” said Lt. Col. Pete Micale. “He was easygoing and a soft-spoken guy.”

Adriana Moore said her husband was only a few months away from leaving the military.

The Moores, who were married seven months ago, were able to spend only five days together before she was sent to South Korea. She had just returned from overseas Tuesday and was reunited with her husband.

“He was a good airman and a great husband,” said Moore, sitting in the living room of her off-base townhouse in Rosamond, her eyes filled with tears, as she took calls from relatives and friends.

“He could get us through anything,” she said. “He was a wonderful person.”

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Special Correspondent Radha Krishnan Thampi contributed to this story.