Rampage in Quiet N. California Town Kills 3, Wounds 2

A man believed to be a disgruntled mental health client went on a rampage Wednesday in this quiet Mother Lode town, shooting three people at a county mental health office and then two others at a nearby restaurant before vanishing into the midday gloom. Three people were killed and two were seriously wounded.

As an icy rain fell, police locked down schools, offices and shops and began a manhunt for the killer that culminated more than nine hours later at a remote house a few miles west of Nevada City, where 40-year-old Scott Harlan Thorpe was captured without incident. Authorities were tipped to Thorpe’s whereabouts by his brother, a Sacramento police officer, Nevada County Sheriff Keith Royal said.

Thorpe, a stocky man with scraggly brown hair, had called Officer Kent Thorpe to confess to the crime, according to Royal.

Royal said Thorpe apparently was unhappy with services he had received from the county mental health department and had targeted the local Lyon’s restaurant because he “is of the opinion they were poisoning him when he ate there.”

The shootings sent a chill through the picturesque former mining town, which lies in the Sierra Nevada foothills about 65 miles northeast of Sacramento and has drawn thousands of urbanites in recent years who have sought its relative peace and safety.

“We don’t have anything go wrong up here,” said Fred Roberts, 70, a retired Nevada City police officer. “This is the quietest little town anywhere. But it just blew apart today.”

Royal said the gunman first entered the mental health office in the county’s health and welfare building in the town’s center just before 11:30 a.m. He said the man walked up to a first-floor reception counter and opened fire through a glass panel with a handgun, shattering the glass and striking three people, two of them fatally.

After fleeing that office, housed in a three-story building that once served as the county hospital, the man was seen speeding off in a blue van, Royal said. Less than 10 minutes later, the gunman stalked into a Lyon’s coffee shop about three miles away and shot two people, one fatally.

The dead man was identified as Lyon’s manager Mike Markle, 24, who had begun work at the restaurant just days before.

Of those killed at the county building, one was identified as 19-year-old Laura Wilcox, a health technician, and the other as Pearlie Mae Feldman, who was a mental health caregiver not employed by the county.

Of the surviving victims, the most severely wounded was a 49-year-old county employee, Judith Edzards, who was flown by helicopter to Sutter Roseville Medical Center about 40 miles away for surgery. Medical center spokeswoman Robin Montgomery said the wounded woman was in critical condition.

At Sierra Nevada Hospital in Grass Valley, spokesman Gary Cooke said 34-year-old Richard Senuty, described by the sheriff as a cook at Lyon’s, was treated for stomach and arm wounds. He was listed in good condition.

In addition, Cooke said, four people who had not been shot were treated, including a county employee who suffered injuries when she fell while fleeing from the county building, which sits on a hill. Three people were treated for psychological trauma and released, he said.

A makeshift memorial sprang up almost immediately in front of the Lyon’s restaurant. A nearby Albertson’s supermarket sent nine dozen roses, and someone put up two signs that read: “God Bless You Mike, We’ll Miss You,” and “God Bless You, Rick, Get Well Soon.”

About 30 miles to the west, a Lyon’s restaurant in Yuba City closed early in tribute to Markle, who grew up in neighboring Marysville and had begun working at the Yuba City restaurant as a busboy when he was 18, said a family friend, Kim Crow. Former co-workers, customers and family, including Markle’s mother, gathered at the restaurant to grieve, she said.

“He was just a remarkable young man,” Crow said. She described Markle as an avid golfer who doted on his family, especially his two children, a 5-year-old daughter and a son who turns 3 on Friday. “He loved his job,” she said, “because he was a real people person.”

Crow said Markle had been transferred to the Nevada City restaurant last week.

Mary Capps, a retiree in Nevada City who lives in a peeling pink clapboard house near the county office where the first shootings occurred, recalled the incident late Wednesday afternoon as smoke poured out of her rock chimney. Initially, she said, she paid little attention to the shootings, because there is a shooting range not far from her house.

But then she noticed something. “These shots sounded closer,” she said. “I want to say there were 10 of them. I thought it was real strange.” Then she heard sirens and saw police surround the county building.

As a safety precaution, schools in the western half of Nevada County were ordered “locked down” for about 80 minutes after the shooting on the recommendation of law enforcement officials.

“We had a phone call . . . that this person had a grudge against the schools,” said Nevada County Supt. of Schools Terry McAteer. “That automatically said to us that we had a person who is a little deranged and we had to protect our kids.”

He said that about 13,000 children in the schools were locked in their classrooms and ordered to stay away from windows and not venture outside. McAteer said law enforcement officials provided no details of who the shooter might be or of the grudge.

The lock-down lasted until 2:20 p.m., education officials said, and was lifted when law enforcement authorities determined that the shooter was no longer a threat to schoolchildren.

McAteer said the emergency lock-down procedure was developed in the wake of the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado.

Similarly, county employees were evacuated from the building where the shooting occurred, and employees in other county offices were ordered away from windows to protect them from gunshots fired from outside.

Later, county officials announced that the health and welfare offices would be closed for the rest of the week, and employees would be offered counseling at other county offices.

“Almost all of us knew one of these victims,” said Elizabeth Martin, chairwoman of the county Board of Supervisors. “This is going to tear us apart. It’s going to be a hard couple of days here.”

According to Royal, the sheriff, Thorpe called his brother in Sacramento, who called the sheriff’s office about 5 p.m. About 15 deputies were dispatched to Thorpe’s home in tiny Smartville, about 10 miles west of Nevada City. They surrounded it and established telephone communication with Thorpe. About 9 p.m., he surrendered.

Royal said he didn’t know Thorpe’s background or occupation, but believed he had no recent criminal record.

“Based on the information provided by the brother, we feel we have the right man,” Royal said. “I think a lot of us are going to sleep a little easier tonight. This was a tragedy for our county.”

The shootings occurred in the heart of California’s Gold Rush country. Nevada City is tucked into rugged, forested hills and, along with neighboring Grass Valley, was itself a gold mining center until the early 1950s, when mining became uneconomical.

Since then, mining has given way to tourism--a natural progression, given the area’s attributes, which include blue skies, fresh air, pine forests, clean rivers, open space and two uncommonly attractive towns and a wealth of buildings remaining from the 19th century. The area has become a haven for urban refugees, many from Southern California and the Bay Area, who view it as an attractive place to retire or raise a family.

Since 1980, the population of Nevada County has nearly doubled, topping 90,000 in the most recent census estimate.

“We don’t have crime up here. It’s one of the safest places in the state,” said Martin. “The idea that our county employees . . . could be shot--it’s horrifying.”

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Times staff writers Carl Ingram and Oscar Johnson contributed to this report.