Relatives describe terror of Breathitt shooting rampage; motive still unclear | Lexington Herald Leader

JACKSON — Tammy Kilborn was trying to climb out a back bedroom window, her father said, when a neighbor who already had shot four people dragged her back inside.

She was shot to death in a tiny, cramped hallway that leads to the bedroom.

"All of us were out of there. I don't know how she didn't get out," said James Wyatt, who moved into his daughter's home at the first of the month.

On Sunday, police, neighbors and surviving family members could only speculate about what set off Stanley Neace, who shot his wife, stepdaughter, three neighbors and himself in the span of about an hour Saturday morning in a Breathitt County mobile home park.

Wyatt said he was home Saturday with a bunch of other people, adults and children, kin and friends.

They heard shots and at first thought someone was just having fun out in the hills or near the river. Then there was screaming. People realized what was happening and began to scatter, Wyatt said.

Teresa Fugate, a neighbor in the mobile home court, ran over with her children, then ran back to Dennis Turner's trailer, Wyatt said. It was there that officials say Neace chased and shot his wife, Cassandra Neace; his stepdaughter, Sandra R. Strong; Turner, Strong's boyfriend; and Fugate.

Then Neace showed up at Kilborn's front door, which was open, with a 12-gauge shotgun, Wyatt said.

Neace shouted into the home, "Where's Tammy?"

"She's not here," a friend said and then bolted out the back door. Children scattered, Wyatt said, along with grown-ups. No one else in the trailer court had a gun, he said.

Neace entered the home and found Kilborn in Wyatt's back bedroom, apparently trying to climb out the window over his bed. Wyatt said he later found the room in disarray, as if she had been dragged back in by her feet.

After shooting Kilborn, Neace went back to his mobile home, sat in a chair on the porch with his shotgun and, as state police arrived, shot himself.

"It's unbelievable," Wyatt said. The family was still in shock Sunday, he said, and he couldn't describe his emotions. "I miss her. I'll always miss her."

The owner of the trailer court, Ray Rastegar, said Stanley and Sandra Neace owned their trailer and rented a space from him. During the past two months he had heard complaints from the Neaces and from neighbors about spats.

Sandra Neace complained that Tammy Kilborn owed the couple money, Rastegar said, but he didn't know for what. Teresa Fugate complained that the Neaces were hostile to her about her children crossing their yard to visit their uncle's trailer. Other tenants had started to complain about their arguments, Rastegar said.

Because of complaints and because he was thinking of selling the property, he said, he told the Neaces and other families in August that they would have to move out.

"He did not react bad," Rastegar said of Stanley Neace. "I was very nice to him and his wife."

When Rastegar visited the trailer court Sept. 3 to collect rent and check on things, nothing seemed out of place. The Neaces' trailer was clean and orderly. The couple had made improvements to it over the years and added a fireplace, he said. Rastegar met Rachel Strong then for the first time, and he wasn't sure whether she had moved in or was visiting. Strong had three children, neighbors said. Their toys littered the yard Sunday, and their kittens roamed around the trailer court.

"I did my best to talk to them very nice," Rastegar said, and he tried to get the Neaces to handle complaints about money owed by other tenants through the court system, instead of coming to him.

"I haven't slept; I think about how one person can do that and destroy so many families. It's unbelievable," Rastegar said.

Another tenant, Robert Collins, told The Associated Press on Sunday that Fugate, who lived directly behind him with her four children, was "a wonderful mother."

"I don't know what they'd do without her," Collins said.

Kilborn had two daughters, 20 and 18, who lived next door with her husband. Wyatt, Kilborn's father, said she was raised in foster care but reconnected with her parents later.

"She's the one who saved my life," he said, when he had a blood clot in his brain that required surgery 10 years ago.

He moved in with his daughter at the beginning of the month to help with rent. "She had all kinds of friends," Wyatt said.

Dennis Turner was divorced and had two young children, his aunt Gladys Fletcher said Sunday.

"Everyone is just shocked right now. They can't figure it out," Fletcher said.

Turner worked at Appalachian Regional Manufacturing in Jackson, she said. "He was a really good person," she said.

Turner's neighbor Steve Smith said Saturday he thought Neace had argued with Strong about dating Turner.

The mobile home park, with close-set homes and thin walls, is the kind of place where everyone knows one another's business, whether they want to or not. Many residents are related in some way or another, and children and pets roam between homes regularly. Smith said he heard the Neaces fighting for a week or more before the shooting.

Collins told the AP that Neace had rarely bothered anyone until recently, and he thought maybe something had gone wrong in his life.

State police are continuing to investigate but on Sunday didn't have a motive or starting point for the argument, said Trooper Tony Watts, spokesman for the Hazard post spokesman.

Breathitt County Sheriff Ray Clemons said his office is assisting in the investigation, but he has no information on the motive other than that the shootings seemed to have started with an argument between Stanley and Sandra Neace.

"I don't know what triggered him," Clemons said. Clemons said he'd had no trouble with Stanley Neace during Clemons' eight years in office.

Magistrate Tim Spencer said the trailer park is in his district, and there have been problems there. It was not uncommon to see police there. Some of the problems might have been related to drugs and alcohol, Spencer said.

He said he would have recognized Neace but didn't know him well.

Breathitt County Coroner George Griffith said autopsies on all six bodies were completed Sunday, and they were released to funeral homes. Wyatt wondered Sunday how the family was going to pay for Kilborn's funeral, and he wasn't sure what he would do to move on.

"I guess I'll try to get her buried, and then I think I'll have to move out," Wyatt said. "I don't think I can stay here after what happened.