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ROANOKE, Va. (AP-CP) - A former Nova Scotia man who
opened fire at a bar frequented by gays, killing one patron and injuring
six, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and six other charges Thursday.
Ronald Edward Gay, 55, who told police he was upset that his last
name made him the victim of jokes, faces a maximum of four life terms plus
60 years in prison for the Sept. 22 shooting, said John McNeil, assistant
commonwealth's attorney.
Gay agreed to plead guilty to murder and six counts of malicious
wounding after prosecutors offered to drop eight firearms charges,
reducing the maximum penalty by about 33 years in prison, McNeil said.
Gay has condemned homosexuality and told police he was humiliated
that three of his sons changed their last names.
The day before the shooting, Gay checked into a nearby hotel.
According to police, he began asking where the gay bar was and telling
people he wanted to shoot gay people.
Someone gave him directions to the Backstreet Cafe and called
police.
Danny Lee Overstreet, 43, died at the scene.
Gay called himself a ''Christian soldier working for my Lord'' in a
letter mailed to the Roanoke Times in March.
''Jesus does not want these people in his heaven,'' Gay wrote.
After the hearing, a woman who was shot in the left hand said the
penalty wasn't enough.
''What would have been enough would be to allow us to shoot him the
way he shot us,'' Kathy Caldwell said, pulling back a bandage to show the
stitches in her palm.
Gay's only prior offences were a trespassing violation and an
injunction for domestic violence, both misdemeanours.
Gay, formerly of Dartmouth, N.S., hated the homosexual jokes people
made about his name, and he was teased about it during a stint with the
U.S. Marine Corps and after he left the military, his brother said in an
interview last September.
''The last thing he's got is his name, and he hasn't even got
that,'' said Bill Gay of Bedford, N.S.
Bill Gay said his brother suffers from post-traumatic stress
disorder after a tour of duty in Vietnam in the late 1960s.
Ronald Gay often spoke disapprovingly of homosexuals to his mother.
''He didn't like them,'' Rita Hack said last year in a telephone
interview from Saskatchewan.
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