Video report of Omaha mall shooting

The teenager who killed eight during a shooting spree in an Omaha mall left a suicide note claiming he would now be famous, according to his landlord.

Debora Maruca discovered the message at around the time a gunmen opened fire on Christmas shoppers at a nearby department store. The shooter was Robert A. Hawkins, 19, a friend of her children who was staying with the family.

She described the contents of the note in which he wrote “that he was sorry for everything, that he didn’t want to be a burden to anybody, he loved his family, he loved all of his friends. He was a piece of shit all of his life and now he’ll be famous."

The young man opened fire from a balcony at Westroads Mall, killing five women and three men before turning the gun on himself. Six of the victims, all aged between 24 and 66, were staff at the mall the other two had been shopping in when the shooting began.

Police identified Hawkins’ victims this morning: the customers were Gary Scharf of Lincoln, Nebraska, and John McDonald of Iowa. The murdered employees were Angie Schuster, Maggie Webb, Janet Jorgensen, Diane Trent, Gary Joy and Beverly Flynn.

The Omaha World-Herald newspaper reported that Hawkins, who left school last year, had a military-style haircut and a black backpack, and wore a camouflage vest. As he wrought carnage, dozens of traumatised shoppers and shopworkers ran out of the mall with their hands up.

For the past year, Hawkins had been living with Mrs Maruca’s family in the city’s prosperous Bellevue neighbourhood.

“When he first came in the house, he was introverted, a troubled young man who was like a lost pound puppy that nobody wanted,” she said.

Mrs Maruca said Hawkins was fired from his job at a nearby McDonald’s this week and had recently broken up with a girlfriend.

The shootings occurred only hours after President Bush had been in the city to discuss healthcare policy. Airforce One flew out of Omaha, Nebraska at about 1pm.

One witness, speaking from inside the shopping precinct, said that people had been shot, apparently at random, by a man with a rifle firing from a third-floor balcony.

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