WEST VIRGINIA Police: Shooter had grudges

Associated Press

MORGANTOWN, W.VA.

An ex-convict who owned a towing company made good on his grudges, police said Tuesday, killing his partner, his business rival, his ex-girlfriend and the woman’s new boyfriend before firing a gun through his head in the cab of his pickup truck.

Posting a message to Face- book as police hunted him down after the rampage, Jody Lee Hunt said he wanted to see that his victims “received their fair pay of hurt.”

“My actions were not right nor were the actions of those who tried to tear me down and take from me,” Hunt wrote in the lengthy Facebook post before committing suicide.

The shootings began Monday morning with Hunt’s settling of a professional grudge: For the past couple of months, he had been complaining to county officials that towing operators, including his rival Doug Brady, had been poaching jobs, Monongalia County commissioner Tom Bloom said.

Police said Hunt drove over to Doug’s Towing and shot Brady in the head twice in his garage.

That set off what would become about a 12-hour manhunt for the 39-year-old Hunt and his black 2011 Ford F-150.

Hunt drove next to a home his ex-girlfriend, 39-year-old Sharon Kay Berkshire, was renting with her new boyfriend, Michael David Frum, 28, Monongalia County Sheriff Kenneth “Al” Kisner said.

Frum and Berkshire had been dating for a few months. Frum was found shot to death inside the home, and Berkshire, shot twice, was discovered outside, perhaps dying as she tried to escape.

Hunt then drove back across town and killed his business partner and cousin Jody Taylor, who also may have been romantically involved with Berkshire at some point, police said.