Ohio chief died exiting car at nursing home shooting

NEWARK, Ohio (AP) — The police chief slain by a gunman who killed two others in a nursing home last week died from a single shotgun wound as he got out of his car, a coroner said today.

Steven Eric Disario, chief of the Kirkersville police department, was killed in an alley outside the Pine Kirk Care Center, according to the Licking County coroner.

Disario, 38, had only been on the job about three weeks when he went to the nursing home investigating a report of a man with a gun.

The coroner said inside the nursing home, 46-year-old nurse Marlina Medrano was killed at the nursing station and died of multiple gunshots from both a handgun and shotgun. She had a relationship with the gunman, Thomas Hartless, authorities said.

Also killed inside the nursing home was 48-year-old nurse's aide Cindy Krantz, who died in a hallway from a shotgun wound, the coroner said.

Hartless, 43, killed himself by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun, the coroner said.

Some of the nursing home's 23 residents barricaded themselves during the shooting, but none of them was injured.