Thomas Lee Dillon, a man pathologically obsessed with firearms, cut a trail of destruction across Ohio over a three year period in the early 1990s, mu...

Thomas Lee Dillon, a man pathologically obsessed with firearms, cut a trail of destruction across Ohio over a three year period in the early 1990s, murdering at least five outdoorsmen before being apprehended. He was born in Canton in 1950. His father died of cancer when he was a baby, and he was raised by a cold, indifferent mother. An intelligent boy who did well in school, he was also an oddball and a loner. His high school yearbook from his senior year mentions him as having no extracurricular activities.

Tom was very organized and very obsessed with his main pastime, hunting, which he got an adrenaline rush out of. Ever since he was a teenager, he kept a logbook of all the animals he killed, as well as a logbook of girls he had sex with. After graduating high school in 1968, he attended Kent State University and then Ohio State, and then got hired as a draftsman for the Canton Water Department. In 1978, he married Catherine Elsass, a nurse.

By the start of the 1980s, Dillon boasted that he had hunted and shot at least 500 animals. He also attended Ohio Peace Officers Training in Lawrence Township in Stark County, where he graduated with expert marksmanship, and at least once neighbors called police to complain he shot their dogs. A hunting buddy of his called him a bad hunter and a poor sportsman. "He didn't know how to field dress animals. He'd leave the deer carcass where it was or butcher it in his front yard and leave a mess behind. He shot at farmers' cats after getting permission to hunt on their land; he just didn't care. He didn't understand friendship; he'd never just do something for you, there always had to be a trade. He never seemed to be into women either, he'd never talk about love and his wife in the same sentence. He was always playing with weapons, even carried them with him when he was riding his bike."

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Dillon was always buying and selling different firearms, and also owned a crossbow. His friend claimed he shot off at least 1,000 rounds a year in target practice and ended up shooting so much that he suffered hearing damage. "He used to get a physical thrill out of killing. He once used a knife to finish off a wounded groundhog. He was shaking. He was in a frenzy, wild-eyed." Despite this, he wasn't a very good marksman, especially when the target was still living. "One time he brought home a dead German Shepherd, a nice-looking dog, I might add, and it was stuck full of arrows. He'd always be talking about hunting animals at work and gross out his co-workers, but he never seemed to understand what their problem was."

    "Our hunting trips used to be legit. But then we started hitting these dumps in southern Stark County. We'd go down there hunting rats and things. I remember when we ran into these scraggly dogs with open sores on their body. Tom said would it be ok if he shot them? I didn't think anything of it because they were just stray dogs and stray dogs can be dangerous. But then he starts shooting anything he comes across, including people's pets, by the side of the road. I'd say 'That didn't look like no stray dog, Tom.' And he'd say 'They shouldn't be left running around like that.' At first I let it go, but then I told him 'Tom, you can't just keep doing that. Those are somebody's pets. Somebody loves them.'"

    One time, when Dillon's son was about 5 or 6, he shot a chipmunk under his backyard barbecue grille, made the little boy look at it, and shoved it in his face.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    After a neighbor complained to police that Dillon shot his dog, the latter started moving his hunting activities further from home. This neighbor encounted him in Tuscarawas County in 1986 after having not spoken to him in a couple years, and asked "What are you doing down here?" "Oh, just driving around," was the reply. The two started hanging out again and decided to attend the Ohio Gun Collectors Association Show in Cleveland. "He said he was done killing animals, so I figured we could be friends again." There were a couple gun shows a year, and the two would go to them to talk about firearms, hunting, and serial killers. Dillon read a lot about the latter subject and told his friend "Do you know how easy it would be to murder someone and dump their body out here in the woods? There's no witnesses and no motive. Nobody would ever know."

    So far in his life, he had two scrapes with the law. One happened when he was a UoO student in 1969 and had been investigated for possessing a World War I field mortar. No charges were fired when it was decided the weapon was more of an antique/curiosity than something that could be practically used. The second happened in August of 1991 when a game warden caught him doing illegal target practice near a state hunting land in Stark County. He was fined $200, but authorities then found an illegal silencer attached to a .22 pistol in his pickup truck. Dillon pled guilty to possessing the silencer and received a suspended sentence in exchange for promising to sell all of his firearms and abstain from purchasing any more. Unfortunately, it was a case of closing the gate after the horse had bolted.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    On April 1, 1989, a jogger named Donald Welling was shot dead outside the little village of New Philadelphia, 100 miles south of Cleveland. On November 21, Jamie Paxton was shot while hunting outside St. Clairsville, near the West Virginia border. One week later, Kevin Loring was shot while hunting in Muskingum County. On March 14, 1992, Claude Hawkins was shot while fishing in Coshocton County. On April 5, Gary Bradley was shot in Noble County. As the shootings took place in isolated rural areas or woodlands, there were no witnesses, no forensic evidence, and no suspects. All victims were shot with a high powered rifle, but there were no shell casings either.

    Claude Hawkins was shot in a Federally protected wetland; this meant that the murder would come under Federal jurisdiction, and Ohio authorities could enlist the FBI's help to find the killer.

    The first clue that came up happened in the fall of 1990, about a year after Jamie Paxton's death, when a photocopied letter was sent to the local sheriff's department, Paxton's family, and a local newspaper declaring that the author of the letter was the killer. "I did not know Jamie Paxton, had never seen him before, never spoken a word to him. The motive for the killing was the killing itself," the letter read. "Paxton was killed because of an irresistable (sic) compulsion that has taken over my life. I knew when I left my house that day that someone would die by my hand. I just didn’t know who or where. … Technically, I meet the defintion (sic) of a serial killer (three or more victims with a cooling off period in between) but I’m an average looking person with a family, job, and home just like yourself. Something in my head causes me to turn into a merciless killer with no conscience. Five minutes after I shot Paxton I was drinking a beer and had blacked out all thoughts of what I had just done out of my mind. I thought no more of shooting Paxton than shooting a bottle at the dump."

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >All victims were shot with a high powered rifle, but there were no shell casings either.
      Knowing how meticulous he was (>keeping a diary of chicks he fricked) he probably gathered up the shell casings and didn't leave them behind.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      shades of BTK here

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    An FBI profile of the shooter suggested he was likely a white male in his 20s, probably college-educated, with a fetish for arson and shooting animals. He would be triggered to kill by stress or substance abuse. Certain of their guesses proved accurate; others like the shooter's age were quite off.

    In August 1992, a man named Richard Fry, who'd known Dillon since high school, told the Akron Beacon Journal that his old pal weirded him out with his nonstop fixation on firearms, serial killers, and shooting animals. "He asked me if I thought he could, or had, killed somebody. The way he looked at me chilled my blood. I thought he had a secret to tell. It was the look on his face and in his eyes." Fry said back when him and Dillon were teenagers, they would drive through the countryside shooting at animals, road signs, and starting small brush fires, but Tom started taking it too far when he wanted to kill family pets.

    Fry said he remembered Tom shooting out stoplights, stealing the loudspeakers from a drive-in movie theater, and tossing them through the windows of a local high school (not the school he attended). "Back in the year we graduated, we were having a problem with some other high school. One of these standoffs - you throw something at my car, I throw something at your car. But nobody ever throws a punch. One night, one of the other guys kicked his car. Tom pulled out this gun and took a shot at this guy. I asked him this: 'Did you really mean to hit him?' And he said, 'Yes, I meant to hit him.'"

    A college buddy of Dillon's said usually they'd just hang out at a local swimming hole and drink beer. Tom didn't have any guns with him on these trips, but they'd heard stories about him. But one time, he shot from his car window at a farmer some 300 yards away. "I said 'Tom, are you trying to hit him?' He said 'Aw, he's too far away and you know I can't hit him with a pistol. I'm just 'plinking' him."

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    With this lead, the FBI had a suspect and sent an informant around to follow Dillon and observe as he purchased guns and drove around shooting at animals and random objects. It was hard to overlook how all five of the victims had been shot on either the weekend or days when Dillon was on vacation. Even more bizarrely, Dillon visited Kevin Loring's grave in Massachusetts, some 540 miles away. As he would later claim after his arrest, "When I went to New England last year with my wife, I looked up on microfilm in the Plymouth Library where the guy lived and everything. He was from the Duxbury area. I just read, you know, to see what...who the hell he was. I didn’t know who he was."

    Although the FBI shadowed Dillon for a couple months during summer and fall 1992, they couldn't pin anything on him except a cattle shooting. By the start of November, hunting season was arriving and they figured they'd better get him before more people died. He was finally arrested at the Ohio Gun Collectors' Association show in Cleveland on November 27 for trying to purchase a handgun in violation of his court order to not buy any more firearms. Authorities asked anyone who'd sold a gun to Dillon to come forward.

    On December 4, a gun dealer brought in a Swedish Mauser rifle he said that Dillon had sold him on April 6, the day after Bradley was murdered. Ballistics tests indicated that it was the rifle used to kill Bradley and Hawkins. On January 27, 1993, Dillon was indicted on capital charges in both cases. He pled guilty to five counts of first degree murder in exchange for no death penalty. Dillon got his wish and received five consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole. It was also believed that Dillon was the culprit in the unsolved shooting death of John Harvat in McKean County, Pennsylvania in 1984 but he did not acknowledge any responsibility in that incident.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >On December 4, a gun dealer brought in a Swedish Mauser rifle he said that Dillon had sold him

      Nice.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    He blamed a troubled childhood for his problems. Dillon was also reported as having "difficulties" with his marriage at the time of his arrest. When asked if he would shoot more people had he not been caught, he answered "I would say yes, there probably would be more victims." Dillon remarked that he would like to avoid being sent to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, which was host to a massive riot involving 450 inmates in April 1993. In response, the relatives of his victims demanded he get exactly that, and that was where he would serve his sentence.

    Dillon passed away in the prison infirmary on October 21, 2011 at the age of 61. He had been ill for the past three weeks from an unspecified medical condition.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Among lifers in prison, guys develop strange practices that nobody on the outside would ever think of doing. Shit slinging for example involves devising ways to spray shit at guards, inmates etc. It’s pretty common to roll shit in a newspaper and then launch a tube of liquid shit. One guy was known as the best shit slinger of them all, guards would strip him naked and check for any way he could fling shit before moving him or even entering the same room if they could help it. They had taken all the precautions one time to be safe from getting covered in shit and were transporting him to the showers when he began spraying liquid shit at them out of his mouth. He was the best alright, but at the end of the day he was an old man with a mouth full of shit spitting it at people.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I wonder if this occurs in all kinds of prisons with lifers or just the ones with no psych care, brutal guards, etc

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    oh hai, it's yet another thread reminding us that boomers could be complete sociopathic frick-ups and still have friends, girlfriends, literally just walk into a job after college, have a wife, son, house, etc.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      while doing all the drugs in the world and not wearing seatbelts

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      there was no Internet in the 70s and no unlimited supply of porn in a few mouse clicks so you had to actually go out, socialize, talk to women, etc and not sit in a dark basement fapping to hentai

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      he was like 40 before he went nuts and started hunting people, though

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Seethe gay. Your own problems arent anyone elses fault

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      try making yourself even slightly interesting to women

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >touches grass, goes outside and has sex multiple times
      >mental ilness still does not go away
      JUST
      Maybe he should have tried coping, seething and dilating too

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    everyone always knew that one weird kid in school who talked to himself and was obsessed with guns and shooting things, and you avoided hanging out with him. years later you put on the evening news and heard he'd been arrested in connection with the disappearance of some college co-ed or something to that effect.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    ITT: /k/ goes too far

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    damn were boomers ever violent af

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Some of you bright young kids will grow up and follow in his foot steps.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >as well as a logbook of girls he had sex with
    Chad af.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous
    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Thats kinda lame actuakly dude. Real chads dont give a damn and just do whatever, not keep a trophy log

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous
    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Among lifers in prison, guys develop strange practices that nobody on the outside would ever think of doing. Shit slinging for example involves devising ways to spray shit at guards, inmates etc. It’s pretty common to roll shit in a newspaper and then launch a tube of liquid shit. One guy was known as the best shit slinger of them all, guards would strip him naked and check for any way he could fling shit before moving him or even entering the same room if they could help it. They had taken all the precautions one time to be safe from getting covered in shit and were transporting him to the showers when he began spraying liquid shit at them out of his mouth. He was the best alright, but at the end of the day he was an old man with a mouth full of shit spitting it at people.

      The comment section in there mentions that Dillon's prison stay was pretty uneventful and he mostly kept to himself. He died of cancer, apparently.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    In his confession, Dillon described the shootings thusly: "[Donald Welling] said 'What’s up?' just before I shot him. Just from me to you, just five feet away. This guy was just trying to be friendly and he blew, you know, I killed him. It wasn’t premeditated, I told you guys that," he confessed later. “Just, I was just driving along and came up on him and that’s it, Welling…And just...I heard a voice in my head said, 'Open fire on him.' And I did. And in 10 seconds, from the...the time I heard that voice until I shot him and killed him."

    "I drove by and [Claude Hawkins] waved at me. I heard a voice that day that said, 'Go back and get him.' I saw him fishing down there, I heard a voice in my head say, ‘Go back and get him.’ Went down there and killed him. Shot him right in the back."

    "[Kevin Loring]'s hat blew straight up about 20 feet. I knew I had to blow his whole head off."

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >An intelligent boy who did well in school, he was also an oddball and a loner. His high school yearbook from his senior year mentions him as having no extracurricular activities.
    I’m tired of hearing about mass shooters and thinking that sounds like me

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      actual mass shooters have posted on /misc/ before going out and doing it

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