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Suspect in Gay Bar Attack Said to Pen Note

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 February 2006, 03:00 CST

By RAY HENRY

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. - The teenager suspected of attacking three men at a Massachusetts gay bar, then killing two other people while fleeing from authorities in Arkansas, left a note indicating he planned "something violent," authorities said Monday.

Jacob D. Robida, 18, was fatally wounded Saturday when he opened fire on police at a roadblock following a high-speed chase in Arkansas. He was shot twice in the head and died at a hospital the following day.

In New Bedford, where police say Robida attacked patrons at Puzzles Lounge with a hatchet early Thursday and then opened fire with a handgun, detectives found what they considered a troubling message in Robida's room at his mother's home.

"We didn't interpret it necessarily as a suicide note, but it was certainly the note of a desperate man who had some plans to continue doing something violent," Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh Jr. said.

The contents of the note were not released. It was unclear whether Robida left the note before or after the nightclub attack.

Robida's mother told police her son had come home after the attack around 1 a.m. with his head bleeding, then left again.

Jennifer Rena Bailey, 33, told a friend that Robida, who she knew from the Internet, contacted her after the attack to seek refuge in her Charleston, W.Va., apartment, a Massachusetts police official close to the case said on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Bailey's friend contacted Massachusetts authorities on Saturday to warn them that Robida might have been in West Virginia, but the tip came more than an hour after the Arkansas shootout, the official said.

Robida had killed Gassville, Ark., police officer Jim Sell at a traffic stop, setting off a 20-mile chase that ended in a gun battle when Robida allegedly shot and killed Bailey in the passenger seat.

Robida lived in West Virginia with Bailey, a mother of three boys, from sometime in 2004 to February 2005, West Virginia State Police Sgt. C.J. Ellyson said Monday.

Three of Robida's friends listed on a home page the teen created on the Web site MySpace.com told The Associated Press that Bailey was Robida's ex-girlfriend. Police said they were checking e-mails and Internet correspondence between the two and had seized Bailey's computer.

"We're trying to trace down their steps and find out when they hooked up, if she invited him over willingly or if she was abducted. We're trying to answer the unanswered questions," Ellyson said.

There was no sign of forced entry at Bailey's home and no evidence of a struggle, West Virginia State Police Sgt. Jay Powers said Monday. Powers said her three children were with her mother.

Walsh, the Massachusetts prosecutor, said Bailey's child care arrangements seemed to suggest she wasn't a hostage, but he said the investigation is ongoing.

Bailey had ended her relationship with Robida once she realized how disturbed he was, said the woman's friend Craig Dickinson. He strongly believes she was abducted.

"She would never leave her kids," he said. "I will guarantee she did not know what happened in Massachusetts."

Police in Massachusetts also are trying to determine where Robida got his handgun. In Massachusetts, handgun owners must be at least 21 years old.

Police searched his room, finding the note, an apparently homemade poster with a Nazi swastika and anti-Semitic writings, as well as a makeshift coffin, Walsh said.

The significance of the coffin was unknown, he said.

A police report released Monday said investigators also found weapons, including 85 rounds of ammunition, a Samurai sword, one knife and two knife sheaths in Robida's room. A knife without a sheath was found outside of Puzzles.

They also found two bumper stickers that read: "I dress this way to scare your kids" and "My day is not complete until I've terrified a complete stranger," the report said.

Police were trying to determine whether Robida had any accomplices in New Bedford or elsewhere, though evidence suggests he acted alone, Walsh said.

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Associated Press writers Marcus Kabel and Kelly P. Kissel in Little Rock, Ark., and Allison Barker in Charleston, W.Va., contributed to this report.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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