COLORADO SPRINGS, Dec. 2 (UPI) — The accused gunman in the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting that left three dead was reclusive and has a history of violence, particularly toward women, court documents show.
Robert L. Dear, 57, has on several occasions been accused of physical abuse against at least two of his three ex-wives and, in 1992, was arrested and accused of sexual violence and rape. Dear’s second wife, Barbara Michaeu, described Dear as a philanderer, gambler and said he beat her. In court records, she said he claimed to be Christian and is “obsessed with the world coming to an end.”
“He would spin on a dime from being OK to being furious,” she said. “He was abusive — very abusive emotionally, abusive physically. You never knew. It was always nerve-racking because you never knew what he was going to be like,” she said.
Dear is accused of opening fire with a semiautomatic rifle at a Planned Parenthood and surrendering to police after his rampage. Dear allegedly launched the attack against the women’s healthcare clinic in response to a series of controversial videos that purportedly indicated the organization participated in the sale of fetal tissue.
Dear has been described as reclusive and “eccentric.” He was accused of sexually assaulting the wife of a Navy officer at knife point in 1992 but was never charged. Dear said it was a consensual relationship. The woman died in 2007.
Several people who knew him said he was a staunch abortion opponent. Michaeu said he had put glue in the locks of a Planned Parenthood in Charleston, S.C.
“He was very proud of himself that he’d gone over and jammed up their locks with glue so that they couldn’t get in,” Micheau said.
Another ex-wife said he did not obsess about abortion.
