Co-Worker, Cousin Paint Two Different Pictures Of Old Bridge Gunman
OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- The gunman in Friday morning's Pathmark shooting, 23-year-old Terence Tyler, recently moved to Old Bridge and was living with his sister.
Neighbors said, until recently, Tyler lived in a garden apartment on Westminster Blvd. It's where police arrived Friday, after the shooting, likely checking first to see if it had been booby-trapped, CBS 2's John Slattery reported.
Police then carried out evidence from the apartment.
"I used to see him here and there. I only talked to him once...he was normal," said neighbor Mudassis Ilyas.
However, there was a feeling of bewilderment among those who knew both the victims and the gunman.
Meritza Hernandez, whose daughter Miranda Miranda is a cashier at the supermarket, switched shifts last night with the young woman who was killed, 18-year-old Cristina LoBrutto.
"She did change her shift with [Cristina] and [Cristina] took that extra shift to make extra money. That could have been my daughter," Hernandez said.
Miranda said her encounters with 23-year-old Terence Tyler, had not been comfortable.
"The way he looked at me -- that gave me a bad vibe. So ever since that day, I never really stood around him," Miranda Hernandez said.
At the apartment complex where Tyler lived, two blocks from the Pathmark, residents who shop and work at the store had a feeling of disbelief.
"To hear this type of news is shocking. We're very familiar with a lot of the employees over at Pathmark. We go there often," said Deirdre Black, an Old Bridge resident.
Tyler grew up in Brooklyn and enlisted in the Marines. He also tweeted his frustrations, including violent thoughts.
The suspect grew up in an apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in the Medgar Evers Betty Shabazz Houses.
A cousin said news of the violence comes as a total shock.
"He was always quiet, like, isolated, quiet. He really just -- once his mother passed away, that was it," Shanteya Dyson told CBS 2's Tony Aiello.
Tyler's mother, Beverly Dyson, died a few years ago and family members said he took it hard and never seemed to recover. This weekend would have been his mother's birthday.
Tyler later decided to join the Marines -- serving from March 2008 to February 2010. He was stationed in California, where he served as a rifleman in the infantry. He received two service medals for serving in the global War on Terror and working for the National Defense.
His cousin said Tyler came to regret enlisting in the military.
"He felt he had no other choice. His mother died. I didn't think that was the best option, but something he wanted to do. He just wanted some stability," said Dyson.
While a marine - Tyler sent out several Twitter messages referencing violence, tweeting in 2009 - "because these [expletives] are reeeeally pushin my 'kill everyone i see' button."
He also tweeted "I'm starting to see why ppl go on killin sprees..."
The gunman's family gathered in the fifth-floor apartment of Tyler's grandmother. She didn't want to talk on camera, but told CBS 2's Aiello, with tears in her eyes, she can't imagine what happened to her grandson and that she grieves for the young lives that were lost Friday.
Tyler's grandmother said the family is anxious for answers about his final days.
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