Texas trucker slain after killing 6

Police said the violence began about 8 a.m. when John F. Parish, 46, of Dallas, armed with two pistols and a rifle, walked into the Western Transfer Co. building in the central business district of this Dallas suburb.

Witnesses said Parish spoke to no one as he calmly shot and killed three of his supervisors, Eddie Eugene Ulrich, 40, Martin Douglas Moran, 30, and Moody Charles Smith, 58, of Lufkin.

He then left his company vehicle, stole a truck and drove a half block to another Western Transfer office, where he fatally wounded executive secretary Wyvonne Kohler, 45, of Arlington. He wounded 19-year-old receptionist Ruth James of Alvarado and Burnett Hart, 42, an operations manager from Arlington.

A few minutes later, Parish entered the warehouse of Jewel-T, a discount grocery store, where he shot and killed Dave Bahl and Rick Svoboda. Robert Sarabia, 30, was wounded.

Police Chief David Kunkle said Parish worked for Western Transfer, which contracted with Jewel-T. He said Jewel-T officials had complained to Western Transfer about the trucker, claiming he was a troublemaker.

Kunkle also said Parish had had a pay dispute with Western Transfer for the last two weeks.

"This was not a random shooting," the police chief said. "The man obviously had an agenda. He had a mission to accomplish."

After the shootings at Jewel-T, Parish commandeered an 18-wheel tractor- trailer loaded with cookies. The driver, Carl Lorentz, 57, of Mesquite, was injured in the scuffle with Parish and was treated at Grand Prairie Community Hospital.

About 30 minutes after it all started, during a running gun battle with police, Parish rammed the truck through a police barricade. Officer Alan T. Patton, 32, who was standing outside his car, was seriously injured.

Wayne Standifer, who owns Wayne's Custom Automotive across the street from the barricade, heard the gunfire and saw the truck hit the police car.

"The truck hit the squad car and the officer went flying across the pavement," Standifer said. "It sent the car about 75 feet backward."

The truck then rolled up a small embankment near a parking lot, knocking down a utility pole and sliding into another car, shoving it into a building owned by the E.L. Murphy trucking company. The truck overturned on its side as it hit the building, its cab crushing against the concrete-block wall.

Jim Hodge, a truck driver from Cullman, Ala., was inside the Murphy building. "I thought I was gone there for a minute," he said.

Bob Fischer, 25, Murphy terminal manager, said he saw the truck come sliding through the wall.

"I stood up and tried to dive through the window," he said, but blinds blocked him. He ran into the adjacent office where Hodge was and both climbed out between the building and the wrecked truck.

Kunkle said Parish continued to fire at officers as he climbed out of the cab and into the building. Several officers fired at him and he suffered seven or eight gunshot wounds. He died in a pool of blood in Fischer's office.