Shooting Spree Suspect Foreshadowed Attacks in Books

Lyndon James McLeod, 47, was killed after the rampage
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 30, 2021 2:33 AM CST
Shooting Spree Suspect Wrote Books Describing Attacks
Mourners burn incense as they gather outside the door of a tattoo parlor along South Broadway Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021, in Denver, one of the scenes of a shooting spree that left multiple people dead—including the suspected shooter Monday evening—and a few other people wounded. The spree spread from the...   (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

The man who killed five people during a shooting spree in Denver and nearby Lakewood, Colo., had written books previewing the rampage, police say. Lyndon James McLeod, 47, who was shot and killed by a police officer Monday, wrote one novel using the pen name Roman McClay in which a character named Lyndon poses as a police officer to get into a building near Denver's Cheesman Park to kill everyone at a poker party hosted by a character named Michael Swinyard. On Monday, police say, McLeod killed a 67-year-old named Michael Swinyard at a home near Cheesman Park. In a second novel also written as McClay, Alicia Cardenas is named as one of Lyndon's victims, as is the tattoo shop she owns. The real 44-year-old Alicia Cardenas was killed at her tattoo shop along with another woman, Alyssa Gunn, 35, on Monday. Gunn's husband was injured.

McLeod was the lease holder for a tattoo shop Cardenas took over before moving it to its current location, where she was killed. Victim Danny Scofield, 38, was killed at another tattoo shop in Lakewood. Police say McLeod knew most of his victims, but not the fifth one, Sarah Steck, 28. He'd had dealings with the Hyatt House hotel where she worked and was killed, however. A motive has not yet become clear; it's not known whether the shootings were related to McLeod's links to the tattoo industry. Police say he had extremist views and had been "on the radar of law enforcement" last year and earlier this year, CNN reports. (More Denver stories.)

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