WENDELL — Authorities are searching for a 53-year-old Wendell man they suspect of murdering Amanda Glover, 48, of 179 West St. with a shotgun at about 12:25 a.m. Wednesday, and to be in connection with a separate shooting in Chicopee an hour later.
A warrant has been issued for Lewis H. Starkey III, also of 179 West St., on charges of murder, assault to murder, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Starkey is believed to be driving a 2013 Lincoln MKX with Vermont license plate of QLTMKR.
Anyone who locates Starkey or has more information about him is asked to call Massachusetts State Police Sgt. Christopher Baran or Trooper Gary Darling at 413-625-8200. Starkey is believed to be armed and dangerous. On Facebook, the Greenfield Police Department warned the public to “not approach the man.”
Chicopee police allege that about an hour after the Wendell shooting, Starkey turned up at Specialized Trucking company at 215 Griffith Road in Chicopee and fired his shotgun through a window. The shotgun then apparently malfunctioned, the worker took the gun from Starkey and Starkey fled, according to Chicopee police. Upon arriving, police were met by an employee who had been hit with debris from a glass window that was shot out. The worker had minor injuries, and was transported to the hospital to be checked.
Chicopee police declined to say if Starkey worked at the trucking company, but said he was known to employees there.
Wednesday morning, State Police could be seen at the end of a driveway on West Street leading to a brown clapboard house with a large white pickup parked near the home. The Orange Emergency Response Mobile Support Unit trailer was parked down the driveway.
The body of the deceased was still in the home at 2:15 p.m. for crime scene analysis.
Authorities and members of the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, which is leading the investigation, used the Wendell Police Department at 4 Center St. at the town common as a command center Wednesday. Various police vehicles were parked around the town common. The victim’s next of kin were interviewed next door in Town Hall by State Police. Except for the police presence, the scene both at the town common and on West Street was otherwise tranquil, with birds audibly chirping and a clear blue sky above.
Family members were visibly upset as they emerged from Town Hall.
“Why are you saying you’re sorry?” a woman shouted at one point. “You didn’t do this. Lew did all of this.”
Family members left the police station at 10:12 a.m. Anna-Jean Marsh, who lives in a nearby house, provided tea to comfort the family during the interviews.
“It’s just sad. This is ‘the town that time forgot,’” she said, quoting what she said was an old Boston Globe story written about this North Quabbin town of fewer than 900 people. “It’s strange to see so many cars on the common.”
Marsh and her husband, Robert, raised a family in Queens, N.Y., and started spending summers in Wendell in 1971. They now live in Wendell, spending winters in Florida. Robert Marsh said he wanted to leave New York to escape crime.
“Nothing happens in Wendell,” he said, while on his property near the town common. “This is a place where you have to beg people to lock their doors and lock their cars. We’ve never had anything like this.”
At the Wendell Country Store clerk Donna Horn, along with the rest of the residents of the close-knit town, was shocked to hear of the fatal shooting. The suspect delivered liquor to the store and was a regular at the next door pub, according to Horn. “He seemed like a real nice guy. I know it sounds like a cliché,” she said.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 258.