-Caveat Lector- http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/Sep/01/front_page/NWARM01.htm "Traub is a high school dropout who neighbors said often wore a trench coat and combat boots and who wandered the streets mumbling to himself. ... 'He was really weird,' [a neighbor] said. 'I'd often see him talking to himself or sometimes to his car. It was like he was petting a dog. He would talk to his car and pet it and say, "OK, car, I know you're really dirty, but I'll wash you in a little while."'" The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 1, 1999 Woman killed outside market Bucks mother of two shot while grocery shopping <photo not shown> Murder suspect Donald Anthony Traub laughs at reporters while being taken into custody. Authorities said he shot Karen Lee Hordis three times at close range. (John Slavin/Inquirer Suburban Staff) In what authorities said was a random killing, a 42-year-old mother of two was shot to death yesterday morning as she loaded groceries into her station wagon at a busy Warminster supermarket. Karen Lee Hordis of Ivyland was killed by a man who got out of an adjacent car, shot her twice at close range with a handgun, then leaned over her body and shot her again, authorities said. Authorities said Hordis died almost instantly as horrified shoppers watched. "She was shot because she was there," Bucks County District Attorney Alan M. Rubenstein said yesterday. "That's what makes this killing especially frightening." Minutes later, after a short chase, police arrested Donald Anthony Traub, 23, of Willow Grove, and charged him with the slaying. Rubenstein said that after the killing, authorities designated Traub as the suspect in two other random shootings in Warminster and Horsham last year that he described then as the work of a "psychopathic sniper." "We do believe that he is the one who committed those other seemingly random acts," Rubenstein said. He said the suspect in those shootings was driving a red car similar to the Oldsmobile Cutlass that Traub was driving when he was arrested yesterday. He also said that Traub fit the general description of the suspect in the earlier shootings. Traub is a high school dropout who neighbors said often wore a trench coat and combat boots and who wandered the streets mumbling to himself. A .38-caliber handgun, believed to be the murder weapon, was recovered from Traub's car, authorities said, and spent shell casings were found in his front shirt pocket. Police said the gun was not registered to Traub, and they declined to say who held the permit. Authorities will try to match the gun to bullets found after the earlier shootings, Rubenstein said. The shooting yesterday happened outside the Giant supermarket on West Street Road just after 9 a.m., while the store was bustling with shoppers - some of whom locked themselves inside after the shots were fired. Catherine Marshall of Ohio, who was shopping in the store, said she heard a grocery clerk scream, " 'He's got a gun, and he's coming this way.' " Police quickly linked Traub to the earlier shootings, which also happened in broad daylight. When they first approached Traub, he said: "I am the one you want. . . . I did it," according to the probable-cause affidavit filed in the case. Police now believe it was Traub who shot Donna Holbrook of Warminster in the face as she got out of her car at work in Horsham in August 1998. Six days later, the police believe, he shot Shawn Vanorder, 34, who was riding to work on a bicycle along Street Road in Warminster. Both victims recovered. In an interview yesterday, Vanorder said he was relieved that police had captured Traub. "I've been scared out of my mind ever since that day," he said. Holbrook declined to comment yesterday. Traub, a former resident of Warminster, was charged with first-degree murder in yesterday's shooting. He was arraigned before District Justice Charles A. Cappuccio and held without bail. As he left the courtroom in shackles, Traub said: "I didn't do it." Acquaintances of Traub, who knew him when he lived with his father on Date Street in Warminster, described him as a troubled loner. Neighbor Heidi Hoelzle, 28, who lived next door to Traub until he moved out two years ago, described him as a quiet young man whose odd demeanor sometimes frightened her. "He was really weird," she said. "I'd often see him talking to himself or sometimes to his car. It was like he was petting a dog. He would talk to his car and pet it and say, 'OK, car, I know you're really dirty, but I'll wash you in a little while.' " Down the street, Lora Enwright, 23, stood in the front yard of her mother's house, thumbing through a 1994 William Tennent High School yearbook. She stopped at a senior-year photo of Traub, unsmiling in a tuxedo, his hair disheveled and combed down onto his forehead. "He was kind of geeky and quiet. He didn't talk much," said Enwright, who rode the bus with Traub to school each morning. "If you were nice to him, he was nice to you, but I could see how he had a strange mind." After high school, Enwright said, she often saw Traub walking near the neighborhood, wearing a long tan trench coat and black combat boots. His hair "was a lot shorter and spikier," she said, and he wore glasses. "He was always alone," she said. In January, Traub moved into a $65-a-week boardinghouse in Willow Grove. Yesterday, police searched his 10-by-12-foot room and carried out boxes of evidence as neighbors watched. Sarah Blossom, 22, who said she had befriended Traub a few months ago, described him as volatile and said he had a penchant for action movies. "He would get mad over the dumbest things," she said. "He'd flip out. He'd be really nice, then he'd start screaming." Karen Hordis was described yesterday by stunned friends as fun and witty, a devoted mother and good neighbor. Outside her home on Woodbrook Lane, neighbors gathered to mourn her. Throughout the day, friends made their way to the beige, two-story house at the end of a street marked by Neighborhood Crime Watch signs and knocked at the door, but no one was home. In the early afternoon, a UPS driver pulled up to deliver a package for Hordis, only to be told she was dead. One friend described her as "the best mom in the neighborhood." She married her high school sweetheart, Bill Hordis, and they had two sons, Billy and Scott, ages 10 and 11. The couple ran Hordis Doors Inc. from their home. Ken Husband of Lansdale, a friend of Hordis' since the second grade, described her as witty and fun. Hordis was a 1975 graduate of Upper Moreland High School, where she was in the flag corps and played field hockey at Upper Moreland High School. She was part of a close-knit group of students who remained friends through school and afterward, said Husband, who was an usher at the Hordises' wedding. When he heard the news yesterday, Husband said, he was shocked. He left work to drive to Hordis' house, but something compelled him to stop at the Giant parking lot on the way. "You get that empty feeling," he said. "What if I were driving through this parking lot 41/2 hours ago, saying, 'Hey, how are you doing?' And then maybe none of this would have happened." A neighbor, Justin Truelove, 16, said he used to deliver papers to Hordis' house and remembered her as very kind. Another neighbor, Pat Steinbach, said when she moved into a house down the block six years ago, Hordis was the first person to knock on her door, introduce herself, and welcome her to the neighborhood. "She was such a good mom," said another neighbor, Laura Burns. "She lived for her kids." � 1999 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. ================================= Robert F. Tatman [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Remove "nospam" from the address to reply. NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml POSTING THIS MESSAGE TO THE INTERNET DOES NOT IMPLY PERMISSION TO SEND UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL E-MAIL (SPAM) TO THIS OR ANY OTHER INTERNET ADDRESS. 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