Update on deranged killer:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/story/444360.html
Rampage gunman's motive a mystery
The gunman who ambushed a lunch crowd at a West Palm Beach fast-food restaurant had a history of failed relationships.
Posted on Wed, Mar. 05, 2008
BY JENNIFER MOONEY PIEDRA, ANI MARTINEZ AND ADAM H. BEASLEY
[email protected]
'Random' shooting at West Palm Wendy's
He had an ex-wife he never met until their annulment, another wife he didn't live with and a third woman who accused him of abuse.
Even though neighbors say Alburn Edward Blake was quiet and kept to himself, the 60-year-old landscaper often had women coming and going from his West Palm Beach apartment.
But what caused him to storm into a fast-food restaurant near West Palm Beach during lunchtime and open fire Monday, killing Palm Beach County Fire Rescue Lt. Rafael Vazquez and wounding four others before taking his own life, remains a mystery.
''We are still putting all the pieces of the puzzle together,'' Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Tuesday.
A day after the deadly shooting, investigators continued searching for clues -- and a motive.
They spent hours Tuesday inside the closed Wendy's restaurant on Military Trail and Cherry Road, where tables were overturned and windows shattered from the bloody rampage. They also combed through Blake's white 2000 Ford Explorer, which was towed from the restaurant parking lot.
TWO KNIVES FOUND
Inside the gunman's sport utility vehicle were two knives, several bills and receipts, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said. Still, they found no suicide note.
The medical examiner completed Blake's autopsy Tuesday, ruling his death a suicide. Toxicology reports are pending.
As four of the shooting victims -- a married couple in their 60s, a teenage girl and a pilot from Texas -- continue their recovery in different Palm Beach County hospitals, more details emerged about Blake's past.
According to public records, Blake married Tangela Lavonne Kemp during a civil ceremony in Miami-Dade County in 1987. Blake was 40, Kemp was 19.
But Kemp, a nurse who lives in Biscayne Gardens, says she never knew Blake and that someone stole her identity while she was serving in the military.
She learned of the bogus marriage through a signed license she received in the mail.
Kemp, now 39, said she would have gotten the marriage annulled immediately, but at the time she couldn't afford the legal expenses.
In 1992, the two sides began the annulment proceedings, court records show.
MET IN COURT
Kemp met Blake for the first time in a Miami courtroom.
'I was like, `Who is this guy?' '' Kemp said Tuesday, while standing outside her home.
Although Blake and Kemp were still legally married in 1989, Blake wedded another woman -- Deborah Denise Moore.
The Kemp-Blake marriage officially ended on July 28, 1993, when a Miami-Dade judge annulled the union, declaring that neither party had consented to or had knowledge of the union.
A forensic expert later concluded that one of the signatures in the marriage license had been altered. It is unknown whether charges were filed.
Moore, Blake's second wife, lives in Lake Park, a small suburb, north of West Palm Beach. It is believed that the couple were separated, but Moore could not be reached for comment.
Three years ago, a mutual friend introduced Blake to Mary Giannico. The couple began dating, moved into an apartment on Bensel Street -- just minutes away from the Wendy's where the shooting happened -- and eventually had a daughter together, Katherine Blake.
But their relationship was troubled.
According to records obtained from the sheriff's office, Giannico usually stayed at a friend's house to avoid Blake.
In January 2006, a representative from the Florida Department of Children & Families investigated allegations that Blake kicked Giannico on the knee and the back while their daughter was present, records show.
The DCF investigation found no signs of abuse on the child and the agency ordered Giannico undergo drug testing.
In July, Blake was ordered to pay child support to Giannico. She wanted nothing more to do with him, she told The Palm Beach Post.
''I've been shaking like a leaf for the past three years,'' Giannico told the newspaper. ``This is a demented man, this is a sick, abusive man that should have been locked up in a cage a long time ago.''
