LA Fitness shooter 'didn't come out of the blue'
In 2003, Pamela Quillin slept with her gun for weeks, afraid the man stalking her would break into her home in the middle of the night.
She suspected that George Sodini suffered from mental illness based on his eccentric personality, social behavior and threats that mentioned guns. Still, she never imagined the violence lurking within the man she met at church in 1999.
Nearly three months ago, Quillin's sleepless nights returned when she learned Sodini, 48, peppered the LA Fitness center in Collier with bullets, killing three women and wounding nine others in an aerobics class before committing suicide.
"I don't know why it was them, and not me," said Quillin, 49, who acknowledges she suffers from survivor's guilt. "I'm alone; I'm not married, and I don't have children. I don't know how I could not feel it."
Today, Quillin, a former Pittsburgh resident who lives in Denver, hopes that talking about her experiences with Sodini will help others recognize warning signs that could prevent a similar tragedy.
"I want his victims and the survivors of those who died to know that George Sodini didn't come out of the blue," she said.
Quillin, an electrical engineer, said she met Sodini at the Tetelestai Church in Oakmont. Early on, she said, Sodini expressed interest in her, but she discouraged his advances because she was dating someone.
At first, Sodini seemed "friendly and harmless," she said. Soon, she saw a "dark, brooding side" to the man who complained of loneliness, of rejection from women and of "feeling like a zombie" but refused to get help.
Still, they saw each other at church functions, including a bike trip. They did not date, but carpooled to social events, she said.
Sodini, a systems analyst at the Downtown law firm K&L Gates, "fit into social groups good enough, despite being socially awkward," Quillin recalled. After the shootings, church deacon Jack Rickard, 80, of Indiana told reporters that Sodini "was just one of the guys."
Indeed, Quillin said she did not begin to worry about Sodini until late summer in 2003, when he learned she wasn't dating anyone and built a password-protected Web page about her. She said she took offense at false content that showed he was "living in a fantasy."
"He thought that was his big opportunity. ... He thought I would be pleased with it," she said.
She asked Sodini to remove the page, but he refused. She sought help from the church and called police, inquiring about a restraining order because Sodini began to stalk her and threaten her with talk about guns.
"To me, in my mind, it was a distinct possibility that he would shoot me. I wasn't raised to take the threat of guns cavalierly," she said. "I was afraid."
Because she had no proof, police could not help, she said.
Members of the Tetelestai congregation intervened, according to church deacon Charles Matone of Greensburg, who said he gave Sodini a letter asking him to stay away from the church for two to three months because "he was bothering a woman." Quillin said a state trooper, whom she declined to identify, spoke to Sodini unofficially on her behalf.
After talking to the trooper, Sodini stopped calling, she said. Even though the stalking lasted only a few months, she continued to worry.
She sold her Murray Hill Avenue home and moved into a rental property in Lower Burrell, where she lived until she left her 16-year job at PPG Industries to take a job 100 miles away in Ohio. In 2007, she moved to Colorado.
"Each time, I felt that it would be more difficult for him to find me," she said.
Quillin said she seldom thought about Sodini until Rickard called her after the Aug. 4 shootings that killed Jody Billingsley, 37, of Mt. Lebanon, Heidi Overmier, 46, of Carnegie, and Elizabeth Gannon, 49, of Green Tree.
"The only difference between me and the women in the gym class is that I saw George coming. I had time to act. George was a complete surprise to them.
"I am convinced that is the way he wanted it," Quillin said.
