[4] Robert Stewart, 45, dressed in a bib overall, arrived at the parking lot of the nursing home just before 10:00 a.m., where he fired several shots at the empty car of his estranged wife, shattering its windows.

[citation needed] Stewart then fired at the car of visitor Michael Lee Cotten as he was driving into the parking lot, hitting him in the left shoulder.

Cotten, who later stated that Stewart was "very calm...very deliberate" during the shooting,[5] managed to run into the building and warn the people inside of the gunman.

[6] Leaving a camouflaged Remington 597 .22 caliber rifle atop a Jeep Cherokee, Stewart entered the nursing home armed with a .357-caliber handgun, a .22 Magnum semi-automatic pistol, and a 12-gauge Winchester 1300 shotgun and went down the hall, apparently searching for his estranged wife, Wanda Neal.

[7] Upon realizing that his wife wasn't where she usually worked, Stewart headed to the area for Alzheimer's patients, which was secured by passcode-protected doors.

"[10] At the end of the shooting, six people were dead at the scene; five others, including Stewart, were taken to a nearby hospital, where two of the wounded died the same day.

In 1983 he married then 17-year-old Wanda Gay Neal, but this marriage failed within three years, reportedly due to Stewart's extreme possessiveness, his excess drinking, and his violent temper.

[citation needed] He served six years in the National Guard and never rose above the rank of private before receiving an honorable discharge.

[citation needed] In 1995 he joined the Clay Road Farm Hunt Club in Moore County, where he soon alienated the other members because of his drinking problem and his temper.

After he put a gun to her head and threatened to kill her, Wanda Neal left her husband and returned to her parents' home, three weeks prior to the shooting.

He also tried to contact his former wife, Sue Griffin, through her family, telling them that he was suffering from prostate cancer, that he was preparing to "go away", and that he "was planning on leaving town to visit places he hadn’t seen.