| Mortgage Employee Shoots Children, X-Wife, Self
Robert O’Mara distraught over divorce January 5, 2005 By PATRICK CROWLEY |
| Blame it on the refi meltdown. Blame it on the winter. Blame it on sheer coincidence.From the Chicago mortgage broker who was stabbed to death while on a south Florida business trip to the broker who was shot to death by her husband in California, the last several weeks have been an incredibly and unusually tragic and violent time for the mortgage industry.
But maybe the most horrifying act to touch the industry took place in the early days of December on a residential street in central Florida. Robert Joseph O’Mara, the office manager at a mortgage brokerage office, shot his former wife and their two children before turning the gun on himself, according to a statement from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department. O’Mara, 38, who was apparently distraught and enraged over the breakup with his wife, Patricia Parra-Perez, 40, was coldly brutal in carrying out the killings. According to police and media reports, O’Mara, who had been arrested earlier in the year on a domestic violence charge, was waiting for his family when they arrived home to her new townhouse. Parra-Perez had moved into the duplex with the couple’s two children — Lauren, 13, and Sean, 12 — after splitting with O’Mara. As Parra-Perez pulled her car into the condo’s driveway, O’Mara walked to the car with what police described as a semi automatic handgun. “Detectives have determined Robert O’Mara was lying in wait for the family,” according to the police report. He shot his wife in the head and his son in the face. His daughter ran down the street, screaming. O’Mara chased her down and shot her before turning the gun on himself, putting it to his head and pulling the trigger. Only Parra-Perez survived, but she was admitted to a local hospital in critical condition. Police say the breakup of the marriage, as well as Parra-Perez’s quest for a new life, was the apparent motive for the shootings. “His ex-wife had recently divorced him and had changed her name, bought a new car and purchased the townhouse,” police said. Friends of Parra-Perez reportedly told the St. Petersburg Times that O’Mara had stalked his ex-wife and was abusive toward her. Just five days before their divorce was granted, O’Mara was arrested for kicking his way into the couple’s home and then fighting with her. “He was obsessed with her,” a friend, Lynn Pishock, was quoted in the Times as saying. “She didn’t want to be involved with him anymore because he was a volatile person.” O’Mara appeared to be somewhat successful in the mortgage business. The paper reported he drove a 2000 Jaguar and Hillsborough County property records indicate he lived in a house valued at $200,000. |
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Patrick Crowley is a political reporter and columnist and former business writer for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Email Patrick at: pcrowley@enquirer.com |
