At the home of Donald Haury, 50, in suburban Dayton, two carved pumpkins sat near the front door at his ranch brick house on Belle Meade Drive. Halloween ghosts hung from a tree near an American flag sign that read, "Proud to be an American." Haury died at the scene of the shootings.

Neighbors remembered him as a low-key man who enjoyed yard work and tinkering with his motorcycles and antique car.

Pat Robinson, a neighbor, said she hadn't heard until she came home from work and saw television news trucks.

"I was stunned, absolutely stunned," Robinson said. "You hear about this stuff on the news, but it doesn't happen to someone two doors down from you. It shows we're all pretty vulnerable."

The family of Gary Fissel, 50, a Watkins supervisor who commuted from Huntersville, N.C., was traveling from the Charlotte suburb to the Cincinnati area Thursday.

Fissel, shot in the thumb and chest, was in serious condition Thursday night after surgery.

His neighbors in North Carolina said he is a true family man, with a wife and four children - a son and a daughter in college, and daughters in high school and middle school.

He worked as a manager at Fed-Ex for more than two decades before he took the job with Watkins three months ago.

"The family is just really anxious to see him," said Kathy Manuel, his next-door neighbor.

Glen Brierly, 48, of Hamilton, was shot in the arm and the chest. He was in surgery for about 41/2 hours to save his arm, and was in serious condition Thursday night.

Brierly's neighbors could not be reached Thursday night, and family staying at his bedside in the hospital declined to comment through a hospital spokesman.

Billy F. Claywell, of Cave City, Ky., was treated and released from Mercy Hospital Fairfield.

He declined to speak with a reporter Thursday afternoon.

A family friend, Mitchel Cline, said Claywell bought a five-acre lot 10 years ago from Cline's father.

There, Claywell built a one-story home for his wife and teen daughter. In the carport sits his 1962 canary yellow Chevy Nova.

"It's his pride and joy, besides his daughter," said Cline.

Friends say these five men have one thing in common - they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"All these people did was show up for work today," said George Vonderhaar, who worked on the Watkins dock and knew Lines. "That was their only mistake, if you want to call it a mistake."

Reporter Steve Kemme contributed to this report.

E-mail rforgrave@enquirer.com, esolvig@enquirer.com and hwilkinson@enquirer.com