By Janice Morse and Robert Anglen
The Cincinnati Enquirer

HAMILTON - The man indicted Friday on capital murder charges for a shooting rampage at a West Chester trucking company had visited the site dozens of times before last week's lethal strike, authorities said.

Butler County Prosecutor Robin Piper said trying to figure out the gunman's motive "is like asking us to crawl inside his mind."

But Piper did reveal some new details about the shooting at Watkins Motor Lines, where two men were killed and three others were wounded. And the family of accused shooter Tom West said he had been harboring a grudge against Watkins since he wrecked a company-owned truck in Alabama two years ago.

Accident reports obtained by the Enquirer show West demolished a loaded 80,000-pound tractor-trailer in Tuscaloosa on Oct. 17, 2001. Southbound on Interstate 59, he drove off the road, slammed into a light pole and then hit an overpass abutment.

"(The) driver stated that he was not feeling good," Alabama State Trooper David Green III wrote in a report.

"(He) further stated that he was feeling dizzy and blanked out." Green said he did not arrest or cite West, who went to a hospital. A month later, he resigned from Watkins.

West, also known as Joseph John Eschenbrenner III, never got over the accident, said his father, Joseph Eschenbrenner II. He said his son believed that Watkins personnel harassed him and chased him as he moved from job to job. He said his son thought Watkins officials treated him badly because of the accident.

Watkins spokeswoman Rose Ann Froberg said the company won't comment on the crash because police are focusing on it as part of the shooting investigation.

West was working out of Atlanta, where he had been hired in 1998. But in the three years before West resigned, "he made more than two dozen stops at this particular hub" in West Chester, prosecutor Piper said.

"Was this hub symbolic for him?" Piper asked. Or was West looking for someone he may have met there earlier?

Piper said he doesn't know, but during the shooting, the gunman "went in and out of several different rooms and actually returned to some rooms."

West is accused of aggravated murder with death penalty specifications in the deaths of dispatcher Bob Lines, 65, of Springfield Township, and truck driver Don Haury, 50, of Bellbrook, Ohio.

The indictment also charges West with the attempted aggravated murders of Ed Wasinger, 49, of Okeana, near Hamilton, who avoided injury, and three others who were wounded: Billy F. Claywell, 48, of Cave City, Ky.; Glenn Brierly, 48, of Hamilton; and Gary Fissel, 50, of Huntersville, N.C.

Before surrendering at an Indiana truck stop about 50 miles away, West made three cell phone calls: to a relative, a friend and a misdialed number, Piper said. During those calls, the suspect confessed to the shooting on answering machines, authorities and West's father said.

Piper wouldn't say whether a person at the wrong number gave police their first tip about West, but he said, "The West Chester Police Department was all over this case from the very beginning." Within an hour of the shooting, police said they wanted to talk to a man named Tom West.

Described as a drifter, West is being held without bond in the Butler County Jail.

On Thursday, he is to appear before Common Pleas Judge Keith Spaeth. His court-appointed lawyer, Greg Howard, said a not guilty by reason of insanity plea is a possibility. "I think it's got to be one of the options we're considering, under these circumstances."

Jennifer Edwards contributed to this story.

E-mail jmorse@enquirer.com and ranglen@enquirer.com