OSU employee kills one, self in early morning

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio State University janitor who was about to lose his job walked into a maintenance building for his early morning shift Tuesday and shot two supervisors, killing one and fatally shooting himself.

Nathaniel Brown, 51, arrived for work dressed in dark clothing, a hooded sweat shirt and a backpack. He then opened fire in an office suite using two handguns, campus Police Chief Paul Denton said.

Brown spent five years in prison for receiving stolen property but lied about it on his job application. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Ohio State had done a background check on him.

Ohio State released documents from Brown’s personnel file showing that supervisors complained he was tardy, slept on the job and had problems following instructions. The university sent him a letter March 2 saying that his employment was to end Saturday.

The shooting was reported at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. Police units surrounded the building and found Brown with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a garage bay, Denton said. He was pronounced dead several hours later.

Brown had been scheduled to work his normal third shift, Denton said.

One of the victims, building services manager Larry Wallington, 48, died at the scene. The other, operations shift leader Henry Butler, 60, was in stable condition at Ohio State University Medical Center, officials said.