Chester linen factory mass shooting suspect in custody

Wilbert Rosado Ruiz (Courtesy of Delaware County District Attorney)

A Chester man was held in court Wednesday on charges of killing two brothers and wounding three others in a May 22 mass shooting in Delaware County Linen in the 2600 block of West Fourth Street in the city.

Wilbert Rosado Ruiz, 61, of the 2600 block of Kane Street, was held on a total of 67 charges, including two counts of criminal homicide and four counts of first- and third-degree murder of attempted murder, eight counts of aggravated assault and 48 counts of inadvertent endangerment for each of the employees present on site that day.

Assistant Prosecutor Sophia Polites, prosecuting the case with Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Krouse, withdrew a single charge for carrying a prohibited firearm without a license. Defense attorney Luke Mercurio did not object.

District Judge Shepard Garner heard testimony Wednesday from two employees, one of whom was shot, and two law enforcement officers.

The victim testifies

Nilamarie Valdivies testified that Rosado Ruiz arrived at work that day around 8 a.m. and gave her and two other employees an angry look as he walked past them to clock out. He said something, but she didn’t understand it.

She said she went to ask him what was wrong and he started insulting her, so she went to get a supervisor and another employee to help her talk to Rosado Ruiz in the room “tainted”.

She said Leovanny Penapena, 30, one of the fatal victims, and her cousin, Yudeivi Pena, joined them.

District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer previously said that Rosado Ruiz, an employee of the linen company since 2016, had been the subject of complaints from other workers at the company and that it was his understanding that There had been a meeting about him the day before the shooting.

Valdivies said one of the men who accompanied him on the morning of the massacre asked Rosado Ruiz why he was “always chasing people” with his gun.

Rosado Ruiz then allegedly said, “Oh, that’s the problem gun,” pulled a black semi-automatic handgun from behind his back, pointed it at Valdivies and fired.

“He shot me right here in the chest,” she said, showing the judge the scar.

Valdivies said the other employees fled the scene with Rosado Ruiz in pursuit. She fled outside, where she said she heard more than 15 gunshots coming from inside.

At one point, Valdivies said he saw a woman standing in the doorway of a nearby house and asked her where the shooter was.

The woman beckoned him into the house, telling him to run. That’s when the victim said she saw Rosado Ruiz again, standing next to his black Scion sedan.

Valdivies said the defendant appeared to have reached into her car and pulled out the gun, then pointed it at her.

She told Mercurio that she ran to the woman’s house at that point and did not look back to see if Rosado Ruiz had pulled the trigger. She said she then watched surveillance video that showed him trying to shoot her with a now-empty or jammed gun.

Training officer Mitch Holobowicz said he and three other officers chased Rosado Ruiz in his vehicle from the scene. A probable cause affidavit says the pursuit ended in a dead end near Culhane and Kane streets.

Holobowicz said Rosado Ruiz got out of the vehicle at that point and threw his 9mm handgun aside. The suspect and the firearm were taken into custody.

‘Calm and collected’

Garner also heard from another employee of the company, James Lavery, who said he saw Rosado Ruiz enter the dirty room with the others that morning and then heard eight gunshots about five minutes later.

Lavery, a driver who was loading his truck, said he ran toward the gunfire and entered a room just in time to see Rosado Ruiz aim and shoot another employee in the back as he he was fleeing down a ramp.

Rosado Ruiz then allegedly pointed his gun at Lavery’s face a few feet away while he was playing with the slide.

“I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ “(Rosado Ruiz) said, ‘I’m tired of people making fun of me.’

Lavery said Rosado Ruiz then walked past him “very calm and collected.”

Stollsteimer previously said detectives collected surveillance videos from inside the business that did not show Rosado Ruiz shooting, but showed him methodically walking calmly from room to room.

Lavery said he went to check on the victim he had just seen shooting and noticed she was suffering from two other gunshot wounds. He applied a tourniquet to the man’s arm and applied pressure to the other wounds, then called 911.

Chester Police Commissioner Steven Gretsky previously said his officers received the call around 8:28 a.m. and responded to a “very chaotic scene” with people outside.

Arriving officers helped Lavery load the other victim into a cart and then take him outside. Lavery said they left the body of Giguenson Penapena, 26, on the ground with blood all over his stomach.

An officer then asked Lavery to help identify possible hiding places in the building and he also helped find the body of Leovanny Penapena, hidden behind two trash cans.

Lavery said police transported him to the area where Rosado Ruiz was arrested and identified him as the shooter.

Police testimony

Chester Detective Patrick Flynn reviewed autopsy reports with Polites that ruled the brothers’ deaths as homicides due to gunshot wounds. Both had been shot in the chest.

Medical records for other surviving victims also showed numerous gunshot wounds, including that of a man who was shot in the head and was not released from the hospital until Tuesday.

Flynn said 11 9mm cartridge cases were found at the scene and sent for ballistic testing. Nine of them matched the gun Rosado Ruiz had on him when he was arrested, Flynn said, and two were inconclusive.

Mercurio noted that there appeared to have been as many as 16 shell casings recovered, but Flynn was not aware of the exact number Wednesday.

Flynn said investigators also recovered four bullets or bullet fragments, as well as two magazines, one on Rosado Ruiz and one in the gun.

Mercurio argued at the conclusion of the hearing that Lavery should be excluded from the assault charges and that there was insufficient evidence that his client endangered everyone inside the building to justify the 48 counts of reckless endangerment.

Polites countered that Rosado Ruiz pointed his gun directly at Lavery’s head and that if it had not been jammed or out of ammunition, he very well could have been the third fatal victim that day.

She also said that Rosado Ruiz went from room to room shooting as many people as he could, which put everyone involved in the business at risk.

“He intended to kill as many people as possible that day,” she said. “There would have been more victims in this case if people hadn’t run, if they hadn’t hidden, if his gun hadn’t jammed. He went from room to room, he shot. »

Rosado Ruiz remains in custody at the Concord County Jail without bail pending his formal arraignment on Aug. 7 at the Delaware County Courthouse in Media.