Court shooter's past: Pipe bombs, guns, teen sex tapes

ST. JOSEPH, Mich. — The jail inmate who killed two courthouse bailiffs in a sensational shooting that stunned this Lake Michigan shoreline community spent two stints in federal prison for crimes involving guns and pipe bombs and was facing fresh allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a teenage girl and held her against her will, according to court records and police.

Larry Darnell Gordon, 44, records show, was no stranger to law enforcement before Monday when he shot four people, two of them fatally, inside the Berrien County Courthouse and wound up dead himself. He had been in and out of trouble for the last two decades.

In 1992, Gordon was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison for possessing pipe bombs. In 1998, he went to state prison for more than four years for fleeing police. Three years later, he would end up back in federal prison, that time serving 51 months for firearms charges.

In 2013, he landed back in the criminal justice system, receiving probation for stealing fireworks from a stand, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections.

Sheriff: 2 bailiffs, suspect dead in Michigan courthouse shooting

Marital problems would follow.

In 2014, Gordon and and his now ex-wife, Jessica, filed for divorce. Records show it was finalized in February. In January, police conducted a welfare check at the couple's home on Tannery Drive in Coloma, Gordon was arrested in April for an outstanding warrant and search warrants were executed, police said. Eventually, Gordon was accused of crimes, including sexual assault and kidnapping, police said.

According to Coloma Police Chief Jason Roe, the charges involved a now-17-year-old girl whom Gordon allegedly made sex videos of and once locked in a shed. The relationship allegedly started when the girl was 16, he said.

Gordon's wife believes it was those charges, and the fear of not seeing his young daughter again, that caused Gordon to wrestle a gun from a sheriff's deputy, who was escorting him from a court hearing, and opened fire on the officer and the bailiffs, as well as a citizen.

"Larry was not a violent person," Jessica Gordon, 39, said Monday at the home they shared. "The only thing I can think of is that he was completely terrified, and people do things out of character when they're scared. With all my heart I believe he was trying to get home to see Cheyenne (his daughter)."

Jessica Gordon would not comment on the latest charges against her ex-husband, but said that she believes he was innocent of at least some of them. She said that she still loves him, and that Tuesday would have been their 10-year wedding anniversary. They had been a couple for 19 years, she said, noting their daughter turns 7 on Saturday.

According to Jessica Gordon, Larry Gordon was still living with the family after their divorce and had been looking for his own place to live.

On Monday night after the shooting, a trailer marked "Auto Spa Mobile Detailing" was parked in the couple's driveway. Jessica Gordon said her ex-husband used it to run his business. She said she spoke to her ex-husband by phone daily since his arrest and that he never gave any indications that he planned to break out of jail.

"He probably found out how much time he could potentially be looking at and wanted to get out to see us," she said. "He thought he would die in prison."

Instead, Gordon died in a hail of bullets in the county courthouse, where the shooting turned into a day of terror for the close-knit southwestern Michigan community. It happened while Gordon was en route back to a holding cell. He had been sitting in a jury box, waiting for a judge to dismiss a domestic violence charge, when an officer led him away.

'Our hearts are torn apart,' says sheriff after deadly courthouse shootings

Judge Charles LaSata said he ended up handling the case without ever calling Gordon to the podium. Gordon had been led away to be transferred to a holding cell when some sort of scuffle broke out outside the courtroom.

LaSata said he heard some loud voices and shouting, then thuds and thumping. He looked at his bailiff, Ronald Kienzle, who jumped up, ran across the courtroom and headed to the scene of the chaos, he said.

Then came the gunshots.

LaSata hit a panic button on his bench. He told the people in his courtroom to leave.

The judge and his employees  took cover, barricading themselves in his chambers with chairs and a couch.

"We pushed it in front of the door,"  LaSata said, noting more gunshots followed.

Then came sounds of someone kicking in the door to LaSata's chambers. LaSata said he grabbed a golf club and handed scissors to his court clerks and told them to stay locked in the bathroom. More gunshots followed.

Kienzle, 63, and fellow bailiff Joseph Zangaro, 61, were killed; the deputy and a civilian were wounded.

According to Sheriff Paul Bailey, Gordon was handcuffed in front but somehow grabbed the deputy's gun  from his holster.

"We're trying to deal with it the best we can," said Berrien County Undersheriff Chuck Heit. "These were good friends of ours. It's tough."

LaSata considered them heroes, saying: "They ran to the danger, to protect all of us."

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