Active 038; successful, gunman wasn146;t a brooder

He was personable, easy to talk to, an excellent student, said his professors at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, some 130 miles south of here, where he was on his way to receiving a master8217;s degree in social work. The specialty he selected was in mental health.

8220;In this case, I was overwhelmed,8221; said Jan Carter-Black, Kazmierczak8217;s adviser and an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois, after learning that Kazmierczak was the gunman. 8220;I was amazed. I was shocked. I was overwhelmed.8221;

Officials said the only hint of trouble from Kazmierczak, who fatally shot himself moments after firing at a large class with rounds from some of his four guns, had come in the last few weeks.

Family members told the authorities that Kazmierczak had stopped taking his medication. Law enforcement authorities would not say what the medication was for, but said Kazmierczak had grown erratic, according to his family, in the days after he quit taking the drugs.

The gunman bought his weapons legally from a Champaign gun dealer, officials said. He also bought some accessories from the popular Internet dealer who sold a gun to the gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre last year.

Kazmierczak grew up on a tree-lined street of ranch-style homes in the suburbs of Chicago with a sister and parents who retired to Lakeland, Fla., in recent years, records show. His mother, Gail, died in 2006, at age 58.

In a modest golf and country club community in Lakeland, at the home of his father, Robert Kazmierczak, plastic pink flamingos adorned the lawn and a sign, 8220;Illini fans live here,8221; a reference to his son8217;s most recent university, hung on the front door.

8220;Please leave me alone,8221; the elder Kazmierczak told reporters from his front stoop in a brief, televised interview. 8220;This is a very hard time. I8217;m a diabetic, and I don8217;t want to have a relapse,8221; he added, bursting into tears.

Although the authorities and professors painted a glowing outward portrait of Kazmierczak, a few indications emerged of inconsistencies in his life.

He enlisted in the Army in September 2001, a Department of Defense spokeswoman said, and was 8220;administratively discharged8221; in February 2002. The spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, said that under privacy laws, the Army would not describe the circumstances of the discharge, but that such discharges were commonly given because of a recruit8217;s failure to complete training or discovery of a medical condition that was not evident at the time of enlistment.

And while Kazmierczak was hired last September as an officer at the Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana, he barely lasted two weeks there, and failed to complete training, said Randy Koester, chief of staff for the Indiana Department of Correction. His professors seemed unaware that he had left the job.

8220;He quit; he just didn8217;t show up,8221; Koester said. 8220;He called in with an excuse about why he couldn8217;t come the last day, but he never called after that, and he never came back.8221;

Late Friday, the authorities here still were piecing together the hours leading up to Kazmierczak8217;s rampage in a search, in part, for some explanation of how someone seemingly so unlikely had committed such violence.