The man accused of opening fire Tuesday inside a Minnesota medical clinic faces several charges, including murder, after the mass shooting — which police records show he previously threatened to carry out against the clinic's staff.
Gregory Paul Ulrich, 67, is accused of shooting five people at the Allina Health Clinic in Buffalo, killing one and injuring four, as well as detonating two bombs. Officials said Ulrich went on the deadly rampage because he had been "unhappy" with the treatment he received at the clinic.
He was charged on Thursday with one count of second-degree murder, four counts of premeditated attempted murder, one count of detonating an explosive device, and one count of carrying a pistol without a permit, according to court records.
The victim who was killed was identified by loved ones and local media as Lindsay Overbay, a medical assistant at the clinic. Overbay was a 37-year-old mother of two, according to a GoFundMe set up to help her family.
"She was the bright light in so many peoples lives, she could light up a room with her contagious laugh," the GoFundMe states. "Lindsay was attending college classes to further her career to make sure she could provide a better life for her two beautiful children."
Her husband, Donnie Overbay, told the Star Tribune his wife had recently gotten certified as a nursing assistant and had applied to a program to learn how to perform ultrasounds because she was highly interested in internal organs.
Donnie Overbay said he told their children, who are 5 and 8, that their mother is gone, but has not explained how she died and does not believe they understand yet that they won't see her again.
"When it gets to be a couple weeks, I have to tell them, 'She's in heaven watching over you guys,'" he said.
Lindsay Overbay's best friend of nearly 20 years, Naiya Stubbe, said they hadn't gotten to see each other in months because of the pandemic, but kept in touch with daily Snapchats and, occasionally, hourslong video chats.
"Her laugh was the best sound," said Stubbe. "It was hard not to fall immediately in love with her."
This was not the shooter's first run-in with law enforcement — or with the medical clinic and its staff, police records obtained by BuzzFeed News show.
In October 2018, a doctor at the clinic reportedly filed a restraining order against Ulrich after he received several harassing phone calls in which Ulrich threatened to commit a mass shooting at the hospital, allegedly saying "he wanted it big and sensational so that it makes an impact."
Ulrich denied any actual intent to police, saying he was just describing a dream he had had about "revenge to the people that 'tortured' him." He was angry about back surgeries he had had at the clinic and what police described as "medication issues after the surgeries."
A month later, Ulrich was arrested for returning to the clinic. But according to the Star Tribune, the charges were dropped after he was deemed mentally incompetent due to psychological issues and substance abuse.
Ulrich returned to the clinic several times after that, frightening staff. One police report shows that Ulrich also called the nurse's line, "demanding that they provide him with narcotics."
In a press conference on Thursday, Wright County Sheriff Sean Deringer acknowledged Ulrich's widely reported criminal history and defended the actions of law enforcement.
Deringer said that though police had been aware of Ulrich's many threats against the clinic, there was “nothing recent in the past several months or even a year that we would've been aware of where we would've taken immediate action to try to circumvent or prevent what happened Tuesday morning."
"If we are going to push blame, I would like to push blame on Mr. Ulrich whose responsible for devastation that happened in our Buffalo community," Deringer said.