The force of the blast rocketed an iron chimney grate across the room and flipped an exhausted Earle C. Quimby Jr. under the heavy bed he was lying on in an abandoned German house.

Out on a mission, the Army reconnaissance officer and his driver had run into a German unit, and now the 24-year-old Quimby was holed up in the house, waiting.

It was the midst of World War II, and Quimby had spent the first few months after landing in Europe speeding along snowy roads in an open-top Jeep. Crossing enemy lines, he reported troop positions and access routes back to Army brass.

“When I showed up, they had six drivers and a Jeep waiting for me,” Quimby, now 90, recalled during a recent interview in his Keene home. “So I knew their intention was I would be in German territory more than I’d be in American territory.”

Arriving in December 1944, Quimby was one of tens of thousands of replacement troops sent to bolster American forces that suffered some of the heaviest casualties of the war during the month-long clash known as the Battle of the Bulge.

“Right off the bat, I started getting shot at with the 88 mm field artillery piece, and they put grooves in the projectiles so if they were spinning very fast at high speeds it would make a very high screeching noise,” he said. “Demoralizing. We called them Screaming Mimis.”

It was an 88 mm that had hammered the side of the house where Quimby hunkered down after meeting the German unit in Belgium. The outfit had taken out Quimby’s Jeep, but he and his driver — who took cover in another building — made it through mostly unscathed.

“I got all covered with soot and I went to see my colonel and he just laughed at me because I was all black and I had no way to clean up,” he said. “You can’t use cold water to try to get soot off you. So I lived with it for a long time.”

****

Quimby is one of 2,000 people from Keene who served during World War II.

A college student at the University of New Hampshire when the war broke out, Quimby would train for war first in an anti-aircraft artillery unit and then as a combat engineer, heading to Europe during the largest and final German offensive of the war. He would earn a Bronze Star for valor in 1945 for crossing enemy lines multiple times to deliver supplies to a platoon that had been cut off.

After he returned, Quimby would have a four-decade career as an executive at Markem Corp. in Keene, start a family and build a home. But he would also spend decades grappling with a different kind of battle suffered by many military veterans — anxiety, guilt over friends lost and troubling nightmares.

Today, Quimby is one of an estimated 2 million World War II veterans still living, of about 16 million who returned from the war, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

About 850 veterans of the war die every day, according to the agency.

****

At 20, Quimby learned that the United States would be going to war over the radio in his car.

“I was in my car with my girlfriend, bringing her back to Keene on Sunday after a big military ball over in Durham,” he said. “I’d been in uniform there and the next day they told me we were at war.

“And I didn’t know what it was going to mean to me, but the government had control of me because I was in ROTC.”

In the coming months, he’d finish school and be sent to Virginia for basic training, where he learned to fire anti-artillery guns, then to officer training school, where his job was shifted to join a combat engineering unit.

The primary task of the combat engineers in Europe at that time was helping with troop movements over rivers. The engineers would ferry infantry troops across rivers, then build foot bridges for soldiers to run across and, once the soldiers had control of both sides of the river, build vehicle bridges to move trucks and tanks.

After finishing school and training, Quimby spent some time in Louisiana before he received orders to head to Europe in late 1944.

“When we graduated from the officer candidate school they said, ‘You are now an officer and a gentleman,’ ” Quimby recalled. “They said, ‘What we are going to tell you is 85 percent of the classes that went over before you are either wounded or dead. You’ve got to expect the same, there’s no change in those statistics.’

“And then, the next sentence was, ‘We consider you to be expendable.’ Now for a college guy, that’s not a very nice thing to have to take from anybody.”

Quimby was among about 15,000 troops packed on the Queen Mary — formerly an ocean liner that carried wealthy passengers to and from Europe — on a six-day journey to Great Britain. Rooms that were built for two passengers held up to 24 troops, Quimby remembers.

At one point during the crossing, the ship, which made the crossing in half the time that a standard troop-carrying ship could, encountered a German submarine.

“They got us all on deck, 15,000 of us, and said, ‘Put on your life jackets,’ ” Quimby said. “And we looked at each other and said, ‘My God, if you get in that Atlantic Ocean in December, we wouldn’t last 30 minutes.’

“We just sort of laughed it off. But the boat was fast enough and they never hit us with a torpedo. That was scary.”

Quimby, a second lieutenant at the time, crossed Scotland and stayed at a camp just outside London before he was sent to join up with the 309th Engineer Combat Battalion in Belgium.

His job kept him constantly on the move and frequently behind enemy lines. In mid-December, Germany had launched a counter-offensive against the Allied forces, which had been slowly pushing the Nazi lines back until they were nearly at the German border.

The 30 divisions of German troops and tank units, aided by heavy fog and snow that kept Allied airplanes grounded, had managed to push the American and British forces back in parts of Belgium and Luxembourg, creating bulge in the Allied line. It would take more than a month of intense fighting and slow progress for the Allies to regain their ground.

In one particularly gruesome incident, the Germans took two truckloads of American prisoners of war to a field in Malmedy, Belgium, and slaughtered nearly all of them.

Quimby came upon the scene the following day.

“The words helpless and hopeless are two that I’ve remembered ever since, and we still talk about them in our counseling because that’s the way you get in combat,” Quimby said. “You can’t do anything about anybody trying to kill you. It’s crazy.

“But it has this effect on your brain, this damage that really is tough.”

****

Within a month of returning from the war, Quimby landed a job in the maintenance department at Markem, a printing technology company, where his father had worked.

He took his work seriously and rose through the ranks quickly. He stayed in the military for another seven years as a Reservist and eventually married and had children.

“I do have this military discipline thing and I think that helped me at Markem,” he said. “I was very serious about doing a good job.”

In pictures from the war, Quimby’s fair hair is swept neatly aside; his grin slightly mischievous, his uniform neatly pressed. An athlete and avid sailor from a young age, Quimby recalls being able to do 200 pushups and sit-ups during his military training.

These days, his hair has grayed and he uses a walker or a hand-carved walking stick given to him by local veterans, but he continues to exercise daily and frequently wears a baseball cap emblazoned with “Army” and bearing several military pins.

Things he did after returning from war and bouts of anxiety that he considered normal he now realizes were early signs of the stress of adjusting to life after combat.

“I used to drink straight Old Grandad every Friday night after work or Saturday and get in my brand-new Buick that civilians couldn’t even buy yet because they were just starting to make them, and I wouldn’t quit until I got that needle up to 100,” he said.

“I was damaging everybody’s life, including my own. But I thought, ‘That’s macho.’ ”

It would take him more than four decades to learn about the effects trauma can have.

****

As the Allies slowly pushed the battered German forces back though Belgium and eventually across their own border, Quimby continued to work as a reconnaissance officer and later was posted to a headquarters company, a battalion-level position.

While Quimby whizzed around in his Jeep and slept wherever he could find a cellar hole in a bombed-out building, the conditions began to take their toll on him and all the men around him.

“Sleeping like that, and especially waking up with snow on your face, you got to wonder, when is this ever going to end?” he said. “It was a long winter.

“I was lucky. I was in a Jeep, but the enlisted men were always marching in snow and could not even dig their foxholes because that ground was so hard.”

Quimby nearly lost his toes to frostbite. For weeks at a time, he and the other troops lived off canned eggs and too-little water. And they watched as friends died all around them.

In Linnich, Germany, he was ordered to measure the width of a river for 14 days in a row to see if the Germans above were opening any dams. It would have been to their advantage to widen the river, because it would make for slower river crossings for Americans and leave them vulnerable, he said.

“I got shot at many times,” Quimby said. “One time right close to me, an equivalent of a 12-inch shell went off and I lost my hearing for a whole week.

“I remember early on saying, ‘Well, this is something we humans can get used to, getting shot at.’ But we didn’t get used to it, it got worse after a while.”

Then, on May 8, 1945, it seemed it was all over. The Nazis, faced with massive casualties, dwindling finances and the suicide of their leader, surrendered.

“All of a sudden, we were not worried about getting shot at,” he said. “We could relax and for a week later we really partied, and drank, and you know what happened?

“They said, ‘Boys, pack up your bags, you’re going to go to Japan.’ ”

****

Quimby retired as an executive at Markem in 1985, after nearly four decades with the company.

Within months, he’d lost 30 pounds and underwent extensive testing, with his doctor preparing him for the possibility that he had cancer.

“At the end of the week he sat me down and said, ‘We’ve tested you in every possible way that we could and what you have is depression,’ ” Quimby said. “Getting out of being active, I guess, had got me thinking more about combat situations.

“It was the first time I’d even heard about that.”

Since then, Quimby has worked to battle the feelings he couldn’t before explain.

One way was volunteering for 26 years at Keene schools.

He taught World War II history at Franklin and Fuller schools, bringing in things he carried back from the war such as a Nazi flag, German weapons and telephones.

And he still leads students at Franklin in the Pledge of Allegiance at Memorial and Veterans days ceremonies. On Thursday he led the pledge in uniform — the same one he wore during World War II.

“I’m finding out more and more that I (volunteered) because the anxiety was on my mind so much, it’s good to do something else,” he said. “I gotta admit the anxiety and I get therapy twice a month, even now. Four hours every month.”

He’s also involved in a Keene organization of veterans called Ruck-Up, where he meets with other veterans to talk about the lasting effects of war.

“Some guys say, ‘I’ve lived with this for 40 years, and if Earle has lived with it for 65, I guess I can, too,’ ” he said, pausing. “If I can help these guys just being me, I’m happy to.”

While the war in Germany was over, a cloud of tension sat heavily on the American soldiers posted in Europe as they waited to learn whether they’d be sent to the Pacific theater, where the Allies continued to push toward Japan.

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, changed all that.

“In a way, that was terrible for our president to do to all those people, but it happened and it saved a lot of us from having to go there,” he said.

Quimby stayed in Europe for more than a year after Germany’s surrender. He’d become a first lieutenant during combat and then a company commander. When he was getting ready to head home in 1946, his colonel came to him with a proposal.

He’d been promoted to captain, but because combat had ended, he was required to remain a first lieutenant for another month before the promotion could be granted. He’d have to extend his tour abroad for another six months, the colonel told Quimby.

“So I thought about it and decided, ‘I’m going home,’ ” Quimby said. “I’d had enough and I wanted to go home, but I stayed in the Reserves another seven years.”

Eventually, with the help of other veterans who contacted the state’s adjutant general, Quimby got his promotion — on his 90th birthday in January.

“I was at the Legion Hall and they pinned these captain bars on me,” he said, smiling broadly.

“How about that?”

Police are searching for a man captured on surveillance videos stealing cases of energy drinks from Keene supermarkets and who may have stolen a car in the city Sunday.

The man — who is in his 40s, bald, about 5 feet 6 inches tall and 140 pounds — has stolen or attempted to steal large quantities of Red Bull and Monster energy drinks and other groceries from local stores on Oct. 7, 17, 21 and most recently on Oct. 22 at Hannaford supermarket, police said in a news release.

Other stores hit by the energy drink thief have included Price Chopper and Shaw’s, police said.

In one incident, police said the man left in a white Jeep Cherokee with Massachusetts license plates.

In another, he got into a small silver car with a second male who helped him load the car with the drinks, and in a third incident employees noticed him making hand signals to someone and he was followed by a white or silver older model Cutlass.

The man is also a suspect in the Oct. 23 theft of a green 2005 Dodge Magnum with N.H. license 2446573 from Jake’s Five Star Convenience on Roxbury Street, police said.

An officer reviewing video realized the vehicle thief, described as wearing a red ski hat, a red jacket and blue jeans, may have been the man stealing energy drinks, police said.

JAFFREY — A lot has changed in the five years since Martin A. Taylor of Jaffrey died from injuries suffered in a motorcycle crash.

With each passing milestone or birth of a new family member, his family is reminded of the painful loss of the gregarious man they knew as Marty, who had a passion for fixing and riding motorcycles and told it like he saw it.

Like many families dealing with the loss of a loved one, members of the Taylor family say they take it one day at a time.

For some in the family, organizing a scholarship in his memory for students graduating from Conant High School who plan to attend a vocational school has helped them cope.

“It’s nice to raise money to help some kids we don’t even know,” said one of Taylor’s three brothers, Michael A. Taylor of Rindge. “For me it’s therapy, but more than that is that he’s still alive if people don’t forget him.”

Six scholarships have been granted so far — the first just a few months after Taylor’s death.

Area bikers help raise funds twice a year by participating in motorcycle rides called poker runs. Some knew Taylor well — they grew up with him, rode with him, spent hours visiting and chatting with him at the small garage he had in downtown Jaffrey, Michael Taylor said in a recent interview. On the rides, they reminisce about good times they had with their friend.

Others never met Taylor, but heard about him from friends and wanted to do their part, he said.

A Harley funeral

The crash that killed Marty Taylor happened on Peterborough Street in Jaffrey in September 2006.

Taylor, 52, was riding his 2006 Harley-Davidson — the first new motorcycle he’d owned — to see his parents at a nursing home when an elderly driver turned in front of him, colliding with the bike.

Taylor was conscious following the crash, but suffered a brain injury and was flown to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, where he died six days later from his injuries. He was surrounded by his family.

At his funeral, a motorcycle hearse accompanied by a procession of more than 60 Harleys carried him to the cemetery in Jaffrey where he was buried. A few months later, Michael Taylor built a headstone for his brother out of Harley parts — his name is engraved on a windshield, which is attached to ape-hanger handlebars and a solar-powered headlight that shines.

The idea for a scholarship in his memory began a few months after his death.

Taylor was in his 40s when he packed up his family — his then-wife, Janice Fiandaca of Rindge and Christine M. Haase of Stoddard, the youngest of his three daughters — and headed to Florida for a year, where he studied at a motorcycle mechanics school.

The eldest of four brothers (his youngest brothers are Mark and Marshall Taylor), he’d been a lifelong Jaffrey resident and had been riding motorcycles since his teens, Michael Taylor said.

After serving in the Army and working at a Peterborough steel company, Taylor was just beginning to realize his dream of opening his own Harley repair shop before his death.

Fiandaca, who remained close to the family after she and Taylor divorced, floated the idea with them of starting a scholarship in his name for students who wanted to go to a trade school.

“I kind of knew how people would do a scholarship in memory of someone local and I thought this was something we could do,” she said.

At first, Michael was skeptical of the idea, he said. After his brother died, he felt angry and channeled his energy into going to Concord to testify in support of a failed legislative bill that would have created tighter laws for elderly drivers.

“I thought that (testifying) would make me feel better,” he said. “But in the end it didn’t really, and I realized that I don’t think I could have supported the bill the way it was written anyway.

“I don’t want to harass old people, because we’ll all get old, but I do think there should be some protection from someone who has an illness that could make them a danger on the road.”

He agreed to help organize the scholarship, along with Fiandaca and Haase. The three of them review applications from students every year and select a recipient.

Haase, who was 21 years old when her father died, said she’s been impressed with the gratitude the family has received from students who win the scholarships. It would make her father happy, she said.

“I think he would have thought it was awesome, especially because there are so many (scholarships) out there for big schools, but this is for students who want to go to vocational school,” she said.

Lighting a candle

Next month, on Nov. 14, Taylor would have turned 58 years old. As always, it’ll be a difficult day for his family, Michael Taylor said.

And in a few months, Michael Taylor will be older than his brother was when he died.

“It’s weird to think about,” he said.

Michael Taylor said he’d always looked up to his older brother, who was his best friend.

“The reason why I ride motorcycles is him,” Michael Taylor said. “All of my friends ride, I don’t think I have any friends who don’t have a motorcycle, and Marty was the biggest influence on me to ride.”

He now wears a helmet when riding, since his then-2-year-old granddaughter asked him at Taylor’s funeral to wear one.

“I still think you should have a right to choose, but for me, my choice was made by my granddaughter,” he said.

Before Marty Taylor died, the brothers were planning a trip to Sturgis, S.D., for the annual motorcycle rally that draws thousands of bikers.

A few years ago, Michael made the trip, carrying a memorial candle for Marty that he lit at the rally and when he stopped at the Harley-Davidson motorcycle plant in Milwaukee on the way home.

Michael Taylor carries some mementos of his brother’s on his motorcycle and prefers to remember him where he was happiest: in the saddle of a Harley.

The last time he saw his brother before the crash was a motorcycle ride to New York the day before with a group of friends, Michael Taylor said.

On the return trip, the bikers broke off one by one to head home until the group of about 10 bikes dwindled to just Michael and Marty Taylor.

As Michael Taylor, riding in the lead, turned onto his road, Marty Taylor drove past — the stereo on his bike playing, his gray hair blowing back and a cigarette that was more ash than cigarette hanging from his mouth.

“He gave me this little wave, like a queen’s wave, that he used to do.”

BRATTLEBORO — A Vermont man told police he was trying to unload a shotgun with one hand while driving when he shot his fiancee in the leg last month, according to court documents.

Robert P. Nantell, 44, of Vernon, was arraigned Tuesday morning in the Windham Criminal Division of Vermont Superior Court on charges of first-degree aggravated domestic assault, simple assault with a weapon and reckless endangerment. He pleaded not guilty through a public defender.

Nantell’s fiancee, 52-year-old Ivonne Garcia, also told police that she believed the shooting was an accident and that she still planned to marry Nantell, court documents showed.

Garcia suffered a serious leg injury and was flown to Baystate Medical Center in Massachusetts for treatment. Her right leg was amputated below the knee as a result of the gunshot wound, according to court documents.

She was present at Nantell’s arraignment Tuesday.

Prosecutors have not asked for Nantell to be held on bail, and Assistant State’s Attorney Steven Brown said in court Tuesday that Nantell had been cooperative with police and it is likely the case will be resolved soon with an agreement between the state and defense, although he offered no specific timeline.

According to a police affidavit written by Brattleboro police Detective Erik Johnson, police responded to the report of a shooting Sept. 27 after 1 p.m. on Marlboro Road in Brattleboro.

In an interview with police, Nantell said he’d been driving east on Marlboro Road, with Garcia sitting on the passenger side of his green 1994 Dodge pickup truck, when he realized a round was chambered in the shotgun sitting on the floor of the truck between the seat and gearshift.

The muzzle of the gun, which he usually keeps loaded at home for protection and unloaded in the truck, was pointing toward Garcia, Nantell told police.

Nantell said as he was “trying to do the law” by attempting to unload the gun, he accidentally “hit the trigger” and realized Garcia had been shot, the affidavit said.

Nantell then pulled into the parking lot of a nearby gas station, drove through an attached coffee shop drive-through and parked in front of the gas station, he told police.

He threw the shotgun, the spent shell and a knife he was carrying into the bed of the truck, Nantell said.

A patron of the store told police a man ran in yelling, “Call 911, call 911!” and saying he’d mistakenly shot his wife.

The patron told police he went outside with the man to help the woman, who said her name was Ivonne, and that she was very calm and also told him the shooting was an accident, the affidavit said.

In an interview with police at the hospital, Garcia said when Nantell realized the gun was loaded he was trying to unload it with his right hand, while driving with his left. Garcia told police she suggested he pull into the gas station to unload it before it went off, according to the affidavit.

Garcia told police she’d been in a relationship with Nantell for 11 years and still planned to marry him. The couple told police they’d been planning to marry on Oct. 1, according to the affidavit.

“Garcia advised Nantell would never hurt her because she is his ‘queen bee,’ ” Johnson wrote in the affidavit.

Nantell’s next court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 24.

As she awoke to flames on her bed, Sandra E. Walker tried smothering the fire with her hands before running to her bathroom and filling a coffee pot with water.

But as she returned to douse the blaze, as she would later describe to police, the fire had spread across the bed and the area around it.

A murder trial scheduled to begin Monday in a deadly fire has been postponed by a legal challenge that may keep the prosecution’s fire experts from testifying that they believe the fire was intentionally set.

David B. McLeod, 55, of Sacramento, Calif., was charged in June 2010 with four counts of second-degree murder for the 1989 deaths of newlyweds Carl R. and Lori M. Hina, their 4-month-old daughter Lillian, and Carl’s 12-year-old daughter Sara Jean.

They begin trickling into the streets Saturday about 9 p.m. in ones and twos, eagerly making their way to early parties or heading to downtown bars.

By shortly after 10 p.m., the groups of college students have swelled into the dozens. They pass in waves along the narrow streets surrounding the Keene State College campus — a mass of the freshly primped marching to the cadence of clicking heels, excited chatter and laughter.

BRATTLEBORO — A day after hundreds of people gathered to mourn a deadly shooting at a local cooperative grocery store, employees at the Brattleboro Food Co-op quietly got back to business Thursday morning.

When the store’s doors opened at 8 a.m., it was the first time shoppers had been in the co-op since the Tuesday morning shooting involving two employees that police say was sparked by a workplace dispute.

BRATTLEBORO — A Marlboro, Vt., man faces a first-degree murder charge in the shooting death of a co-worker at the Brattleboro Food Co-op apparently sparked by a workplace disagreement.

Richard E. Gagnon, 59, appeared Wednesday afternoon in Windham Criminal Division of Vermont Superior Court wearing shackles over a gray sweatsuit, a day after police say he shot store manager Michael Martin, also 59, of Dummerston, Vt., at the downtown grocery store.

On Friday the two men had argued about Gagnon’s employment after Martin offered Gagnon a severance package if he resigned from the co-op, and Gagnon had called in sick on Monday, according to a police affidavit released after Gagnon’s arraignment.

When he was arrested outside the co-op minutes after Tuesday morning’s shooting, Gagnon was holding a loaded handgun and carrying an extra ammunition magazine and a copy of his latest performance evaluation dated in May, the affidavit said.

Gagnon had been employed at the co-op for more than two decades, according to police.

That evaluation noted issues with Gagnon’s relationships with other employees and his management style and stated that if the issue was not successfully addressed, it could “ultimately lead to your termination of employment,” according to the affidavit.

In court Wednesday, Gagnon remained silent and pleaded not guilty to the murder charge through his public defender, Mimi Brill.

Gagnon was ordered held without bail by Judge David T. Suntag, pending an Aug. 18 probable cause hearing. If convicted, he faces 35 years to life in prison.

A request by Windham County Deputy State’s Attorney David W. Gartenstein that Gagnon submit to a DNA sample will also be taken up during that hearing.

The affidavit, which includes interviews with several store employees and accounts from two police officers, provides more details about the early-morning shooting.

An employee stocking shelves told police he saw Gagnon in the hallway before the shooting, and noticed that Gagnon seemed upset.

Another employee told police he followed Gagnon into the store’s office area in the back, and got no answer when he asked Gagnon how he was.

Gagnon left the office area, then returned, saying nothing, and entered Martin’s office, the employee told police.

The employee heard a loud bang from the office, but because he’d never heard a gunshot he was unsure if that’s what it was, he told police. He said the noise sounded like a “computer was exploding.”

When Gagnon walked out of Martin’s office, he asked, “Jesus, Richard, what the hell was that?” and Gagnon, who was pale and looked sick, said nothing.

As Gagnon walked out of the office area, the employee noticed he was carrying a handgun in his right hand that he appeared to be trying to shield from view next to his thigh, the employee told police.

After Gagnon left, he went into Martin’s office and saw him slumped over his desk, with his face on a laptop keyboard. It appeared Martin had been shot in the head, the employee told police.

Another employee said she ran to the office after she heard people screaming and was told Gagnon was involved in the shooting.

She went outside, where she found Gagnon in the rear parking lot, the woman told police.

When she asked Gagnon to come inside, he replied, “I would if I could, but I can’t,” according to the affidavit.

At 8:16 a.m., emergency dispatchers received a call for an unresponsive male at the co-op, prompting a response from the Brattleboro Fire Department and Rescue Inc., Brattleboro Fire Chief D. Michael Bucossi said in an interview.

Two firefighters were the first to arrive at the back of the store, near the loading dock, Bucossi said.

As they headed toward the door, an employee came out and told them there was a shooting and the shooter was believed to be in the area behind the store. The firefighters told the employee to go back in and keep everyone inside, while they backed out of the lot and headed to meet the responding ambulance and police officers, Bucossi said.

According to the affidavit, Brattleboro police Officer John Frechette was the first to come upon Gagnon in the parking lot behind the store.

When Gagnon saw Frechette, he said, “I don’t want to hurt anyone else,” and held up a pistol in his right hand in a non-threatening way, according to the affidavit.

As Brattleboro police Sgt. Robert Perkins approached, he heard Frechette yell for Gagnon to drop the gun and saw Gagnon toss the gun to the ground about eight feet to his right before he lay on the ground.

The gun, later determined to be a Smith and Wesson 380 semi-automatic handgun, was loaded, with the hammer cocked back and a bullet in the chamber, according to the affidavit.

In Gagnon’s pockets were a full magazine, his performance evaluation, a wallet and his car keys, the affidavit said.

Martin was pronounced dead at the scene of the shooting, and investigators found a .380 shell casing in the area where he was shot that was consistent with the bullet casings in the magazines found in Gagnon’s gun and in his pocket, according to the affidavit.

During their investigation, police learned from another employee of the store that “Co-op management have been recently trying to encourage Gagnon to resign because Gagnon has been creating a hostile work environment,” according to the affidavit.

The employee said he heard Martin offer Gagnon a severance package last Friday and during the conversation heard Gagnon swear at Martin.

The employee also provided police with a printed copy of an email police say Gagnon sent on Aug. 1 to Martin and general manager Alex Gyori discussing a raise that another employee received.

In a section of the email quoted in the affidavit, Gagnon wrote that he didn’t like being accused in his performance evaluation of creating a hostile work environment and being given a “six-month ultimatum to ‘clean up my act,’ or be fired.”

“I received no raise, and especially resent the characterization that I am incapable of working with people,” Gagnon wrote.

Martin’s wife, Jennifer Martin, also told police her husband told her Friday he’d had an argument with Gagnon that day over Gagnon’s employment.

According to court records, Gagnon has not previously been arrested in Windham County.

He has worked at the co-op for at least 21 years, the affidavit said.

BRATTLEBORO — Yellow caution tape blocked curious onlookers Tuesday from the scene of a deadly morning shooting in which police say one employee of a cooperative grocery store in downtown Brattleboro shot another.

Police say Brattleboro Food Co-op worker Michael Martin, 59, of Dummerston, Vt., is dead and Richard E. Gagnon, also 59, of Marlboro, Vt., was taken into custody as a result of the shooting, which was reported at 8:16 a.m.