Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting suspect had targeted organization before, says ex-wife

Robert Dear is accused of killing three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado
(Image credit: Colorado Springs Police via Getty Images)

Barbara Mescher Michaux has been divorced from Robert Lewis Dear since 1993, but as soon as he was identified as the man who allegedly killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs last week, she told NBC News on Tuesday, she knew he wasn't at the clinic on accident. "For him to plan this and go there, he meant to go there," she said. "There is no doubt in my mind."

Mescher Michaux, who lives in South Carolina with her current husband, described Dear, 57, as volatile and violent and said that while they were married he once put glue in the locks of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Charleston, South Carolina. "He was very proud of himself that he'd gone over and jammed up their locks with glue so that they couldn't get in," she told The New York Times. After police arrested Dear, he said "no more baby parts," officials told several news organizations, but his statement was "so rambling that it has been challenging to pinpoint what motivated the attacks," The Associated Press reports.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.