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March 16, 2012

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Mass. officer shot cop over apparent love affair

A Hamilton cop shot a Beverly officer outside Starbucks and returned hours later to kill himself

The Berkshire Eagle

SALEM — A Hamilton policeman thought his wife was having an affair with a Beverly officer and shot him in front of a crowded coffee shop before killing himself hours later, prosecutors said Thursday.

The morning of the Feb. 24 shooting, Kenneth Nagy confronted Jason Lantych on the phone with his suspicions, and Lantych asked if they could meet in person, telling Nagy, "It's not what you think, Ken," a report by Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett's office said.

The report said Lantych suggested meeting at Starbucks and joked that it was because he didn't want Nagy to shoot him.

After meeting at the coffee shop, they went outside and Nagy shot Lantych in the thigh and wrist as Nagy was in his vehicle, pulling out of the parking lot, the report said. Nagy returned hours later to Starbucks and shot himself in the head, the report said.

The prosecutor said in a statement that the shooting was "shocking and deeply unsettling." He said the only person who'd committed a crime was Nagy. "Therefore, this investigation is concluded," he said.

Blodgett credited bystanders for giving quick medical attention to Lantych, who was seriously wounded but survived.

Nagy, 43, was a 19-year veteran of the Hamilton department. He and his wife, Katherine, had two children. His wife knew Lantych from her work as the Beverly department's domestic violence victim advocate.

A Beverly police report obtained by the Salem News and The Boston Globe said Lantych told a Beverly detective who spoke with him at the hospital the day after he was shot that Katherine Nagy "poured her heart out to me" but said "I was never intimate with her."

The prosecutor's report said that on the day of the shooting, Nagy called in sick for his midnight shift, woke up his wife, and told her he believed she was having an affair with Lantych; they also discussed divorce, the report said.

Found with Nagy's body at Starbucks was a journal and copy of a suicide note, in which he said he intended to shoot Lantych and kill himself.