On brutal journey, teen left his mother a note

MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark. -- Moments before embarking on a multistate flight that ended in a shootout and death in the Ozark Mountains, Jacob D. Robida frantically penned a note to his mother that declared ''I had to go out by my means," authorities said yesterday.

The note, discovered hours after the 18-year-old savagely attacked three men last week in a New Bedford gay bar, convinced police that Robida would not go quietly, as residents tragically found out.

Robida shot to death a beloved 63-year-old policeman, James Sell, in Gassville, Ark., and a grieving community made arrangements yesterday for his funeral, which is expected to draw more than 1,000 mourners, including a contingent of New Bedford police.

With Robida dead, investigators in Massachusetts, West Virginia, and Arkansas continued to search yesterday for evidence that could explain why the high school dropout with an interest in neo-Nazi teachings launched his campaign of brutality.

Robida had a small cache of weapons with him when police mortally wounded him last Saturday with two shots to the head, said Arkansas prosecutors. The final destination of Robida and his passenger -- Jennifer Rena Bailey, 33, of West Virginia, whom Robida killed shortly before he was shot by police -- remains a mystery.

''It may well have been that our state was just between them and wherever they wanted to go," said Ron Kincade, the Baxter County prosecuting attorney.

Yesterday, two new pieces of the puzzle emerged: Robida's apparent farewell note to his mother and a chilling videotape of Sell's last moments, which shows the officer, known for his smiling lectures on driving safety, talking to Robida before suddenly moving out of the picture.

The note, only a few sentences long, sheds little light on Robida's motive, said Bristol District Attorney Paul F. Walsh, Jr.

Robida wrote ''goodbye mom; I'm sorry about what's happening to you and I love you," said Walsh, paraphrasing the note.

There is no mention of Bailey in the note, Walsh said, nor are there any disparaging comments about homosexuals, whom he apparently sought to kill early last Thursday when he walked into Puzzles Lounge in New Bedford.

But the note's tone convinced Walsh and others that Robida would seek to kill others before he was killed.

''He was going to die bloody," Walsh said. ''He was going to try to kill as many as he could in the meantime."

In Robida's room at his mother's house in New Bedford, investigators found a wide range of racist literature, though nothing specifically anti-homosexual. But a search warrant inventory released yesterday showed that investigators also found ample evidence of Robida's violent bent: They seized a Samurai sword, a belt of live 7.62-millimeter bullets, a large knife, as well as bloodied paper towels, apparently used after his attack at Puzzles, in which he sustained a head injury.

After Robida picked up Bailey in Charleston, W. Va., he ended up in Gassville, where he fatally shot Sell on a country highway dotted with fast food restaurants, banks, and boxy ranch houses. Sell had pulled Robida over at the Brass Door Motel, a tan building with red trim across the four-lane highway from a boarded-up Texaco.

Arkansas police described a videotape from the camera mounted on Sell's cruiser, which captured his last moments. The tape shows the policeman standing on the driver's side of Robida's green Pontiac Grand Am, speaking to him for about 40 seconds. The camera normally picks up sound, said Police Chief Tim Mayfield of Gassville, but the audio was not working, so their conversation could not be heard.

''Knowing Jim, he was probably scolding him for driving fast," said Mayfield. ''If he thought they deserved a ticket after he chewed them out, he'd write one up."

Robida's car was parked at an angle in front of the cruiser that cut off the view of the passenger's side of Robida's car, Mayfield said. Robida could not be seen through the back window. Mayfield said no gun was visible in the videotape, and the shooting could not be seen. All that could be seen, he said, was the abrupt end of their conversation, presumably when Robida pulled out the Ruger handgun he used to fatally shoot Sell.

Mayfield said that he had no information on why Robida's trail led him to this quiet community of 1,700 and that he had heard no reports of any other stops Robida had made in the area.

After shooting Sell, Robida sped off, leading police on a chase through Arkansas farm country, police said. Robida's tires blew out after he ran over road spikes placed by police. He kept driving, but soon plowed into a parked truck in Norfork. At that point, Robida leaned over to the passenger side to hug Bailey, then put a gun to her head and fired, said Walsh, before fatally engaging officers surrounding his car.

Jamie Crownover, an emergency medical technician, said he was listening to his police radio that afternoon and heard the tail-end of the shootout. ''They started hollering: 'They're hugging! They're hugging! They're hugging!' Then I heard police say, 'Shots fired.' The dispatcher kept saying, 'All officers, 10-4? Have you got him?' " Crownover said.

A few seconds later, Crownover said, an officer at the scene said, ''Yes, they're 10-7 -- they're gone."

Robida had plowed into Rita Warner's parked truck, prompting her to hit the floor as gunshots rang out. When she got up, she saw Bailey's body covered by a tarp while paramedics wheeled Robida out on a stretcher. He later died at a Missouri hospital.

''It's a spooky thing," Warner, 64, recalled yesterday. ''It's such a waste of a young life."

Wangsness reported from Mountain Home; Ellement from New Bedford. Globe staff writers Maria Sacchetti contributed from Mountain Home and Raja Mishra from Boston. Material from the Associated Press was also used in this report.