This is part of my ongoing series on Canadian Mass Murders.

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On February 3, 1992, 28-year-old Patrick Dombroskie grabbed his hunting rifle, drove to the Ontario Glove Factory  where he’d been suspended from work the previous week, and murdered three people. Then he drove directly to the nearest police station in Cambridge and turned himself in.

It would have been better for all concerned if Patrick Dombroskie turned his rifle on himself before he left home that day, instead of taking out his misplaced rage on former employees who he believed were responsible for his failures in life.

Patrick Dombroskie drove up to the front door, grabbed his hunting rifle and entered the building where he marked specific people for death that fateful day:

• Greg More: vice-president and co-owner of Ontario Glove Factory
• Elizabeth Travassos, a seamstress, and
• Larry Strack, a cutting floor supervisor

Randy More, Greg’s brother and co-owner of the business, was in the washroom during the killings and had no idea what was happening. Randy More later learned that he was at the top of Dombroskie’s kill list.

“He first checked my office, then he went across the hall to my brother’s office eight feet away,” Randy More said.

“By the time I got out of the washroom, he was getting in his car after he’d shot everybody. If it had been a difference of time by a minute or two minutes, I wouldn’t be here today. It’s only by God’s amazing grace that I’m here.”

After killing Greg More, Dombroskie entered the plant floor and shot Elizabeth Travassos while she sat at her sewing machine. She had complained about the poor quality of his work according to one news report.

Finally, he chased Larry Strack outside the building and shot him in the back and left him to die. Patrick Dombroskie and Larry Strack had known each other their entire lives and Strack helped him get the job at the glove factory.

Witnesses said when the shooting was over Patrick Dombroskie “walked calmly to a small red car, climbed in and drove away.”

“I was working and heard this bang coming out of the office,” Henry Bastarache said. “When he came out, he went right past me. He had nothing against me. I got shivers and got kind of numb.”

“I just heard the bang,” said seamstress Mary Kukowsi. “Somebody said it was a gun and I just ran.”

 

Personal Tragedy Led to Mental Breakdown

It appears that a string of personal tragedies led to Patrick Dombroskie mental health decline. His mother died from breast cancer in 1968 when he was four years old. In 1991, his father died from cancer as well. And the daughter of the older half-sister who raised him after his mother pass away also died in a car accident.

All of these stresses appeared to lead to his becoming more belligerent at work while refusing to take responsibility for his mistakes that ultimately led to his suspension from the job.

 

Multiple Murderer Granted Day Parole

Patrick Dombroskie was granted day parole in 2021 to perform community service while escorted by a corrections officer.

 

“Gun Control” Refrain

Wendy Cukier, then just a few years into her lifelong fetish to ban all firearms in Canada, said, “Do you know what makes me the maddest? What makes me the maddest is that the interest of gun owners have taken precedence over the interests of public safety.”

Her tune hasn’t changed in over 30 years.