Carl Drega (January 19, 1935 – August 19, 1997) was an American spree killer who killed four people in Colebrook, New Hampshire, on August 19, 1997. Drega had several long-term disputes with town and state government officials over his property in Columbia since the early 1980s. Drega shot and killed two New Hampshire state troopers, a judge and a newspaper editor in Colebrook and wounded four other law enforcement officers before being shot to death in a gunfight with police in Bloomfield, Vermont. Background Carl Drega was born on January 19, 1935, in New Haven, Connecticut, to Polish immigrants. He claimed to have served in the U.S. military during the Korean War. Drega later worked in construction and lived in Manchester, New Hampshire, later moving into a home in Bow, New Hampshire, he built for himself and his wife Rita from 1969 to 1970. However, Rita was diagnosed with cancer the following year and died in 1972. Drega had a long history of conflict with government officials over code enforcement issues, starting in the 1970s over whether he could use tar paper to side his vacation house in Columbia, New Hampshire, on the banks of the Connecticut River. He claimed that, in 1981, a rainstorm caused of the riverbank to collapse. Drega decided to dump and pack enough dirt to repair the erosion damage, saying this would restore his lot to its original size. State officials, on the other hand, contested that Drega was trying to change the course of the river. In 1995, the town selectman Vickie Bunnell accompanied a town tax assessor to Drega's property in a dispute over an assessment. Drega fired shots into the air to drive them away. Drega bought an AR-15 rifle and armored vest, and began equipping his property with early-warning electronic noise and motion detectors. Shooting On August 19, 1997, at about 2:30 p.m., New Hampshire state trooper Scott Phillips stopped Drega in the parking lot of LaPerle's IGA supermarket in neighboring Colebrook for having too much rust on his pickup truck. Drega got out of his truck with his rifle and fired upon Trooper Phillips, who was hit but returned fire before retreating into a nearby field. Drega followed Phillips into the field and murdered him. Trooper Leslie Lord pulled into the LaPerle's parking lot moments later, and from approximately 150 feet (45 m) away, Drega shot and killed Lord before