Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

2002. Three die in Journal shooting

In The Providence Journal's 175 years of publishing, the paper's worst day may have been June 8, 2002.

Carlos Pacheco, a 20-year employee of The Journal, shot to death two Journal coworkers, Robert Benetti and Matthew Fandetti, and wounded a third, Charles Johnson, before taking his own life.

Pacheco, 38, had worked the second shift at The Journal's production plant on Kinsley Avenue.

The night before the shootings, Pacheco told an old friend that he was being harassed at work, and that the people who had harassed him had chased his car on Route 95. The Journal has no reports of any harassment of Pacheco. A police officer who had stopped Pacheco's car on Route 95 had not seen anyone chasing him.

After the shootings, Pacheco drove to Jefferson Boulevard in Warwick, doused his car with flammable liquid, shot himself and died in a swirl of fire.