Penske reopens: Customers, staff somber

By Mary Lou Pickel

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Penske Truck Rental office in Kennesaw reopened Friday, three days after a shooting rampage left three dead and two critically injured.

Many customers who drove onto the property, which was monitored by a security guard, said they considered the victims friends. They were also unnerved because they realized that they could have been victims too, had fate taken a different turn.

Julian Smith, 54, of Austell, is a driver for a shipping materials company whose trucks are serviced by Penske.

He said he frequently visited the Penske shop for work on his truck or to stop and chat with the mechanics and get a snack. He said he had been there just moments before Tuesday's shooting, talking to mechanics Van Springer, 59, and Roberto Gonzalez, 31, both now dead.

"It touched me because I had just left and I had just seen these guys and talked with them," Smith said. "They were cutting up."

"It's hard to swallow when you just get through talking with guys and then you hear what happened to them," Smith said.

Truck driver Jaider Felipe Marulanda, who drove for El Maizal, a local food distributor, was there that day to get his truck serviced.  He was also killed.

Joshua Holbrook, 27, and Zachariah Werner, 35, are still in critical condition at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital.

Former Penske employee Jesse James Warren, 60, of Carroll County has been charged in the shootings.

Tim Neitzel, 34, of Woodstock, was returning a truck shortly after 8 a.m. Friday to the agency and said the mood in the office was somber.

Neitzel said he narrowly missed being at the facility at the time of the shooting.

He  finished with the truck around 1 p.m. Tuesday and planned to return it but was delayed by a conference call. The shooting took place at about 1:30 p.m.

"Fortunately I wasn't there but I just feel so horrible for what happened," Neitzel said. "I was quite lucky."

When he returned the truck Friday, he said he was relieved to see the front desk people  he dealt with Tuesday were OK.

Outside the shop, in front of the Penske sign, people have left flowers and small bouquets in memory of the victims.

Smith said Springer, the lead mechanic on the day shift, was "soft-spoken, the greatest guy in the world. He would give you the shirt off his back."

Gonzalez, Smith said, was "a real good human being. He was always smiling, always cutting up."

Fund set up for victim's family

Jaider Marulanda's employer has set up an assistance fund at Wachovia bank to help care for the driver's wife, Luz Mary Marulanda, 46, his 11-year-old son and a daughter in her 20s. The fund is Account # 1010267901588 Wachovia Bank, N.A.