via WTKR
NORFOLK – A Fort Eustis soldier who was killed Sunday in a shootout with police was described as idolizing The Joker from “The Dark Knight,” and he painted his face during a failed getaway attempt that took him across the state.
That description of Army Spc. Christopher Lanum was included in court papers filed in the arrest of his girlfriend. She is charged with aiding Lanum after he allegedly stabbed a fellow soldier at the Newport News post early Sunday morning.
Investigators also said Lanum was dressed in black pants and a green vest before the stabbing, and that the computer in his room showed that someone was searching for information on “sleeping gas.”
His girlfriend, Patsy Ann Marie Montowski, appeared in U.S. District Court on Thursday afternoon and was ordered held pending a detention hearing next Tuesday. The complaint charges her with accessory after the fact to an assault.
Montowski provided the getaway vehicle and accompanied her boyfriend in a cross-state drive that ended near Front Royal, court papers said. She was wounded in the same confrontation that resulted in Lanum’s death.
The victim, Spc. Mitchell Stone, was hospitalized with wounds to the thigh and throat.
According to court records, the two soldiers lived in adjoining rooms on the post, sharing a common kitchen area and bathroom.
Shortly before 6 a.m. Sunday, Fort Eustis medicaStone said Lanum had attacked him with a knife and a stun gun. Military police found a knife, a gun, a stun gun covered in blood, and a purse belonging to Montowski, along with her driver’s license. They began searching for her minivan – a 1999 blue Ford Windstar.
About 11 a.m. Sunday, a U.S. Park ranger spotted the minivan on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. A chase ensued, and police eventually used tire spikes to disable the vehicle, which crashed.
As police approached, the court records say, they saw Lanum holding a shotgun, his finger on the trigger. Lanum ignored orders to drop the weapon and a trooper fired through the window.
Lanum was struck several times and killed. Montowski was wounded and required hospital treatment.
Montowski later told investigators that she could not give a reason for the fight.
However, she said her boyfriend idolized the Joker — the fictional criminal from the Batman film. Separately, investigators also noticed masks and pictures or paintings of the Joker in Lanum’s room, as well as face paint on the hutch and dresser.
She told investigators that her boyfriend “said everything the Joker did he did for a reason, like killing people, and that he agreed with the philosophy of doing things for a reason.”
Hours before the stabbing, Montowski said her boyfriend was “‘preparing for war,’ as he often did” — a ritual that involved cleaning his knives.
Later, she went out for cigarettes and Lanum would not let her back in the room. Stone allowed her to walk through his room to get to the common area, then to her boyfriend’s room.
The fight between the two soldiers happened shortly afterward. Stone told police he went into the common area for a drink of water, and Lanum attacked him. Also, he said Montowski attacked him with the stun gun.
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