Mark Alan Frey, 50, was killed on June 9, 2022, at Columbia Machine Inc. in Smithsburg, Maryland. Two other co-workers, Charles Edward Minnick Jr., 31, and Joshua Robert Wallace, 30, were also killed that day; another colleague and a state trooper were wounded but survived.

The shooter, identified as 23-year-old Joe Louis Esquivel of Hedgesville, West Virginia, fled by car after the breakroom shooting and was intercepted by a Maryland State Police trooper. A shootout followed in which both the trooper and Esquivel were injured; Esquivel was taken into custody and charged with three counts of first-degree murder.

A later legal finding declared Esquivel not criminally responsible because of a diagnosis of schizophrenia, resulting in commitment to a psychiatric hospital rather than a criminal trial or prison sentence. Frey’s widow said there was evidence suggesting the attack was premeditated, including allegations Esquivel had stalked her husband in the months before the shooting, and she voiced fear about periodic reviews of his confinement. Does anyone have more information about Frey’s life at Columbia Machine or contacts who knew him?