Originally Published:Wednesday, August 4th 2010, 11:37 AM
Updated: Wednesday, August 4th 2010, 12:06 PM
The girlfriend of the Connecticut truck driver who killed eight of his co-workers said Wednesday that on the morning of the massacre "he was in a daze."
Speaking exclusively to the Daily News for the first time since Omar Thornton ended his deadly rampage by shooting himself, Kristi Hannah said she did not he was planning to unleash hell - but she knew something was not right when he left her apartment.
"That morning he seemed like he was in a daze," she said, speaking at her mom's house. "His eyes weren't right. They were empty. I kept asking him what was wrong but he wouldn't tell me."
Thornton, she said, "was quiet."
"He gave me a weird hug," said Hannah. "It was really long. And a kiss and said goodbye. He looked at me hard and told me he loved me."
Then he was gone.
A short time later, Hannah said, the cops showed up.
"Two detectives showed up asking for Omar," she said. "I texted Omar and asked, 'Why are two detectives at my door? You've never done anything wrong in your life.' He didn't answer. I texted him again, 'Are you okay?'"
Still, there was no answer from Thornton.
Then, Hannah said, she saw the reports flashing across the screen of her TV and a horrible realization set in.
"I saw the news and I collapsed on the ground," she said. "I couldn't even move. I felt so sick."
Hannah said that all their plans for the future crumbled in an instant.
"We were engaged, we were talking about having a family," she said. "I fell in love with him because he was the most gentle man I had ever met. His eyes were so kind. He would never hurt another creature."
Hannah said she can't reconcile her memories of Thornton with the cold-blooded killer who turned the beer and wine wholesaling business where he worked into a slaughterhouse.
"Omar was very kind," she said. "His sister had a drug problem and Omar spent a lot of time caring for his nephew."
Hannah also backed up claims by Thornton's kin that the 34-year-old gunman finally snapped after years of being subjected to racist taunts by co-workers.
"Everyone of \[the victims\] was a person I heard Omar mention," she said. "He didn't go around randomly shooting people. He knew these were the people who harassed him."
Thornton, a black man, "was very sensitive about his race," said Hannah.
"If you called him a n----r he would go off," she said. "But he kept it inside. He kept it all bottled up."
Thornton was reportedly about to be fired for stealing cases of suds, but his girlfriend denied he was a thief and claimed he was a good worker who was recently promoted to driver.
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