Beltway Shooter Pleads Guilty To Montgomery County Murders

BETHESDA, MD — Accused Beltway shooter Eulalio Tordil pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder in Montgomery County Tuesday, WTOP reports. Tordil is accused of the May 2016 slayings of a man at Westfield Montgomery Mall and a woman who was a carjacking target at a Silver Spring Giant store.

Tordil, 63, of Boyds, faces a life in prison without the possibility of parole for pleading guilty to the murder charges.

One day before the Montgomery County shootings, prosecutors say the former federal security officer Tordil gunned down his estranged wife, Gladys Tordil, a teacher, as she waited for her daughters in a Riverdale high school parking lot. She had received a protective order that forbid her husband from coming near her Prince George's County home, workplace or children.

In all, police say Eulalio Tordil killed three people and injured three others. SIGN UP: Get Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts, or like us on Facebook. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.

Court records show a plea agreement was submitted to a judge for approval on April 17, and Tordil is scheduled to have a plea hearing on April 25.

The guilty pleas in Montgomery County would not affect plans to prosecute Tordil in Prince George’s County, where he has been charged, but not indicted for killing his wife, reports WTOP. Tordil was originally scheduled to go to trial Nov. 28, 2016, but both sides agreed to push back the trial to Oct. 16, 2017, as they await the results of DNA tests from the multiple crime scenes.

Prince George’s County prosecutors have said they will wait until Tordil’s case is resolved in Montgomery County before indicting him for his wife’s killing, which began the two-day crime wave.

Tordil, a former Federal Protective Service officer, had been depressed after being suspended from work, the result of complaints filed by his wife when she sought a protective order from the spouse she said had beaten and raped her for years. Eulalio Tordil told a colleague he planned to run his car off a bridge, according to prosecutors.

SEE ALSO:

• Beltway Shooter Expected To Plead Guilty To Murders
• Beltway Shooting Spree: Eulalio Tordil's Miranda Rights Violated Prosecutor Says
• Maryland Woman Killed By Husband During Shooting Spree Asked Court For Protective Order: Police
• High School Slaying: Fundraiser Set Up For Girls; Victim Had Stayaway Order; Husband Arrested
• High Point High School Shooting: Husband Sought in Wife's Death
• Washington Beltway Shootings: 4 Shot, 2 Killed in Mall and Grocery; Federal Officer in Custody

Montgomery County Victim

Carl Unger was at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda on May 6, 2016, to have lunch with his friend, Malcom Winffel, 45, of Boyds. Both men were shot, allegedly by Eulalio Tordil, when they tried to help a woman whose car Tordil was trying to steal, police said.

"He looked dead at us and was smiling before he started shooting," Unger told NBC Washington.

Tordil is charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shootings of Winffel and Claudina Modina, 65, of Montgomery County. Modina, a nurse, was shot in a second failed carjacking attempt at the Giant store in Silver Spring, authorities say.

The carjacking victim outside the Macy’s store ran between Unger and Winffel, which is when Tordil began to fire his handgun. Unger was shot four times: Once in the shoulder, twice in the back and once in the foot. He suffered a collapsed lung as a result of one of the bullets in his back and still has a bullet in his shoulder, according to his family.

The unidentified woman was also shot, but survived. Unger’s buddy, Winfell, died in the rampage.

“These men are heroes. Malcom Winfell gave his life for somebody he doesn’t know in order to protect her from a predator,” Russ Hamill, chief of detectives for the Montgomery County Police Department, said in May.

Police say both carjacking attempts failed because the victims fought back, and in the mall case, the two men intervened. Tordil talked to police after he was arrested but didn’t seem remorseful, Hamill said.

String of Shootings Started at Beltsville High School

Police say Eulalio Tordil shot his estranged wife May 5, 2016, before turning the gun on a Good Samaritan who had, moments earlier, noticed the couple struggling and asked Gladys Tordil if everything was OK. Gladys Tordil was a chemistry teacher at Parkdale High School in Riverdale.

Following a March 2016 court order in a custody case, Eulalio Tordil turned over his federally issued service weapon, as well as six other firearms. He was also told to stay away from his wife, her home and her workplace.

Investigators say Eulalio Tordil followed his wife to High Point High School, got out of his car and confronted Gladys Tordil as she sat in her vehicle.

“I’m her husband,” he told the bystander before the shooting began.

A protective order granted to Gladys Tordil in March 2016 said that she was raped by her husband and beaten for years. On the day of her death, the husband, Eulalio Tordil, focused his rage on his estranged wife one last time, police say, confronting her at High Point High School in Beltsville as she waited to pick up her two daughters.

A civil court had granted Glady Tordil's request to issue a protective order against Eulalio Tordil only two months ago. “He threatened to harm me,” she told the court, “if I leave him.”

The protective order says that Eulalio – who had a black belt in the martial art of aikido -- slapped, shoved, and raped his wife.

He also forced the two girls into rigorous discipline that included numerous push-ups and putting them in "detention" in closets, the mother told the judge, according to court papers.

Additional reporting by Patch Editor Deb Belt.

»Photo of shooting suspect Eulalio Tordil courtesy of Montgomery County Police; photo of Gladys Tordil used with permission of Eric Paviat