13-03-2025
Police publish video with details about Lafayette laundromat shooting
LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Something about Lafayette haunted 73-year-old Louis McGlothlin, who appeared to be in declining mental health.
He believed the people in Lafayette were controlling him, Lafayette police said in a debriefing video they published Thursday on YouTube. Police have closed the case.
"The cancer that has been allowed to develop in the city of Lafayette," McGlothlin said in one video clip.
"You have to bust these people up," he said. "They want your energy. They want to know how you did it. They haven't got the initiative to go out and develop it on their own. They want yours."
It is not clear on the released video what McGlothlin was talking about.
McGlothlin grew up in Lafayette and joined the U.S. Navy after high school. He and his wife settled in Lincoln, Neb.
Police said his only familiarity with Lafayette was the area of Earl and South streets, and police believe he targeted the laundromat because it was an open business in the familiar area.
McGlothlin entered the laundromat about 7:40 p.m. Dec. 5. He turned to his left and fired, killing 35-year-old Keith Ford and wounding 32-year-old Renee Martin. He then turned to his right and fired more shots, wounding Salvador Antonio De La Cruz Reyes, 30. Martin and Reyes survived the shooting but were hospitalized.
McGlothin was in the laundromat about 20 seconds and fired seven shots. He then went outside, stood beside his pickup truck and unjammed his sidearm before killing himself with a gunshot to his head.
He died on Dec. 7 in an Indianapolis hospital.
Lafayette police searched McGlothlin's truck and home in Nebraska. They said they found several video recordings, some many years old, and that his delusions about people in Lafayette intensified over the years.
In one video, McGothlin faced the camera, a pair of binoculars on the ledge behind his left shoulder as he referred to "the cancer that's been allowed to develop in the city of Lafayette."
Police included a photo of a white piece of paper sitting on a CD that read, in printed handwriting: "The reason I have a CD is because I was going to do this in the year 2000. I have a pistol and could not control it. I sold the pistol to Nebraska Guns. Receipt is in file cabinet. After what happened to Michelle."
Police published the video to be transparent about the killing and their investigation because of the high public interest in the case, Lafayette police Sgt. Shawn Verma said on the video.
Reach Ron Wilkins at rwilkins@ Follow on Twitter: @RonWilkins2.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Lafayette police publish video with details about laundromat shooting
