by Mary Ann Spoto/The Star-Ledger
Friday October 10, 2008, 7:09 PM

An 88-year-old Ocean County man walked into the Community Medical Center in Toms River this afternoon and shot his 87-year-old wife to death before turning the gun on himself, authorities said.

The shooting occurred at 12:20 p.m. on the hospital's second floor. The gunman, whom authorities have not yet identified, was airlifted to the trauma center at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, Toms River Police Chief Michael Mastronardy said. He remains in critical condition this evening.

Mastronardy said a small-caliber weapon was recovered in the second floor room where the shooting occurred. He said he could not confirm the woman's medical condition, that he did not know why she was hospitalized or whether it had anything to do with the shooting.

The scene outside the Community Medical Center in Toms River.
When police arrived they found the man on the floor and his wife in the bed, both with bullet wounds. A female patient who also was in the room at the time of the shooting was unharmed and police said they were interviewing her about what happened.

The couple lived in Holiday City, an adult community in Berkeley Township, Mastronardy said.

Eugenio Diaz, who was at the hosptial today to visit his ex-wife, also a patient on the second floor, said he heard the slain woman was suffering from cancer. Diaz said he spent time with the son of the elderly couple in the hospital's waiting room Thursday night, and saw the son again in the waiting room this afternoon. He said the son was crying.

Diaz said he asked the son what happened, and the son said "My father shot my mother."

Although many patients in the hospital were unaware of the shooting, visitors who arrived at the hospital slowly discovered what had unfolded after being denied entrance.

Bernice Gaspari of North Vale who was at the hospital yesterday afternoon to visit her father said she was initially directed away from the front door to the emergency room entrance.

"We figured a bomb threat. We never thought a shooting," said Gaspari. "Somebody said there was somebody on he second floor with a gun."

A man standing nearby, who declined to be identified, said he saw 40 to 50 police vehicles drive up to the hospital at about the same time security guards appeared to react to a call to enter the hospital.

"By the time security got to the door, cops were all over the place, fully armed," he said.

Gaspari said that, during the commotion, she managed to get inside the hospital and to the fourth floor to visit her father. She found him in his room with her two uncles, but none of them were aware of the situation.

"I got up there and it looked like nobody knew," she said.

At Holiday City, a collection of 3,300 ranch-style houses, residents said they were both disturbed and saddened hear about the shooting.

"It disturbs me to hear that, but who knows what is the reason?" said Rosa Cuomo, a resident of the development. "If it was the wife was sick, rather than live a cripple, I could understand someone doing that. The courage it would take to do that..."