Anthony Robert Taglianetti II showed up for work in Virginia on Monday and abruptly resigned. By Friday, he was in police custody, the primary suspect in the murder of Clymer Superintendent Keith Reed Jr.
According to a former co-worker who contacted The Post-Journal on Thursday, Taglianetti told colleagues he had accepted a contractor position making $10,000 a year more than his current job. Taglianetti also said he was "looking forward to bigger and better things" when he arrived to work at the Oral History branch of Marine Corps University in Quantico, Va., on Tuesday to collect his belongings.
Second Lt. Amanda Anderson, a Public Affairs officer at Marine Base Quantico, said Taglianetti had "recently resigned his post," which he had held since May 2006.
"He came in on Tuesday, had shaved his head, and his face looked like he had been in a cat fight," said the co-worker who wished to remain anonymous. "He looked like he hadn't shaved in two or three days and maybe slept in his clothes."
The co-worker said Taglianetti spoke with several colleagues while finishing paperwork and seemed very excited about his new job, calling it "the most sane conversation (he) had ever had with the guy."
"I worked there with him for almost three years, 20 feet from my office," Taglianetti's co-worker said Thursday. "I shook hands with him about 48 hours ago."
Chautauqua County Sheriff Joe Gerace confirmed that they believe Taglianetti to be "unemployed or between jobs at this time."
According to the 42-year-old oral historian's Facebook profile, he graduated from Robert E. Fitch High School in Groton, Conn., and married Mary Jenks Taglianetti in 1999 after serving in the U.S. Marines from 1990-94. He attended SUNY Albany from 2002-05. The couple has four children.
Chautauqua County Sheriff's Department officials called Taglianetti armed and dangerous prior to his apprehension. His co-worker agreed with their assessment.
"If you had walked in here two weeks ago and asked which person in the office would do something like (murder), we all would have pointed at him," said the co-worker. "Every one of us told our spouses, 'If we don't come home from work some day (Taglianetti) did it.'"
Taglianetti's co-worker said the Quantico site was 95 percent civilian personnel and weapons were not allowed at the site but that several colleagues had known Taglianetti to have weapons in his car at the workplace.
Police have ruled out a murder for hire or drug-related killing, according to Gerace, who would not confirm various media reports of an alternative motive Friday night.
"They were not unfamiliar with one another," said District Attorney David Foley. "This was a personal issue and not a professional one."
