Robert Spencer, 51
Okahumpka, Fla.
David Leo Troutman was done with talking. It was time to act. Around lunchtime on Jan. 8, the retired truck driver and livestock dealer pulled up to the Island Food Store in Okahumpka, Fla., in his pickup. A shotgun lay across his lap.

He waited until he saw a black person. When Robert Spencer walked out of the store, sub and soda in hand, Troutman jumped out of the pickup, aimed at Spencer's back and fired at least two shots.

As Spencer's son and co-worker, Roderick, rushed out to help his dying father, Troutman peeled off. He stopped at another convenience store a mile down the road, put a small handgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger as customers went in and out, oblivious.

Troutman had apparently never met Spencer, a supervisor for Florida Recycling Services who lived in Leesburg, Fla. But for years, Troutman had aired racist views about black people to friends, family members -- and even bare acquaintances.

His vocal complaints about black people had started fights at his old American Legion post in Indiana. Not long before Jan. 8, he had promised family members that he would "take out" as many black people as he could before he died.

Spencer's eight grieving children see irony in all this: If anyone could have changed Troutman's mind about black people, they believe it was the man who became his random target. Their daddy charmed the socks off everyone he met, daughter Priscilla Pounds told the Intelligence Report.

On trips to visit Spencer's kinfolk in Alabama, "He would walk in any store along the way, white or black, and people would take to him right away. He would go to the person who's not smiling, say, 'There's got to be a reason why you're not smiling, and I'll make you smile.' "

"He had a blinder on him," said his other daughter, Beulah Spencer. "He didn't see color. He just saw people."