A man charged with killing his estranged wife and two other people during a string of shootings over two days in Maryland pleaded guilty Tuesday to killing the two strangers.
Eulalio Tordil, 63, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder in court in Montgomery County.
Prosecutors said Tordil killed his estranged wife, 44-year-old Gladys Tordil, May 5 in the parking lot of High Point High School in Prince George's County, where she was a chemistry teacher. Tordil is facing a separate murder charge in that county. Authorities said he also shot and wounded a bystander who tried to help her; that man survived.
The next day, authorities say Tordil shot and killed two strangers during apparent carjacking attempts in Montgomery County: Malcom Winffel, 45, and Claudina Molina, 65.
Winffel was fatally shot outside the Westfield Montgomery mall after he and another man went to help a woman whom police said the suspect was trying to carjack. Both men and the woman were shot; Winffel died and the other two victims survived.
"In an instant, the female victim cried out for help," Montgomery County Police Assistant Chief Russ Hamill said in the aftermath of the crime. "These two men acted selflessly and heroically, not only coming to her aid, but likely saving her life. These men are heroes. Malcom Winffel gave his life for somebody he doesn't know in order to protect her from a predator."
Later on the same afternoon as the mall shooting, Molina was shot and killed outside a Giant grocery store in a shopping center in Aspen Hill.
Her family said she was originally from Bolivia and accomplished the American dream, working 16 hours a day for the past 25 years, only to be killed while resisting what police believe was a second carjacking attempt by Tordil. Molina was a nursing assistant who planned to retire within a year.
The manhunt for the shooter spread fear throughout the D.C. area for hours as the events unfolded.
Tordil, a former officer with the Federal Protective Service, faces life in prison without parole.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in the Montgomery County slayings in July.
