The deranged transgender father who gunned down his ex-wife and one of their sons at a high school hockey game didn’t appear in the “Senior Night” photo hours before the deadly shooting.
Robert Dorgan’s son, Colin, was one of the Blackstone Valley Schools players honored on the ice during a pre-game photo op at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, on Feb. 16.
Photographer Chip DeLorenzo was on hand to capture the pre-game ceremony and incidentally became the last person to capture a photo of Colin with his mother, Rhonda, and brother, Aidan, 23, before they were killed during Dorgan’s rampage.
“The first picture was with the player and his mother and brother,” DeLorenzo told WPRI. “The second one was just the player and the mother.”
The Blackstone Valley hockey team annually celebrates their graduating seniors at the end of the season before a game when their coach announces them onto the ice, accompanied by their families, to take a picture and be recognized for their athletic achievements throughout their high school career,
During the game, 56-year-old Robert Dorgan – who also went by Roberta Esposito – pulled out a gun and shot Rhonda, his ex-wife and cousin, before opening fire on the rest of his family around 2:30 p.m.
DeLorenzo was capturing in-game photos of the Blackstone Valley offense when the shots rang out inside the arena.
“I thought it was fire crackers going off at first,” he told the outlet. “I paused, and I looked over to where the visiting team’s parents were and everyone also seemed to freeze. Then all of a sudden I saw the parents on the visitor’s side duck down and I heard the screaming.”
The photographer couldn’t make out what was happening in the stands before he hid behind the boards he was stationed at as spectators fled from their seats and players rushed off the ice to safety.
“I was on the ground on all fours and I looked behind me and there was an emergency exit there, so I rushed out,” he said.
Rhonda was pronounced dead at the scene and Aidan was rushed to the hospital in critical condition where he died hours later.
The gunman’s ex-in-laws – Linda and Gerald Dorgan – along with family friend Thomas Geruso, were also critically wounded in the shooting and are still hospitalized, WPRI reported.
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After shooting his relatives, Dorgan turned the gun on himself.
The deranged Dorgan was a first cousin once removed to Rhonda, and the couple shared three children, Aidan, Ava, 20, and 17-year-old Colin.
The couple divorced in 2021 because of Robert’s gender reassignment surgery and “narcissistic + personality disorder traits,” court documents reveal.
Rhonda later changed the reason for the divorce from the musclebound, Nazi-loving trans shipyard worker’s craziness to “irreconcilable differences.”
DeLorenzo says he has had trouble sleeping since the shooting, but is hoping he can share the photos with the family when the time is right so they can look back and have some happy memories.
“That photograph might give them comfort, knowing it was their last moment together,” DeLorenzo said. “I can’t imagine what that’s like … but looking through the lens, I don’t know them and they don’t know me, but when I look through the lens I feel a little bit of intimacy.
“For me it hurts because I know it was their last (photograph together),” he added. “So when they’re ready, I’m ready.”
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