The daughter of the gunman who opened fire at a high-school ice hockey game in Rhode Island has said her father harboured a "vendetta" against the family. Robert Dorgan, also known as Roberta Esposito, killed his 23-year-old son Aidan Dorgan and his 52-year-old ex-wife Rhonda at Lynch Arena in Pawtucket on Monday, February 16.
Amanda Wallace-Hubbard, who was at the arena with her two sons, told the New York Post that gender identity was "not remotely a factor" in the family's estrangement. "It really was just a symptom of something that had been going on that was much deeper his entire adult life," she said. She added that her father "struggled with demons" and that she and her siblings had distanced themselves after she had children.
Recalling the attack, Wallace-Hubbard said she immediately protected her sons and praised bystander Michael Black for intervening. "Until that Good Samaritan incapacitated him, I really feared that my sons were next," she told The Times. "I'm certain my sons and I are alive because of him." She also said Dorgan "never really saw the error in his ways" and would not have changed without substantial mental health help.
Police have described the shooting as part of a "family dispute", though the motive remains under investigation. In the days before the attack, Dorgan posted a clip of a woman on a treadmill loading ammunition magazines into a handgun, and on X, under the name Roberta Dorgano, threatened to go "berserk" while defending transgender Congresswoman Sarah McBride. Three other victims remain in critical condition.
Wallace-Hubbard has set up a GoFundMe page for her surviving siblings, Ava and Colin Dorgan, noting that their grandparents are "fighting for their lives". In a Facebook post she wrote: "My heart is broken. My sons and I are alive because of god there is no other explanation. Please hug your loved ones and tell them you love them every chance you get!"
