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In a tragic and unsettling incident, the son of a transgender shooter who unleashed violence at a high school hockey game is currently serving time in federal prison for a separate crime involving arson at a black church.
Robert Dorgan, 56, known also by the name ‘Roberta Esposito,’ committed a shocking act of violence in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. On Monday afternoon, Dorgan opened fire inside the Lynch Arena, resulting in the deaths of his son, Aidan Dorgan, 23, and ex-wife, Rhonda, 52, before taking his own life.
The aftermath of Dorgan’s actions has left his in-laws, Linda and Gerald Dorgan, both 75, and a family friend, Thomas Geruoso, 54, who is an assistant principal at Shea High School in Pawtucket, in critical condition. They are currently receiving medical care in a local hospital as they fight for their lives.
Amid the investigation into this harrowing event, authorities uncovered a connection to another crime. It was revealed that Dorgan was the biological parent of Kevin Colantonio, 37. Two years prior, Colantonio attempted to set the Shiloh Gospel Temple Ministries in North Providence on fire, an act for which he is now incarcerated.
North Providence Police Chief Alfredo Ruggiero Jr. shared with the Boston Globe that this link was identified on Wednesday. Investigators subsequently revisited an interview conducted with Colantonio’s mother, Marlyse Dunbar, shortly after his arrest, shedding more light on this complex and distressing family saga.
She told officers at the time that Dorgan – who has a Nazi-inspired tattoo on his bicep and voiced his support for ‘white power’ – was Colantonio’s father.
The development came as police released images of firearms they recovered after conducting a search of Dorgan’s apartment, work locker, and storage unit.
The images depicted a sawed-off shotgun and AR-15 style rifle seized from the storage unit. Two handguns were recovered at the scene of the massacre.
People close with the family have since told WPRI that Dorgan influenced his son’s dangerous fixation on race.
Robert Dorgan, 56, who also went by the name ‘Roberta Esposito,’ opened fire on his family members at a high school hockey game on Monday
His son from a previous relationship, Kevin Colantonio, 37, (pictured) is serving time in federal prison for setting fire to a predominantly black church in 2024
The development came as police released images of firearms they recovered after conducting a search of Dorgan’s apartment, work locker, and storage unit
It included an AR-15 style rifle and a sawed-off shotgun (pictured)
The son even scrawled white nationalist messages in notebooks seized by federal investigators following the fire on February 11, 2024.
One disturbing message read: ‘Hunt them down gun everyone down that isn’t white, if one is white spread the gospel. Always gibe our bloodline a chance.’
‘Eliminate Rich Snob global Elite Pastors, burn churches down to the ground, when congregants move to [the] next church, do the same,’ read another of Colantonio’s messages.
Authorities said Colantonio bought a Bic lighter and $10 worth of gas from a local gas station before walking over to the Shiloh Gospel Temple Ministries, a Pentecostal church with about 100, mostly black, members.
Once at the church, Colantonio poured gasoline around its base and ignited five different fires, all of which were quickly extinguished – but not before causing significant damage to the church.
‘Due to the damage, church congregants were prevented from enjoying their free exercise of religious beliefs as church services were canceled until the church could be reopened,’ federal prosecutors said.
Just one day after the blaze, court documents showed Colantonio privately messaged an unidentified family member and said no one in the community cared about the arson.
In those messages, he called the church ‘Atheist God mockers,’ adding: ‘They’re busy dancing around collecting money.’
Authorities said Colantonio bought $10 worth of gasoline and a Bic lighter from a nearby gas station and set fire to the Shiloh Gospel Temple Ministries in North Providence, Rhode Island on February 11, 2024
Investigators are pictured at the scene of the fire, which they said caused significant damage to the church building
Colantonio set five different fires around the base of the church, all of which were quickly extinguished
Colantonio ultimately pleaded guilty last year to one count each of malicious damage by means of fire and obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs, the Providence Journal reports.
His attorney, Kara Hoopis Manosh, argued at sentencing that her client had a history of mental illness starting at the age of four.
Prosecutors also acknowledged Colantonio had mental health issues, but argued it does not excuse him from setting fire to the church ‘nor does it adequately explain his actions targeting a group of people because of their race and religion.’
Colantonio was then ultimately sentenced last June to more than six years in federal prison for the arson at the church and for throwing feces and urine at correctional officers.
He is now serving his sentence at a federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas.
In a statement to the Globe, Lawrence J Signore, an attorney representing the Dorgan family, said he had ‘no idea’ who Colantonio was.
But records obtained by the Globe show Dorgan – who has said on social media he is a father of six – lived with Colantonio in North Providence around 2004, when Colantonio was a teenager.
It was at around that same time that Dorgan began cross dressing, Ruggiero said.
Dorgan killed his ex-wife, Rhonda, and their son, Aidan (both center), in the shooting on Monday
He later transitioned, which court documents show caused strain within his family, as Rhonda cited his ‘gender reassignment surgery, narcissistic and personality disorder traits’ as grounds for divorce in 2020.
Those reasons were later crossed out and replaced with ‘irreconcilable differences which have caused the immediate breakdown of the marriage’. Their divorce was finalized in 2021.
But Dorgan’s daughter, Amanda Wallace-Hubbard, who witnessed the fatal shooting on Monday alongside her two sons said his gender identity ‘was not remotely a factor in him being ostracized from the family, at least on the part of myself or my siblings.’
Instead, she told the New York Post, ‘It was really just a symptom of something that had been going on that was much deeper his entire adult life.’
The 36-year-old went on to explain that her late father ‘struggled with demons’, and she decided she had to distance herself from him after she had children of her own.
Dorgan’s social media pages showed he considered himself ‘to the right of Hitler’ and even posted an anti-Asian slur as he replied to a video praising Adolf Hitler just one day before the shooting.
That same day, Dorgan also threatened to go ‘BESERK.’
Wallace-Hubbard now says her father never received the help he needed.
‘He never really saw the error in his ways,’ Wallace-Hubbard reflected.
Dorgan’s daughter, Amanda Wallace-Hubbard, opened up about her late father’s relationship with his family
She said she and her siblings distanced themselves from Dorgan over his mental health issues. Dorgan posted this photo of himself with Aidan and his youngest son, Colin, in July 2023
‘I think without real substantial mental health help, I don’t think he ever would have come around to see that, but you have to admit that you have a problem before you can get help.
‘He was just not willing to do that,’ she added.
She also said that her father had a ‘vendetta’ against his own family, something she believes is what drove him to pull the trigger that day.
‘I just want to make sure people understand this was one person’s vendetta against their family,’ Wallace-Hubbard told The Times.
Footage showed the gunman speaking with his family just before he pulled out a gun and fired it.
After her father started shooting, the young mother said she immediately protected her sons.
She told The Times how thankful she was that a bystander, later identified as Michael Black, had stepped in when he did.
Black swiftly leapt over seats to snatch Dorgan’s pistol – preventing him from firing any further shots – before tackling the gunman to the ground.
‘Until that Good Samaritan incapacitated him, I really feared that my sons were next. I can’t thank him enough … I’m certain my sons and I are alive because of him,’ Wallace-Hubbard stated.
Although he was very vocal online about his gender identity, Wallace-Hubbard said that was not what sparked a rift in the family
Wallace-Hubbard has since launched a GoFundMe page to help her two surviving siblings, Ava and Colin Dorgan.
According to her, her siblings’ grandparents have been left ‘fighting for their lives’ in the hospital after the shooting.
‘The weight of this loss is something no one should ever have to bear, especially at such young ages,’ she wrote.
Wallace-Hubbard also took to Facebook after the fatal shooting, posting: ‘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!’
Speaking to the Globe on Wednesday, Signore, the attorney for the family, also said it was ‘deeply and profoundly affected’ by the fatal shooting and noted that family members are cooperating with authorities.
‘We are reminded that behind every headline is a family experiencing profound pain and loss,’ he said. ‘We care greatly for all families impacted by this recent tragedy and our thoughts are with them.
‘While there are many questions being asked, please know we are focused on all of those who have been injured and whose lives have been forever changed,’ the attorney added.