.

The Associated Press

COLUMBIA, N.H. -- An eccentric troublemaker who coolly gunned down four people in a wild rampage before being killed by police hid hundreds of pounds of explosives throughout his rural property.

Authorities found at least 600 pounds of ammonium nitrate "in a fairly elaborate system of tunnels" built beneath and adjacent to Carl Drega's home, Associate Attorney General Michael Ramsdell said Wednesday.

Drega, 67, who had a long-running feud with local officials over zoning and other property issues, also bought 61 1/2 gallons of diesel fuel Tuesday. Ramsdell said Drega used some of the fuel to burn down his house in the middle of his killing spree.

Ammonium nitrate is used in some explosives, as a fertilizer and in rocket fuel. Diesel fuel mixed with ammonium nitrate was the explosive mixture used in both the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombings.

Authorities were considering doing a controlled burn of the property to get rid of the explosives, Ramsdell said.

State police also found bomb-making books and a weapons manual Wednesday in the smoldering ruins of Drega's house in northwestern New Hampshire, but investigators could not find any connections with militia groups.

Drega gunned down a judge that he had a grudge against, a newspaper editor and two state troopers before being shot to death after a 45-minute gun battle with police, authorities said. Four people were wounded.

His sister, Jane Drega, Connecticut, said Wednesday that her brother told her police and other officials in New Hampshire had been harassing him. She said she thought he "got to the point where he couldn't take it anymore."

Ms. Drega said she last talked to her brother on Saturday. He returned to New Hampshire this summer after spending the winter doing carpentry work in Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, she said.

Authorities gave this account of Tuesday's violence:

Tuesday afternoon, Trooper Scott Phillips followed Drega into the parking lot of a grocery store, planning to cite him for having rust holes in the bed of his red pickup truck. Drega quickly shot Phillips with an assault rifle, but did not kill him.

Not aware shots had been fired, Trooper Leslie Lord arrived and was shot and killed.

Drega then returned to the wounded Phillips and shot him four times with a pistol. He then stole the trooper's cruiser and his bulletproof vest.

Drega then drove to the weekly News and Sentinel newspaper building, which also housed the law office of part-time Judge Vickie Bunnell, a former Columbia selectwoman who had tangled with Drega over property disputes. Drega shot Bunnell five times in the parking lot.

Editor Dennis Joos, 51, tried to help, but Drega wrestled free and shot him eight times. Drega drove off, set fire to his home and went searching for another former selectman, who was not home.

He then drove across the Connecticut River into Vermont, shooting New Hampshire Fish and Game Officer Wayne Saunders, who escaped serious injury. Continuing south, he parked the stolen police cruiser on a logging road.

James Walton, Vermont's commissioner of public safety, said Drega carefully planned his ambush.

A pair of Vermont troopers with a police dog were the first officers to approach the cruiser. Walton said when the dog signaled that something was up a hill, one of the troopers yelled, "Ambush! Hit the dirt."

In the gunfire that followed, U.S. Border Patrol officer John Pfeifer, 33, was critically wounded, shot in the chest; New Hampshire Trooper Jeffrey Caulder, 32, was shot in the pelvis; and New Hampshire trooper Robert Haase, 38, was cut on one foot by shrapnel.

Officials said Drega, who neighbors claimed never went anywhere without a shotgun, had a long-running feud with Columbia officials over zoning and other property issues. He threatened and sued people, including Bunnell and former selectman Kenneth Parkhurst.

Tuesday afternoon, Drega drove up to Parkhurst's home in the police cruiser, kicked in the door, then left when he found no one home.

Parkhurst was at a dentist's appointment. His wife was visiting a relative.

"It's very scary to think that we sat in the house last night and to think a killer being in the house," Parkhurst said. "It gives you the shudders."

Page 1A, Thursday, August 21, 1997