Robert Dorgan Feared for His Life Before a Tragic Incident at a Rhode Island Hockey Game

Robert Dorgan opened fire at a Rhode Island hockey rink on February 16, 2026, killing his ex-wife and adult son. Court records reveal a turbulent past, including a chilling fear he had voiced years before.

To some who knew Robert Dorgan, he was warm, dependable, and entirely consumed by his role as a father — someone who, by all appearances, had made his children the center of his universe.

But court records, police reports, and the accounts of other people tell a far more volatile story — one that stretches back years before a Senior Night game in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, turned into a nightmare.

The Last Game

Monday, February 16, 2026, should have been a happy occasion. Families packed into the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to watch the Blackstone Valley Schools co-op hockey program celebrate Senior Night — a milestone reserved for players in their final year.

Among the crowd were Rhonda Dorgan, her adult son Aidan, her parents Linda and Gerald, both 75, and a close family friend, Thomas Geruso, 54 — an assistant principal at a Pawtucket high school. They were there to cheer on the youngest member of their family, who was on the ice that afternoon.

Robert Dorgan was also in the building. He had been to these games before, many times, without issue. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

Then the shots rang out.

What Happened Inside the Arena?

Video footage captured inside the arena recorded a burst of gunfire, an 11-second pause as panicked spectators scrambled for any exit they could find, and then one final, solitary shot. Robert had opened fire on his own family.

Rhonda was pronounced dead at the scene. Aidan was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he later died from his injuries. Linda, Gerald, and Thomas were critically wounded. Colin, the teenage son whose Senior Night it was — the reason the family was there at all — was physically unharmed.

When bystanders tried to wrestle Robert to the ground and stop the attack, he produced a second firearm. He then shot himself.

Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves confirmed that Robert had brought two legally purchased weapons into the rink: a 10 mm Glock and a Sig Sauer P226. He held a license to carry firearms in Florida.

The department began working with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to determine whether those licenses were valid in other states. The chief described the attack as "very targeted" — a family dispute.

But she was careful to stress how little, at that point, investigators actually knew. Robert was not known to Pawtucket police. He was not a current Rhode Island resident. He left no suicide note. There had been no argument, no confrontation, no visible warning sign inside the arena before the shooting began.

"Everyone is looking for answers," Goncalves said.

A Daughter Speaks Out

Ava Dorgan, 20, had not been at the rink that afternoon. The following day, she spoke to the Boston Globe — not to explain, not to defend, but simply to name what had been lost.

"I don't really want much business out there," she told the outlet. "I just want them to know that it was my mom, my brother, and my dad. That's all."

She acknowledged her relationship with her father had grown distant since the divorce and that she knew he was transgender. She did not know he owned guns.

Outside the arena the next day, two North Providence juniors — Ethan Kasht and William Soares — arrived with flowers. They had known the family. School counselors were being called in to support students when classes resumed. "They're a good family," Kasht said. "Nobody deserved it."

State Sen. Meghan Kallman, whose district covers Pawtucket, was blunt about what the shooting represented. The family had plans for a potluck dinner after the game. They were there to celebrate. "Utter senselessness," she called it.

And she voiced a fear shared by many — that events like this one are becoming something young people simply absorb. "It's not normal," she said. "That's one more thing that they're going to have to live with for the rest of their lives."

The Man His Friends Knew

To the people who knew Robert in his later years — after the divorce, after the move away from Rhode Island — he was Roberta.

A motorcycle enthusiast. A hockey fan. Someone who would drive hours each way, on weekends, from Maine to Rhode Island, just to be in the stands for his kids.

Sara Graves, a co-worker at Bath Iron Works — the Maine shipbuilder where Robert was employed at the time of the shooting — remembered a woman who made her feel safe in a male-dominated workplace.

His children, she said, were "all she ever talked about." She described Robert sleeping in the car on those long weekends just so he could make it to the games on time.

But Sara also recalled something darker running beneath the surface. Robert had told her he was not "fully accepted" by his family. And when she tried to make sense of what happened at the rink, she couldn't.

"She worshiped the ground her ex-wife and her children walked on," Graves reflected. "I'm not sure what the exchange of words could've been to push her over the edge."

Emmylou Varian, another Bath Iron Works colleague, painted a similar picture — someone warm and present in conversation, someone who would stay after shifts to play pool and "talk about everything under the sun." But she, too, acknowledged that Robert "had a lot of struggles mentally."

John C. Parker, who met Robert through the Jacksonville chapter of the Harley Owners Group, bonded with him over motorcycles and hockey. He knew him as Roberta and remembered a person who was "really sweet" — but also visibly carrying something heavy.

"It was, I think, clear to me that she was troubled," John said. "She never really spoke about it much, but I could always tell like she wasn't in a good place."

John stopped hearing from Robert roughly six months before the shooting. "She kind of dropped off the face of the earth," he said.

A Record More Complicated Than It Appeared

Before Maine, before Jacksonville, before the divorce, Robert Dorgan's history was already layered with fracture points.

He enlisted in the Marine Corps in April 1988 and was discharged just three months later. Marine spokesman Major Jacoby Getty confirmed to the Globe that the discharge "is indicative the character of his service was incongruent with Marine Corps expectations and standards."

In 1989, he faced a simple assault and battery charge in Providence. In 1994, a charge for driving on a suspended license. Both were dismissed.

Two separate child support cases were filed against him in 2016 — one by Heidi J. Wallace and one by Marlyse Dunbar. Court documents also showed he owed thousands of dollars to Capital One Bank and other financial institutions.

In February 2020, the same month the shooting's longest shadow begins to form, Rhonda filed for divorce after 27 years of marriage.

The Fear Robert Dorgan Carried

What almost no one outside a handful of police reports knew was this: years before Robert ever walked into that arena with two guns, he had told police he was terrified for his life.

In early 2020, after undergoing gender-reassignment surgery, Robert went to the North Providence Police Department. He had lived for seven years at the family home in North Providence.

Now, he told officers, his father-in-law, who shared the same surname, wanted him gone. The reason, according to court documents, was delivered without ambiguity: no such person was "going to stay in my house."

What followed, Robert told police, was not just hostility. It was a threat on his life. The father-in-law, he alleged, threatened to "hire an Asian gang and have him killed" if Robert did not leave.

And the pressure did not stop there. Robert had separately accused his mother, Joann Dorgan, of assault and obtained a protective order against her.

When he refused to drop those charges, he told police the father-in-law made his position clear: drop the case, or face further retaliation — "and that was another reason to have me killed."

The father-in-law was charged with intimidation of witnesses and obstruction of the judicial system. Prosecutors later dismissed the charges. The case against Robert's mother was dismissed as well.

That same February, Rhonda's divorce filing listed "gender reassignment surgery" and "narcissistic and personality disorder traits" as grounds — words that were later crossed out and replaced with "irreconcilable differences."

The divorce was finalized in June 2021. Rhonda requested custody of the children and $150 per week in child support. By 2022, Robert had relocated to Maine. His Rhode Island voter registration was canceled that year.

No Note, No Motive, No Easy Answers

Pawtucket Police Chief Goncalves said investigators were still working to obtain Robert Dorgan's medical records and could not confirm whether he had a documented history of mental health issues. His social media — thousands of posts — was being reviewed. Search warrants were active.

She could not say what finally broke something inside a man who, by every account from people who cared about him, lived for his children. A man who had once been so frightened for his own safety that he walked into a police station asking for help.

What changes a person from the one who fears being killed to the one who does the killing?

That question, for now, has no answer. What remains is a rink in Pawtucket, a teenage boy who played his Senior Night game and lost his mother and brother before the ice went cold, and a community still trying to understand how a celebration became a crime scene.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text "help" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741, or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.