Robert Dorgan walked into the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket on Monday, opened fire on his ex-wife and son as they sat in the stands watching a high school hockey game, critically wounded three others, and then turned a second handgun on himself after bystanders tackled him.

Two days later, investigators revealed a detail that adds another layer of darkness to an already horrific crime: Dorgan's son from a previous relationship, 37-year-old Kevin Colantonio, is currently serving more than six years in federal prison for setting fire to a predominantly Black church.

Rhonda Dorgan and her son, Aidan Dorgan, were killed. Rhonda's parents, Linda and Gerald Dorgan, along with family friend Thomas Geruso, were critically injured and remain in that condition.

North Providence Police Chief Alfredo Ruggiero told NBC10 on Wednesday that investigators from his department and the Rhode Island Attorney General's office confirmed the connection between Colantonio and Dorgan earlier that day. The two shared an address in North Providence more than 20 years ago, though Ruggiero said it remains unclear how much, if any, contact they had in recent years.

A Household That Produced Two Violent Men

According to WJAR, Colantonio pleaded guilty last February to setting fires on the exterior of Shiloh Gospel Temple Ministries in North Providence in February 2024. When authorities arrested him, they seized a notebook from his home. What they found inside was unambiguous.

"Hunt them down, gun them down, everyone that isn't white."

"Burn churches to the ground."

Prosecutors described Colantonio as holding "extremely racist ideology." He was sentenced to more than six years in federal prison.

No motive has been publicly established for Robert Dorgan's attack at the arena. Investigators have drawn no connection between Colantonio's white supremacist convictions and the shooting. What the public does know is that one household, at some point in its history, produced two men who each committed acts of shocking violence. One targeted a Black church. The other targeted his own family.

The Shooter's Background

Details about Robert Dorgan that emerged after the shooting complicate the picture further. Dorgan also went by the name Roberta Esposito, wore women's clothing, and posted on social media about being transgender and having undergone sex change surgery in 2017. Dorgan's family told NBC10 he had six children.

None of this explains why a person walks into an ice rink and murders their ex-wife and son during a hockey game. But it paints a portrait of a deeply troubled individual whose personal life was fractured in ways that clearly extended beyond an ordinary divorce.

The temptation in moments like these is to flatten a complex human catastrophe into a single narrative. Cable news will try. Social media already has. The reality is that this story resists easy categorization. A man with a transgender identity whose son is a white supremacist church arsonist does not fit neatly into anyone's preferred framework.

What Actually Matters

While the political class sorts through the wreckage looking for angles, five people were shot at a high school hockey game. Two of them are dead. Three are fighting for their lives. A family that came to watch a kid play sports was torn apart in a matter of seconds.

The bystanders who tackled Dorgan before he could do more damage deserve recognition. They acted while others froze. That kind of courage is worth dwelling on longer than the biographical oddities of the man they stopped.

The connection to Colantonio raises legitimate questions about what kind of environment shaped both men. But Chief Ruggiero was careful to note the uncertainty: a shared address two decades ago tells you something, but not everything. Whether father and son were in contact, whether their respective pathologies fed off one another, whether there is any thread connecting a church arson to an ice rink massacre: these are questions investigators are still working through.

What is not uncertain is the cost. Rhonda Dorgan went to watch her son play hockey and never came home. Aidan Dorgan was in the stands with his mother. Linda and Gerald Dorgan went to see their grandchild play. Thomas Geruso came as a family friend.

Every one of them was exactly where Americans are supposed to feel safe. That is what was stolen on Monday night in Pawtucket.