Man in Santa suit kills at least six at Covina party, police say
Barbara Davidson, Los Angeles Times
A distraught man dressed as Santa Claus opened fire at a Christmas Eve party and then set the house ablaze, killing at least six people, police said. Several hours later, the shooter killed himself.
Three people who attended the party remained unaccounted for Thursday afternoon as coroner officials continued to search through the wreckage.
Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, who had recently been divorced and is believed to have lost his job, knocked on the front door of a home owned by the parents of his ex-wife in Covina around 11:30 Wednesday night, said Police Chief Kim Raney.
An 8-year-old girl ran to the door to answer Pardo's knock, police said. He shot her in the face, stepped into the house and began to fire indiscriminately with a semiautomatic handgun.
Pardo was carrying what appeared to be a large present but was what police described as a home-made pressurized device used to spray some kind of flammable substance. Pardo is thought to have worked in the aerospace industry as an engineer, police and acquaintances said.
Partygoers fled the house on Knollcrest Drive in panic, running to neighbors' homes and frantically calling police. A teenage girl, according to a neighbor who later helped her, leaped out of a second-floor window, breaking her ankle. The 8-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl who was shot in the back escaped the house and were transported to local hospitals, officials said.
Police Lt. Pat Buchanan said the injuries were not life-threatening and that none of the dead had been identified, saying that the bodies were badly burned. Pardo's ex-wife and her parents are among the missing or dead, police said.
Tom Minter, 78, who lives a few doors down on the placid, middle-class street, said he was washing dishes when he heard a loud bang. Soon after, police SWAT officers rushed a man and two women who been at the party into his home, sat them down in the hallway and turned off all lights in the house, Minter said. Both women were crying and the man was talking into his cellphone, saying 'They're all dead, he shot them all,' " Minter said. Paramedics came a few hours later, treated them for their injuries and escorted them out.
Robin Myers, 50, who lives with her mother in the house behind the one Pardo attacked, was at home working on her computer when the attack happened.
"I heard an explosion and I went out to investigate because it was pretty loud," Myers said. "I went outside and saw a wall of flames."
The two-story house, located at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, was fully engulfed by fire, Los Angeles County fire officials said. About 80 firefighters were initially kept at bay by police who feared that the gunman was still in the area. They battled flames that soared 40 to 50 feet high for an hour and a half before extinguishing the fire, according to Capt. Mike Brown. Amid the ruins, the second floor of the house had collapsed onto the ground.
"It was a very dynamic situation," he said.
Shortly before 3:30 a.m., Pardo's brother summoned Los Angeles police to his Sylmar home -- about 25 miles away from the carnage. Officers arrived to find Pardo dead from a single gunshot to the head, police officials said. When the officers ran Pardo's name through a law-enforcement database, they were alerted that he was wanted by Covina police.
By 9 a.m., a pair of Covina detectives had arrived at the tan stucco house in Montrose that Pardo owned and lived in, cordoning it off with tape. Candy cane decorations were affixed to the fence and a holiday wreath hung on the front door. An SUV and a military-style Hummer were parked in the driveway. The detectives sat in their car awaiting a judge to sign a search warrant for the house. "Maybe there's some [sign of] planning, maybe letters or anything that will give us more clues about the state of his mind," said Det. Antonio Zavala.
At 3 p.m., members of the Los Angeles County sheriff's bomb squad and other detectives came to the house. Several of the police approached the house with guns drawn, calling out, "We're police! We have a search warrant!" When no one responded, they used a battering ram on the door and entered.
One detective, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to news media, said they had found evidence inside that Pardo had prepared for the attack. He did not elaborate.
Pardo had lived at the home alone, Zavala said. Court records show that his wife divorced him last September. He "was apparently going through a bad time in his marriage," Buchanan said. Neighbors said that until earlier this year, Pardo lived in the house with his ex-wife and her three children. They were often seen walking their dog through the neighborhood.
Pardo was, by many accounts, an unassuming, religious man, who tended to his garden and served regularly as an usher at evening Mass at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Montrose.
"Bruce?" said an incredulous Jan Detanna, the head usher at the church, when told about the attack. "I'm just -- this is shocking. He was the nicest guy you could imagine. Always a pleasure to talk to, always a big smile." Pardo, Detanna said, had volunteered to usher at the midnight Mass on Christmas Eve -- which began as the rampage was unfolding in Covina.
Bong Garcia, Pardo's next door neighbor, said he last saw Pardo between 9 and 10 p.m. and exchanged brief greetings. Pardo told him he was on his way to a Christmas party and walked down the street dressed in regular clothes, Garcia said
Gazing at the eerie scene of destruction, Frank Castillo, 46, stood at the yellow police tape trying unsuccessfully to obtain information about relatives he said had been at the party.
Castillo said a family member had called to tell him that his former sister-in-law, Sylvia Castillo, who is her 30s, had died in the attack. His nephew, Sal Castillo, 19, whom family members called Baby Sal, and a niece, Selina Castillo, were also in the house, he said.
"I want to make sure my nephew and niece are OK," he said, choking back tears.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-santa-shooting26-2008dec26,0,6505439.story
