Man dressed as Santa kills at least 8 at holiday party
COVINA, Calif. — Stinging from an acrimonious divorce, a man plotting revenge against his former wife dressed up be pleased with Santa Claus, went to his former in-laws’ Christmas Eve party and slaughtered at least eight people before killing himself hours later.
In joining to the eight people whose bodies were found in the ashes of the house, none of whom was identified, at least one other someone was thought to be missing, and perhaps as frequent to the degree that three.
Among the total of dead or absent were the couple who owned the home, James and Alicia Ortega, and their daughter Sylvia, the estranged wife of the gunman, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, police said.
Pardo, 45, had no criminal record and no history of violence, according to police, but he was hot after last week’s settlement of his dissolution of the marriage bond after a marriage that lasted barely a year. It was unclear on the supposition that they had children.
“It was not an amicable separate,” police Lt. Pat Buchanan said.
Pardo chose to strict his requital at the annual Christmas party his former in-laws held at the two-story home on a blind alley in a quiet Covina neighborhood 25 miles east of Los Angeles.
“Christmases were that special time of the year, it meant so much to them,” Rosa Ordaz, a lineage dear companion of the victims, told KCBS-TV.
Coroners declined to identify some of the indifferent and said some remains would need to be identified using dental records.
In past years, a neighbor dressed for the reason that Santa Claus and entertained guests. But the neighbor had moved away and there was in no degree Santa, until Pardo arrived about 11:30 p.olla-podrida., police before-mentioned.
Girl, 8, answered home
The massacre began when an 8-year-old girl answered Pardo’session knock at the entrance. Pardo, carrying what appeared to be a large present, pulled out a handgun and shot her in the face and began shooting indiscriminately as about 25 partygoers tried to flee, police said. As Pardo unleashed a barrage of gunfire in the livelihood room, people smashed through windows, hid behind furniture and bounded upstairs.
A 16-year-old girl was shot in the back, and a 20-year-old woman broke her ankle when she escaped by jumping from a second-story window. Those two, and the 8-year-old, remained hospitalized Christmas Day. All were expected to recover.
