Man in Santa Suit Kills at Least 5 at Holiday Party
In a bizarre Christmas Eve rampage in a Los Angeles suburb, a 45-year-old man in a Santa Claus outfit opened fire at a group of revelers in a house that moments later went up in flames, killing at least five people and injuring several others, the authorities said on Thursday.
The suspect, identified by witnesses as Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, later killed himself in front of his brother’s house about 40 miles from the scene of the shootings, the police said.
The frenzied shooting, which may have been prompted by a marital dispute, occurred just before midnight Wednesday at a two-story home on a cul de sac in Covina, a suburban town about 22 miles east of Los Angeles.
At least three bodies were initially discovered inside the home, and coroners found “several” more bodies as they went through the rubble on Thursday morning, according to The Associated Press.
Investigators said that about 30 people were inside the home celebrating on Christmas Eve when the costumed man knocked on the door. When a guest opened it, the man stepped inside the house, pulled out a handgun, and immediately started shooting, Lieut. Pat Buchanan of the Covina Police Department said in a telephone interview.
Officers said they responded to a burst of 911 calls, and arrived at the scene moments later to find the house on fire and shots still being fired inside. They said they initially kept firefighters from getting too close until it appeared that the shooting had stopped.
Three victims — an 8-year-old and a 16-year-old with gunshot wounds, and a woman in her 20s with an injured ankle — staggered outside and were taken to a nearby hospital, where they were treated for non-life threatening injuries, Lieutenant Buchanan said.
At some point, the police said, Mr. Pardo had stripped out of his Santa outfit and fled the house in street clothes. When the fire was brought under control, around 1:30 a.m., investigators peered inside the charred structure, where they could see at least three bodies. By late Thursday morning in Los Angeles, it was still unclear who the victims were and how many more were inside because officers had not yet entered the home, Lieutenant Buchanan said.
But Ed Winter, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, told The A.P. that more bodies had been found inside, some of them too badly burned to immediately determine whether they died in the fire or from gunshots.
“We have multiple bodies inside,” Mr. Winter said. “They’re extremely charred and burned.”
Lieutenant Buchanan said Mr. Pardo had been having problems with his wife, a relative of the owner of the home. It was unclear if Mr. Pardo’s wife was among the dead and injured, and what connection Mr. Pardo had to the wounded 8-year-old and the other victims, he said.
“We don’t know if they were residents of the house or not,” the officer said.
The authorities began a manhunt for Mr. Pardo and were scouring the area when his body was discovered in a car near his brother’s home in Sylmar, about 40 miles northwest of Covina.
A suburb that boasts in its slogan “One mile square and all there,” Covina sits at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains in the San Gabriel Valley. In the last few decades it became a scenic backdrop for films and shows, including several episodes of the television series “Roswell” and the hit show “Knight Rider.”
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