9 Dead In 'Santa' Shooting

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/26/santa.shooting/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The man who, dressed as Santa Claus, killed nine people at a Christmas Eve party planned to flee to Canada the next day, but California police believe he decided to kill himself instead because of severe burn injuries.

During a news conference on Friday, Covina Police Chief Kim Raney said Bruce Jeffrey Pardo had purchased a ticket for an early Christmas Day flight from Los Angeles to Canada.

Raney said that while police do not know why Pardo, 45, decided against his plan to flee, they speculate it may have been due to the burn injuries Pardo received after setting fire to the home where the slayings occurred.

Pardo's body was covered in third-degree burns, Raney said, and part of the Santa suit the gunman wore to the massacre burned and melted into his legs.

Police believe Pardo's injuries came after he set fire to the home using a homemade flamethrower.

During the conference, Raney also said Pardo came to his former in-laws' home with $17,000 strapped to his legs and inside a girdle, indicating he may have wanted quick access to his money as he fled the country. Video Watch police talk about what was found on the gunman's body »

Raney also spoke abut a pipe bomb that exploded in Pardo's rental car Thursday night. He said Pardo had rigged the rental car so that if someone tried to remove the Santa suit, the car would explode. The car was packed with ammunition and black powder, he said.

Police said that inside Pardo's home in Montrose, California, they also found five empty boxes for semiautomatic handguns, two high-powered shotguns and racing fuel, which they believe was used to help set fire to the home.

Police said about 25 people attended the holiday part where Pardo, dressed in a full Santa Claus outfit, came in the front door and then moved through the house, firing two semiautomatic handguns and using an apparently homemade pressurized device to spread an accelerant.

Police said Pardo brought four handguns to the home.

The first victim was an 8-year-old girl who ran to the door after hearing a knock, police said. She was shot in the face but survived.

"She has a very, very severe injury to her face. It's not life-threatening, but she's got a very tough road ahead of her," Lt. Pat Buchanan of the Covina Police Department said at a news conference Thursday.

Raney said Friday that witnesses, who may have caught only glimpses of what was happening because of the chaos, thought Pardo may have targeted some victims. He said witnesses at the party said Pardo may have stood over some of the victims and executed them.

Raney said people at the party were jumping out of windows on both floors of the house trying to escape the gunfire and flames.

"The information we have so far is that Mr. Pardo was married to the daughter of the resident of the house," Raney said. "They'd been married for possibly one year, had recently divorced and a settlement was reached apparently last week. It sounds like that might have been a very contentious divorce."

Investigators have yet to identify the charred bodies recovered from the burned house, which belonged to Pardo's ex-in-laws. Video Watch how the massacre unfolded »

In addition to the nine people killed, police said three people were injured, including the 8-year-old girl. A 16-year-old girl was wounded by gunfire and was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said, and a woman who jumped out of a second-floor window suffered a broken leg and was hospitalized.

Police said they have not accounted for three people: Pardo's ex-mother-in-law, ex-father-in-law and ex-wife.

Pardo's neighbors talked to KABC on Thursday as they watched police search his home.

"He's very nice, very sociable," Cindy Keenan said. She said Pardo always decorated his home for the holidays.

Patrick Guzman said when he encountered Pardo in his yard about two hours before the attack, "He seemed normal."

"He said 'Merry Christmas' to me," Guzman said.

Ed Winter, assistant chief Los Angeles County coroner, said the bodies recovered were "severely burned and charred" and dental and medical records and X-rays will be necessary to establish identities.

Winter said the intense fire caused the top floor of the two-story house to collapse onto the first floor.

Pardo's body was discovered about 30 miles from the shooting scene at his brother's house in the Los Angeles suburb of Sylmar, dead from "a self-inflicted gunshot wound," police said. Relatives returning to the house found Pardo's body, police said.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• santa
• shooting
• claus
• murder
• christmas
• eve
• party
• covina
• california
• nine
• dead
• divorce
• bruce
• jeffrey
• pardo
• flee
• canada

[437thx1138]

What a terrible thing to do.

[Krumbz2003]

He shot an 8 year old girl in the face when she answered the door.

What a greedy, piece of shit, motherfuckin' heartless, evil scumbag.

Someone should goto his wake and shoot him in the face.

And how the fuck is this an "Epic lulz"?

Yeah he was wearing a Santa suit. Yeah thats EPIC and the most important part of this story.

If that was your daughter or your sister I'd bet a million dollars your post wouldn't be "Epic lulz".

TheRealHateMan - yeah cuz you know the real story.

Ok there sleuth.

[harryartin]

Zara karapetyan and her family deserve worse

[ThELjTv3]

Live;

[ThELjTv3]

Wow i love a few block away from that

[Imaman1222]

@RussiaNukesAmerica2 And you have to be a ruski nigger!

[Imaman1222]

@meaganmariezuko What makes me lose faith is how the bleeding heart liberals and the press made from this!

[skinnycreep]

All of you women hating frustrated homosexuals ought to come out of the closet already; you don't like women, we get it, go suck some dicks. This waste of skin Pardo bastard lied about having a disabled son he abandoned but still claimed on his tax returns, when the wife found out she divorced his sorry ass. May this fucker burn in hell forever.

[hurmpfff]

shot the kid happy to see santa in the face.... ....

[socalhippie420]

dude fuck this idiot!!i live 2 blocks away from this dumbass who killed 9 innocent people!!i hope god has mercy on his evil soul!!!!!!

[meaganmariezuko]

This makes me lose hope in humanity.