A gunman dressed as Santa Claus who opened fire on a Christmas Eve party at the home of his ex-wife’s family was planning to flee to Canada, police said, as a ninth body was recovered from the charred wreckage of the massacre.
Police said Bruce Pardo, 45, was found with US$17,000 taped to his body and a plane ticket to Canada after he killed himself following his murderous assault on the home of his former in-laws in the Los Angeles suburb of Covina.
The unemployed aerospace engineer burst into the property armed with four pistols shortly before midnight on Wednesday and sprayed guests with bullets before the house erupted in flames.
The house was owned by James and Alicia Ortega, an elderly couple who were retired from their spray-painting business and who often invited their extended family to celebrate Christmas.
An eight-year-old girl who had opened the door to Pardo was shot in the face but survived. Later on Friday, police released harrowing 911 calls apparently made by the girl’s mother immediately after the incident.
“We need someone immediately. My daughter’s been shot. She was shot in the face,” the woman said, with the anguished high-pitched wailing of a child clearly audible in the background.
Pardo had recently gone through a bitter divorce with his wife — who was reported to be among the dead — but there were no further clues as to what may have triggered the murderous rampage.
The 1.9m, 113kg Pardo had no criminal record and nothing in his personal history to suggest a predisposition to violence, police said. Friends from a church Pardo attended regularly expressed disbelief.
“He was just the nicest guy,” said Jan Detanna, who worked with Pardo as an usher at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church.
Covina police chief Kim Raney told reporters Pardo had apparently intended to flee to Canada following the attack, saying thousands of dollars in cash had been found strapped to his body after he shot himself early on Thursday.
He had also bought a ticket to Canada leaving early Christmas morning but scrapped plans to go on the run after suffering third degree burns in the house blaze that melted parts of his Santa Claus costume to his body, Raney said.
“All indications are he intended to commit the crime, flee the country, and it appears he didn’t anticipate injuring himself to the point where obviously he took his own life,” Raney said.
Police said Pardo had arrived at the house with what appeared to be a homemade flamethrower comprised of two canisters, one containing oxygen or carbon dioxide, the other a high-octane racing fuel.
However, police believe the device exploded sooner than Pardo intended, leaving him with serious burn injuries.
Pardo killed himself with a single shot to the head hours after the rampage at his brother’s home in Sylmar, approximately 40km away.
Police revealed that the car used by Pardo in the attack, found outside his brother’s home, had been rigged with a booby trap that would be triggered when officers attempted to move his discarded Santa Claus suit.
“He basically wired the Santa Claus suit with a device to explode,” Raney said.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
ON THE LAM: The Brazilian Supreme Court said that the former president tried to burn his ankle monitor off as part of an attempt to orchestrate his escape from Brazil Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro — under house arrest while he appeals a conviction for a foiled coup attempt — was taken into custody on Saturday after the Brazilian Supreme Court deemed him a high flight risk. The court said the far-right firebrand — who was sentenced to 27 years in prison over a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 elections — had attempted to disable his ankle monitor to flee. Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes said Bolsonaro’s detention was a preventive measure as final appeals play out. In a video made
RSS