Mass Murders

Covina Police Chief Kim Raney was relaxing at home with his family around midnight on Christmas Eve. Lt. Tim Doonan was making late-night preparations for the holiday morning. And Det. Dan Regan was in bed, just starting to doze off. Then their phones started ringing. "Units are responding to a shooting in progress," the caller said.

In the dining room of their Covina home, Joseph "Papa Joe" Ortega, his wife of 53 years and their children had been playing a late-night game of Texas Hold 'Em after Christmas Eve dinner. Their grandchildren played video games and hung out near the backyard pool. On the second floor, the Ortegas' 17-year-old grandson, Michael, pecked away at a computer. There was a knock on the front door, and the squeal of an 8-year-old girl happily crying, "Santa Claus! Santa Claus!"

Covina police said Monday they believe that Bruce Pardo, who killed nine people at a Christmas Eve party, also intended to kill his mother and his estranged wife's attorney. Lt. Pat Buchanan said Pardo had had a falling out with his mother and felt she was siding with his ex-wife, Sylvia, in their bitter divorce. Buchanan said Pardo had found out his mother was invited to Sylvia's family's Christmas Eve party in Covina and had intended to kill her along with others gathered there.

As they had for years, the two families -- one in the city of Torreon in Mexico, the other in Covina -- called each other late Christmas Eve on a two-way radio. In Covina, about 25 people -- Joseph and Alicia Ortega, their five children and their grandchildren -- celebrated. In Mexico, about 35 of their relatives celebrated at the home of Lilia Llamas Sotomayor, their niece. It was about 11 p.m.

Surviving family members Sunday were grappling with how to best care for the victims' children after a Christmas Eve slaying in Covina that left nine people dead. At least 13 young people were orphaned after the shooting and two others lost one parent, according to a family attorney. "We have to help them," said Jose Castillo, a relative who came to the Covina home Sunday to pay his respects.

Bruce Jeffrey Pardo stopped by the Montrose Bakery and Cafe about noon on Christmas Eve, said Henry Baeza, the cafe's owner. Pardo, who lived in the neighborhood just around the corner from Baeza, was a regular customer who liked to sit at a table by the window so he could see his dog waiting outside. "He always ordered coffee and cheesecake for dessert," Baeza said. As Pardo left that day, the two men shook hands. Pardo wished Baeza a merry Christmas and said he would see him soon.

The Ortega home, a tidy, one-story structure at the end of a Covina cul-de-sac, had been at the center of so many family events: pizza nights, poker parties and an annual Christmas Eve party where the large, close-knit family gathered to celebrate the holidays. On Saturday, it was a place for grief. Leaning toward the yellow police tape that encircled the ruins of the home, family members wrapped their arms around each other.

Alan Scherr devoted his life to meditation and the search for peaceful balance. His 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, was as bright and mischievous as her father was focused. Together they met an improbable violent death Wednesday, shot in a terrorist rampage as they shared a late dinner in the plush dining room of the Oberoi hotel in Mumbai, India.

Mexican authorities Thursday said they had arrested two suspects in the slayings of 24 men whose bodies were discovered in a wooded area outside Mexico City last month. Federal prosecutors said one of the suspects is a municipal police commander in the state of Mexico, which surrounds the capital on three sides. The other, identified as having led the planning for the killings, runs a security company in the same state, officials said.

Leonor Merino said she was shocked enough Monday to find that what she thought was a pile of rags was a dozen bodies. Then she realized children soon would be passing by the carnage on the way to school. So as class time approached at Valentin Gomez Farias elementary school, Merino and her neighbors blocked the streets. "We closed the streets so the kids wouldn't see all the dead bodies," Merino said hours after the bodies were removed. "Our hearts are trembling right now.