Murder Suicides California

Investigators' belief that the crash of PSA's Flight 1771 was the result of a criminal act will have no effect on potential liability suits by survivors, civil litigation experts agreed Thursday. Since David A. Burke died in the crash, he cannot be prosecuted posthumously for murder or any other crime. Even if he had lived and had been charged and convicted, civil lawyers say, hardly any attorney would bother naming him a defendant in a suit seeking monetary damages. "Would you sue the wall?"

A note of impending doom--believed to have been penned by a gunman before he opened fire aboard Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771--was recovered from the wreckage Thursday, providing dramatic support for the FBI's conclusion that the crash resulted from a recently dismissed airline worker's vengeful attack. FBI agents believe that the note, handwritten on an air sickness bag, was slipped in mid-flight by 35-year-old David A.

A man dismissed from his factory job over a fistfight on a picket line opened fire on former co-workers with a shotgun and pistol, fatally wounding a father and son before killing himself, police said. Daniel Darrington, 40, of Sacramento pumped several rounds into the victims as they lay wounded on the ground Tuesday, then "casually walked to his car" and shot himself in the head, said Sgt. Mike Perdum. Darrington entered the office at Clough Equipment Co.