Suicides Orange County

Donnie Moore had been around professional baseball for more than a decade. He struck out almost 400 major league hitters and saved 85 games. But his career, and perhaps his life, was reduced to one batter, one pitch that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Moore died Tuesday, after shooting his wife and then turning the gun on himself, according to police. He was 35. For two seasons, Moore pitched relief for the Angels as no one had before him.

Frank Medrano, suspected of killing his estranged wife's boyfriend, was found dead Friday of what authorities said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was 52. An Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman said a gardener discovered Medrano's body about 1 p.m. in the 25400 block of Mosswood Way in Lake Forest. The gun believed to have been used Wednesday in the fatal shooting of Samuel Ramirez, 48, was found at the scene, authorities said.

On the last night of 1998, Luigi DiFonzo descended the spiral staircase of his mansion in Laguna Niguel and beheld the wealth and power before him. Millions of dollars had poured into his investment firm, DFJ Italia Ltd., and they flowed through every inch of his 14,000-square-foot hilltop castle. Italian marble covered the floors. The cabinets contained crystal glasses etched with his initials. The pool table was mounted on carved wooden lions.

Farm industry leader David Moore, president of Irvine-based Western Growers Assn., fatally shot himself in the head Wednesday morning, according to police reports. He was 69. Moore was an influential voice in agriculture, advocating for the group's 3,500 fruit and vegetable growers and shippers in Sacramento and in Washington. Moore had served as president of Western Growers since 1987. But his roots were in the potato fields of the San Joaquin Valley.

The day it happened, Elena was in bed with a cold. William, her husband of 42 years, brought her aspirin, stroked her hair and asked if she was up for pizza. They planned to watch the Clippers on TV, and pizza always went with basketball. It was one of the small rituals that marked their life together. William never made it beyond the driveway. Instead, he sat in his truck, rolled up the windows, took out a German Luger he had had since the war and shot himself in the head.

Former Angel relief pitcher Donnie Moore died Tuesday after he repeatedly shot and critically wounded his estranged wife, then turned the handgun on himself in their Anaheim Hills home, police said. The apparent suicide and murder attempt came about a month after the 35-year-old pitcher was released by the Omaha Royals, a minor league club for which he played briefly after being dropped by the Angels last September.

Eleven months after a Marine Corps colonel reportedly killed himself amid a scandal over use of military planes, the Corps has surprised its critics by reopening the investigation into his death, officials said Friday. The Marine Corps apparently decided to reverse its position because of pressure from James E. Sabow's family, who maintain that the former assistant chief of staff at the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro may have been murdered.

They had planned to be rich by now, the doctor and the businessman. In December 1997, Dr. Larry Ford and his partner in Biofem Inc., Pat Riley, issued a 29-page business blueprint filled with ambitious details about how their Inner Confidence female contraceptive would give women a "proven method of protecting themselves" from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS. By now, according to the plan, Inner Confidence should have been on store shelves.

Like many teen-agers who attempt suicide, the 16-year-old boy who shot himself in the head Monday during a class at Aliso Niguel High School recently suffered what he perceived as a devastating rejection or loss. Especially in adolescence, when a person has little experience at putting life's low points in perspective, a breakup or a death in the family can set off suicidal thoughts and, much less often, an attempt at self-destruction, experts say.

Police, FBI and hazardous materials teams scoured the Anaheim home of a disgraced surgeon for a second day Saturday, looking for evidence that might link him to the murder attempt on an Irvine businessman. Irvine police said Dr. Jerry D. Nilsson had cooperated during Friday's questioning about the plot to kill Biofem Inc. CEO James Patrick Riley and did not have an attorney with him. Police Lt. Sam Allevato said Nilsson also was willing to talk to investigators again. He was not arrested.

An off-duty La Habra police officer died early Sunday morning after an apparently self-inflicted gunshot to the head, law enforcement officials said. Officer Brian Wichman, 30, who had been on medical leave for about a year because of a work-related back injury, went to the police station, got into a patrol car parked behind the building and shot himself with what investigators believe was a police-issued rifle, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

An off-duty La Habra police officer died early Sunday morning from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, law enforcement officials said. Officer Brian Wichman, 30, who had been on medical leave for about a year because of a work-related back injury, went to the station, got into a patrol car parked behind the department and shot himself with what investigators believe was a police-issued rifle, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

Nearly seven weeks after a woman apparently burned herself to death on an equestrian trail in Fullerton, investigators said Monday that they have identified her. The woman, who police said died Oct. 22 after dousing herself with gasoline and striking a match, was identified as Donna O'Hara, 54, a La Habra homeowner who worked for Sears, Roebuck & Co., officials said. Investigators had first thought the woman may have been homeless.

On the last night of 1998, Luigi DiFonzo descended the spiral staircase of his mansion in Laguna Niguel and beheld the wealth and power before him. Millions of dollars had poured into his investment firm, DFJ Italia Ltd., and they flowed through every inch of his 14,000-square-foot hilltop castle. Italian marble covered the floors. The cabinets contained crystal glasses etched with his initials. The pool table was mounted on carved wooden lions.

Investigators are still trying to identify a middle-aged woman who apparently killed herself by dousing herself with gasoline, then setting herself on fire last month in Fullerton, authorities said. The woman was found near death lying in a drainage ditch beside an equestrian trail in the 300 block of West Las Palmas Drive on Oct. 22. Two rabbits found near the woman had singed fur and are believed to have been her pets, authorities said.

Police are seeking the public's help in identifying a woman who died hours after she doused herself with gasoline, lit a match and set herself afire, authorities said Tuesday. On Sunday, police received an anonymous call about 7:30 a.m. that a body had been dumped on an equestrian trail north of Laguna Lake and west of Harbor Boulevard in an upscale neighborhood of Fullerton, said Fullerton police Sgt. Doug Cave.

The widow of a high-ranking colonel who the military said killed himself in 1991 testified Wednesday that she believes her husband's death was not a suicide and that top U.S. Marine Corps brass refused to answer questions about the death investigation. Appearing in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Sara Sabow, 55, said she was emotionally devastated by the way the military handled the death of her husband, James E. Sabow.

A Capistrano Beach chiropractor missing since December apparently committed suicide by plunging his car off Ortega Highway, coroner's officials concluded Monday. An autopsy completed Monday identified the victim as Steven Sales, 59, according to Deputy Coroner Pat Lorey. Officials also used Sales' dental and medical records for positive identification, Lorey added.

Luigi DiFonzo, who died two months ago amid accusations that he swindled investors out of $40 million, used prescription drugs to commit suicide, according to an autopsy report released Friday by the Orange County sheriff-coroner's office. But the widow of DiFonzo immediately decried the results and said she would challenge them. "There were a million different ways he could have died," Brenda DiFonzo said in an interview Friday. "I'm not going to let them shove him under the rug."

The controversial founder of Irvine investment firm DFJ Italia, which closed its doors in March and left about 700 investors with losses of more than $35 million, was found dead in his home Monday night from an apparent overdose of prescription medication, police said. Paramedics were summoned to Luigi DiFonzo's Laguna Niguel home at 5:22 p.m. and found the body, police said. DiFonzo was 53.