Suicides San Bernardino County

A decorated California Highway Patrol officer has apparently committed suicide, a month after his arrest in the alleged rape of a woman while on his graveyard shift, authorities announced Thursday. The officer, James W. Pitsor, was found dead late Wednesday afternoon of a single shot from a rifle, said Sgt. Tom Neely of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

Despite the jailhouse suicide of a man suspected of murdering one son and chaining two others in a bedroom, prosecutors vow to forge ahead with the charges against two women, one now a widow, who lived with the man in a camouflaged desert compound near Twentynine Palms. John "Rajohn Lord" Davis, 53, hanged himself March 9 with a bedsheet in the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Morongo Basin substation jail. An investigation into his death continues, sheriff's officials said Friday.

Ninety minutes after his principal told him that he needed to improve his attitude, 13-year-old John Sirola returned to his grade school, leveled a shotgun and without warning shot the principal in the face. Whether the eighth-grader then committed suicide or accidentally killed himself as he fled from the parochial school was one of several mysteries that police were wrestling with Tuesday.

John Lamont "Rajohn Lord" Davis, the patriarch of a fanatical desert family accused of murdering one child and chaining up two others to shelter them from the outside world, hanged himself with a bedsheet Friday in a jail cell, sheriff's officials said Saturday. San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies, who operate the county's jail system, found Davis at 10:15 p.m. Friday night, sheriff's spokeswoman Robin Haynal said.

Despite the jailhouse suicide of a man suspected of murdering one son and chaining two others in a bedroom, prosecutors vow to forge ahead with the charges against two women, one now a widow, who lived with the man in a camouflaged desert compound near Twentynine Palms. John "Rajohn Lord" Davis, 53, hanged himself March 9 with a bedsheet in the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Morongo Basin substation jail. An investigation into his death continues, sheriff's officials said Friday.

A massive explosion at a fireworks plant, apparently detonated by a distraught husband committing suicide, hurled chunks of concrete the size of television sets over more than a square mile before dawn Friday. Two other people were injured--neither seriously--when the blast leveled the Celebrity Fireworks Co. plant in the barren, largely undeveloped scrubland on the northwestern edge of this San Bernardino County town.

A 15-year-old boy died a day after shooting himself in the head at Rialto High School, a hospital official said Sunday. Ricardo Martin died at about 7 p.m. Saturday at Loma Linda University Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Anita Rockwell said. Martin had been in critical condition on life support since firing a .38-caliber bullet at his right temple before class Friday in the school quadrangle. A gun was reported missing from his family's home in Colton, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles.

Sun-bleached bones believed to be those of fugitive Robert Michael Allen, accused of gunning down a Hollywood producer and his son at a Culver City intersection in 1991, were discovered in the desert north of Twentynine Palms by hikers, Culver City police said Wednesday. The remains were found Tuesday, scattered alongside the bones of Allen's girlfriend, Susan Lynn Calkins, 28, who was reported missing three days before the shooting, Police Sgt. Hank Davies announced at a news conference.

An Anaheim man shot and killed himself Thursday after he fatally wounded his 25-year-old estranged girlfriend as she fled her Ontario apartment, police said. Rodney Terry Cornegay, 30, died instantly after he pointed a shotgun at himself and pulled the trigger, said Ontario Police Lt. Don Manning. An Ontario police officer fired three shots at Cornegay, but it is unknown, pending an autopsy, whether he was hit by the police bullets, Manning said.

A 37-year-old self-employed computer programmer committed suicide at his home on Wednesday after sexually assaulting a female Internal Revenue Service agent who had arrived at his residence for a scheduled audit of his business, authorities said. Clifton Charles Johnson was found nude in a sleeping bag in the backyard of his home, with a single shotgun wound to the head, according to Jim Bryant, spokesman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

A 15-year-old boy died a day after shooting himself in the head at Rialto High School, a hospital official said Sunday. Ricardo Martin died at about 7 p.m. Saturday at Loma Linda University Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Anita Rockwell said. Martin had been in critical condition on life support since firing a .38-caliber bullet at his right temple before class Friday in the school quadrangle. A gun was reported missing from his family's home in Colton, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles.

The retired Ontario fire chief who admitted he embezzled $60,000 from the city had returned the money--with interest--Monday, the day before he killed himself, officials said Wednesday. David R. Lee, 56, admitted to investigators this month that he took the money out of a Fire Department account in 1992, and then promised to return it. He gave the money back on Monday--a check that included $15,375 in interest, said city spokesman George Urch.

An attorney suspected in the slaying of his estranged wife and a man Saturday in Denver shot and killed himself Tuesday after he was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol near Barstow for an improperly attached rear license plate, authorities said. The motorist was identified by the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department as Duncan Cameron.

A decorated California Highway Patrol officer has apparently committed suicide, a month after his arrest in the alleged rape of a woman while on his graveyard shift, authorities announced Thursday. The officer, James W. Pitsor, was found dead late Wednesday afternoon of a single shot from a rifle, said Sgt. Tom Neely of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

How should a school acknowledge the traumatic loss of two 14-year-old girls who attended class Tuesday morning and had executed a mutual suicide pact by that evening? One opportunity came during a tear-filled funeral Saturday, when more than 200 grieving students and adults gathered at a Victorville church to bid farewell to Annette Sander.

Two 14-year-old girls, each carrying a handgun, walked into the desert behind a housing tract in Victorville and executed a double-suicide pact that stunned their parents and friends, authorities said Wednesday. One victim gave a classmate a suicide note during school Tuesday with the admonition that it not be opened until the end of classes. By the time the girl read the note and became frantic, the teen-agers were dead, officials said.

Two 14-year-old girls, each carrying a handgun, walked into the desert behind a housing tract in Victorville and executed a double-suicide pact that stunned their parents and friends, authorities said Wednesday. One victim gave a classmate a suicide note during school Tuesday with the admonition that it not be opened until the end of classes. By the time the girl read the note and became frantic, the teen-agers were dead, officials said.

A gunman who forced the closure of the San Bernardino Freeway killed himself early Monday on the roadway after a futile attempt by authorities to talk him out of it. David Thomas, 48, of Lake Elsinore, threatened to kill himself if authorities approached, then shot himself shortly before 1 a.m., said Lt. Cliff Johnston of the California Highway Patrol. Thomas was pronounced dead at Loma Linda University Medical Center, Johnston said.

Ninety minutes after his principal told him that he needed to improve his attitude, 13-year-old John Sirola returned to his grade school, leveled a shotgun and without warning shot the principal in the face. Whether the eighth-grader then committed suicide or accidentally killed himself as he fled from the parochial school was one of several mysteries that police were wrestling with Tuesday.

A 13-year-old student who faced disciplinary proceedings shot and seriously wounded a parochial school principal Monday and then fatally shot himself on the campus in Redlands, authorities said. The youth shot the principal of Sacred Heart School without provocation with a 12-gauge shotgun in the presence of two younger students, said Redlands Police Chief Lewis Nelson.