Inside a Brutal Calif. Christmas Massacre, When Man Dressed as Santa Opened Fire on Ex-Wife and Her Family

Bruce Pardo was dressed up as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve in 2008 when he stepped out of his home in Montrose, Calif. and told a neighbor he was on his way to a holiday party.

That night, he had plans to meet up with his brother and volunteer at a church for midnight Mass, The Los Angeles Times reported. But instead, the 45-year-old engineer drove to a two-story house on Knollcrest Drive in the quiet middle-class neighborhood of Covina.

There, armed with five 9-millimeter handguns, he knocked on the door of his former in-laws around 11:30 p.m., the outlet reported, adding that as soon as the front door opened, he began shooting at the 25 to 30 people inside celebrating their annual holiday bash.

“An 8-year-old female was running toward him, at which time she was shot in the face,” Lt. Pat Buchanan of the Covina Police Department said later at a press conference, per ABC News. “He fired multiple rounds into the people attending the party, and multiple people were struck.”

According to The Los Angeles Times, Pardo then walked inside and sprayed racing fuel around the living room, engulfing the home in flames.

Nine people died in the rampage including Pardo’s ex-wife Sylvia, her parents, her two brothers and their wives, her sister and her 17-year-old nephew, according to the outlet. The 8-year-old girl, who was shot in the cheek, survived the carnage.

The girl’s mother called 911 and identified Pardo as the culprit.

“I have a feeling I know who it is,” she told a dispatcher, according to NBC News. “They’re going through a divorce right now.”

Police later said Pardo also intended to kill his own mother, who was supposed to attend the party but decided not to go at the last minute because she felt sick, per the outlet. He apparently felt she was siding with his ex-wife in the divorce.

Neighbor Joshua Chavez, who was visiting his mother from Seattle at the time, told The New York Times he heard the nearby explosion and witnessed three girls attempting to climb over his mother’s fence.

“About 20 seconds after that, the house was totally on fire,” he said. “One girl said that a guy dressed as Santa started shooting.”

When officers arrived at the burning home, Pardo, who had suffered severe burns to his arms, hands and the back of his neck because of the explosion, had already fled the area, The Los Angeles Times reported.

He drove 40 miles to his brother’s Sylmar home where he broke in and then killed himself with a single gunshot to the head, according to NBC News. Investigators discovered $17,000 in cash and a plane ticket to Illinois strapped to his dead body, per the outlet.

“He was probably in a great deal of pain,” Covina Police Lt. Tim Doonan told the outlet, adding that some of the Santa costume was seared to Pardo’s flesh.

He had left the rest of the burned costume in his rental car parked outside, which was booby-trapped. The car exploded when a bomb squad tried to dismantle the booby trap, but no one was hurt, the outlet reported.

Pardo, who had recently been fired from his defense contractor job for billing fraudulent hours, was reportedly upset over his divorce from Sylvia, who he separated from in March of 2008, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The former couple had reached a settlement a week before the rampage, ABC News reported.

Another getaway car was later located by police outside the home of Sylvia’s divorce attorney in Glendale, according to NBC News, and police said had Pardo not been so badly burned he probably would have added the attorney to his list of victims.

Police learned that in the months leading up to the killings, Pardo began stockpiling guns and purchased hundreds of rounds of ammunition, per the outlet.

In September, he also ordered the custom-made, extra-large Santa Claus suit from local costume maker Jeri Deiotte for $300, the outlet reported, noting that her shop was less than two miles from Pardo’s home.

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He told the seamstress that he planned to wear the costume for a Nov. 8 holiday party, according to NBC News. “He wanted it huge, bigger than he was,” Deiotte told the outlet. “That’s what triggered it to me because I heard on the news that he carried some guns inside.”

He reportedly had said he needed it extra-large so he could be extra-jolly — a request that disturbed Deiotte after the fact, per the outlet.

Hours before the murders, Pardo stopped by a Montrose café he frequented and ordered a turkey sandwich, a raspberry cheese Danish and a coffee. After the meal, he shook hands with the owner Henry Baeza and wished him a Merry Christmas.

“And I said ‘You, too’ and he just smiled a little,” Baeza told NBC News, recalling that Pardo seemed like a “totally normal man.”