On Christmas Eve, 2008, the Ortega family were enjoying a festive Californian get-together when Santa Claus knocked on their front door. The man in red was their disgruntled son-in-law, and instead of bringing gifts, he brought four guns and a homemade flamethrower.
Bruce Pardo entered the home and opened fire, killing many. Next, he doused the house in fuel, and an explosion ripped through the building. This is the horrific story of the Covina Christmas Massacre.
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. In the dining room of their home at 1129 Knollcrest Drive, Covina, California – 20 miles east of Los Angeles –Joseph “Papa Joe” Ortega, his wife of half a century, Alicia Sotomayor Ortega, and their middle-aged children and array of daughters-in-law sat playing Texas Hold ‘Em after Christmas Eve dinner.
Since it was getting late, many of the 25 to 30 guests were leaving. Most of the grandchildren played video games at the back of the house while 17-year-old grandson, Michael Andre Ortiz, played on his computer on the second floor. At around 11:30 pm, there came a knock on the front door. Papa and Alice's eight-year-old granddaughter, Katrina Yuzefpolsky, cried out, “Santa Claus! Santa Claus!”
The man dressed as Santa walking up the drive was Papa Joe and Alicia's son-in-law and daughter Sylvia Ortega Pardo's disgruntled ex-husband, 45-year-old Bruce Jeffrey Pardo.
But instead of delivering gifts, Bruce came bearing four 9mm SIG Sauer semi-automatic handguns and a homemade flamethrower he'd fashioned from a rolling air compressor converted to spray racing fuel, gift-wrapped in a box with a bow.
When his eight-year-old niece Katrina answered the door, Pardo pulled out the handguns and shot her in the face. He then entered his in-laws' home, firing indiscriminately at fleeing party-goers.
As someone screamed, “Run! Run!”, the eldest Ortega brothers, James and Charles, were gunned down in a spray of bullets. In the chaos, adults grabbed their children and ran for their lives. Another panicked voice blurted out, “It’s Bruce!”
Bruce Pardo fired his semi-automatics into the panicked crowd. First cousin Irma Chapa Ortega, who lives in Torreon, Mexico, said James and Charles struggled to get to their feet after being shot but said, “Even bloodied, they got up, they stood up ... They tried to grab him, to stop him. But they couldn’t.”
It's believed James and Charles were among the first to die. Irma described how the elderly Ortegas, their three daughters, and daughter-in-law Teresa ducked under the dining room table. Bruce found them and unleashed a volley of bullets in their direction.
Papa Joe, Alicia, daughters Sylvia Ortega Pardo, Cheri Lynn, Alicia, and daughter-in-law Teresa all died. Leticia – the mother of the girl Bruce had shot in the face – was the only one of the Ortega's children to survive.
Watching her wounded daughter stagger out of the house, Leticia knew her only chance at survival was to make a break for safety. Outside the house, she dialed 911 and told the dispatcher, “Everyone started panicking and running, and we all dove under the dining room table."
Safely out of the house and out of the line of fire, Leticia screamed down the phone, “I need someone to come over and help my daughter! She’s . . . bleeding. She’s been shot on the side of the face!”
Bruce Pardo's opening salvo had struck the girl along the side of her jaw, and it's believed she only survived because she turned her head away at the last second.
Next, Bruce shot a 16-year-old girl in the back. Luckily, she survived. Investigators believe most of the children were saved because they were in the back of the house playing video games when Pardo opened fire.
Then, a strange calm descended upon the house. That’s because Bruce Pardo had seemingly run out of bullets, so he calmly unwrapped his Christmas package, neatly tied with a bow, and pulled out his handmade flamethrower.
He sprayed 18 liters of racing fuel over the building's first floor. No one can say for sure what happened next, whether Bruce messed up igniting his two-tank pressurized contraption with a flare or whether it accidentally came into contact with an open flame, perhaps a festive candle.
Either way, there was an almighty explosion as the sick killer, Bruce Pardo's homemade flamethrower exploded in his face.
Pardo was badly burned in the explosion and ensuing fire, sustaining second-degree and third-degree burns to his arms and legs. Seventeen-year-old grandson Michael Andre Ortiz, who had been upstairs on his computer, died either in the explosion or from the ensuing fire.
Neighbors in the normally quiet cul-de-sac described hearing explosions. Then, as the house went up in flames, amongst the survivors' screams, flames shot 50 to 70 feet into the Christmas Eve nighttime air.
Los Angeles County firefighters battled the blaze at the two-story home, and it took them several hours to put out the fire. Covina Police Lieutenant Pat Buchanan said, “Officers parked at a cross street and worked their way down the street and saw the house engulfed in flames.”
A clearly shaken Pat Buchanan added, “I’ve been with the department for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this. We still don’t exactly know what the device is,” Buchanan said. “It’s unusual enough to where we believe it is something that was used to propel an accelerant.”
When the flames were finally out, authorities entered the home. Covina Police Chief Kim Raney said, “They were met with a scene that was just indescribable." Between the gunfire, the explosion, and the fire, Pardo had murdered nine members of his own family.
Crime Scene Investigators had to identify the victims by X-rays and dental records.
They were in-laws Joseph S. Ortega (79) and Alicia Sotomayor Ortega (70), Bruce's ex-wife Sylvia Ortega Pardo (43), brother-in-law Charles Ortega (50), sister-in-law Cheri Lynn Ortega (45), brother-in-law James Ortega, (52), sister-in-law Teresa Ortega (52), sister-in-law Alicia Ortega Ortiz (46), and nephew Michael Andre Ortiz (17).
Three others were injured: his eight-year-old niece, Katrina, who Bruce shot in the jaw; the unnamed 16-year-old girl he shot in the back; and a 20-year-old woman who broke her ankle jumping from a second-floor window. But this hellish Christmas Eve wasn't over yet...
After setting the Ortega home on fire, Pardo changed out of his Santa Claus suit and drove his rental car 40 miles northwest (probably along Interstate Route 210, the Foothill Freeway) to his brother's house at 15800 Joseph Court, in the Rancho Cascades neighborhood of Sylmar. The town of Sylmar is nestled in the gorgeous foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains within the San Fernando Valley.
Bruce Pardo planned a detailed escape, renting multiple vehicles and leaving one car parked near his ex-wife's divorce attorney, Scott Nord. Police speculated that Nord may have also been a target. When cops found the car, it was full of supplies and maps of Southwest USA and Mexico.
He was also carrying $17,000 in cash, strapped to his body with glad wrap, and had made plans to visit a friend in Iowa. He'd also purchased a Christmas morning plane ticket from Los Angeles to Moline, Illinois. But thankfully, Bruce never made it to Illinois or Iowa...
But even the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. The psychopathic killer hadn't banked on his homemade flamethrower exploding in his face. He must have driven to his brother's house in agony.
Then, in the early hours of Christmas Day, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo committed suicide by shooting himself in the head inside his brother Brad's apartment towards the end of a leafy residential cul-de-sac in Sylmar.
Sylvia Ortega Pardo's disgruntled ex-husband was 45 years old when he took his own life alone in his brother's home. Luckily, Brad had been at another Christmas party at the time of his suicide. He arrived home to find his brother lying in a pool of blood on his couch next to one of his guns.
Los Angeles County Coroner’s Lieutenant Fred Corral revealed there was an exit wound at the top of Bruce’s head, suggesting he put the gun in his mouth before pulling the trigger. A later toxicology report revealed Bruce also had cocaine in his system.
When police raided Bruce Pardo's home in Montrose, California, between Covina and Sylmar along the Foothill Freeway, they found a "virtual bomb-making factory."
The cops recovered two shotguns, four 13-round capacity handguns, and five empty boxes for semiautomatic handguns. They also found a container for high-octane fuel tank gasoline, clearly part of his homemade flamethrower; the neatly wrapped Christmas gift that exploded in his face.
Next, the LAPD found Pardo's car parked just a block away from his brother's house in Sylmar. Peering through the windows, the cops could see the remnants of the Santa Claus suit he wore during the massacre.
Luckily, before they entered the vehicle and retrieved the Santa costume, they called in the bomb squad. After a lengthy investigation, the bomb squad discovered that Pardo had booby-trapped the Santa suit. The minute anyone touched the suit, it would have exploded. He had rigged it to set off 200 rounds of ammunition and trigger a fire with black powder.
This booby trap could potentially have killed several more people in a separate event at a second location; this time it would most likely have been LAPD officers. This second act of violence would have taken Bruce Pardo from killer to serial killer.
WHO WAS BRUCE PARDO, AND WHY DID HE BECOME A KILLER?
Born on March 23rd, 1963, Bruce Pardo lived all his life in the San Fernando Valley. He graduated from John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, Los Angeles, and went on to attend California State University, Northridge. A woman who claimed to be an ex-girlfriend confirmed he attended Cal State Northridge and was a straight-A student.
Pardo claimed to be a devout Catholic and was a longtime usher at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church near his Montrose home. Everyone who knew him described him as outgoing and friendly, someone who liked to be the center of attention.
He'd worked at La Cañada Flintridge's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and as an electrical engineer at ITT Electronic Systems Radar Systems in Van Nuys.
In 2004, Bruce began dating Papa Joe and Alicia's daughter, Sylvia Ortega. They married in January 2006, but as soon as they tied the knot, Bruce changed. Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths often let their masks slip when they get what they want and entrap their codependent victim in a marriage or cohabitation.
Even though Bruce's job paid a six-figure salary and they had bought a large home in Montrose, and Bruce owned a Hummer, a Cadillac Escalade, a Mazda Miata, and a boat on Lake Havasu; the newlyweds soon began arguing over money troubles.
Sylvia, you see, had three children from a previous marriage and worked as a secretary at a flower nursery. Yet Bruce refused to open a joint bank account or help with her children’s expenses, insisting they were her problem and nothing to do with him. This lack of empathy towards her situation should have been a massive red flag for Sylvia.
Within a year, Bruce had become cold, distant, miserly, and aggressive. But this wasn't his first rodeo; Bruce Pardo had a history of mistreating women... and children, or should we say babies.
In 1989, Bruce was engaged to a female coworker. They planned a grand wedding followed by a honeymoon to Tahiti. But at the time, Bruce didn't have any money and was living rent-free with his mother.
So, his fiancée dipped into her life savings to put down large-scale deposits for the wedding and honeymoon. But on the day of the wedding, Bruce never showed up. But wait, it gets worse.
Not only had he left his bride jilted at the altar, he had also drained all the money from their joint bank account and gone on a jolly to Palm Springs, Florida. Sylvia never found out her ex-husband was a fraudster before he gunned her entire family down, as it was only discovered by the FBI in the aftermath. But she did find out something even more shocking…
Back in late 2007, Sylvia discovered Bruce had a child from a previous relationship that he never told her about. Worse, in 2002, Bruce had been watching his then-one-year-old son while the boy’s mother, Elena Lucano, went out. As Bruce watched television, the toddler fell into the pool.
Elena arrived home to find Bruce screaming and cradling the unconscious boy in his arms. Paramedics managed to resuscitate the boy and fly him to the hospital in a helicopter.
After weeks in the hospital, doctors determined that a lack of oxygen had left the boy with severe brain damage. He was paraplegic and would require constant care for the rest of his life. When Bruce found out, he broke off the relationship with Elena and left his son in the lurch.
No one will ever know if Bruce Pardo threw his one-year-old baby in the pool. Naturally, Elena needed her husband’s help to pay their son's $350,000 medical bills, but Bruce flat-out refused to give her any money. Elena ended up suing his homeowner’s insurance company and received less than $100,000.
After the claim was settled, Bruce cut off all contact with both Elena and their son. He never paid a penny in medical bills or child support, but he always made sure to declare the boy as his dependent on his tax forms.
When Sylvia found out what her husband was capable of, she was shocked to her core. She began sleeping in a separate bed, and in March of 2008, they separated. After moving back into her parents' house, Sylvia filed for divorce.
In June 2008, a divorce court ordered Bruce to pay $1,785 a month in spousal support. During proceedings, he confided in a friend, saying his wife was "taking him to the cleaners." The following month, ITT Electronic Systems Radar Systems fired Bruce for billing false hours. Due to his unemployment, the divorce court suspended spousal support payments.
However, Pardo was still required to pay his ex-wife $10,000. That's on top of keeping her wedding ring and family dog. He was furious and complained to the court that Sylvia was living rent-free with her parents, spending his money on a new luxury car, gambling on trips to Las Vegas, and eating at fancy restaurants, massages, and golf lessons. The divorce was finalized a week before Christmas.
No one can climb into the head of a psychopathic killer to find out what goes on in their mind. However, psychologists from the FBI's Behavioral Science Division did the next best thing by building a profile of Pardo.
Of course, the divorce, losing his job, and the alimony payments to his ex-wife played a part. If you hadn't already guessed, Bruce Pardo suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. All psychopaths and sociopaths are narcissists, but not all narcissists are psychopaths or sociopaths.
The FBI profile said "extreme narcissism and obsessive-compulsive disorder" fueled his Christmas rampage. The Feds also discovered Bruce had planned to kill his own mother after the massacre because she had shown sympathy for Sylvia during the divorce proceedings.
Though many survivors have not spoken publicly about their ordeal, Irma Chapa Ortega, who survived the massacre along with her daughter, Katrina (pictured, years later), said, “He wanted to kill everyone. Even his own mom.”
Then, she described Pardo as “A monster, a monster. That man was a monster. He killed good, hard-working people who had many friends and who loved the United States.”
At the time of writing, Chapa Ortega said her 84-year-old mother, who has been ill and hospitalized in Mexico, remains unaware of the deaths. “My uncle [Joseph Ortega] adored my mother, his sister. Whenever he would leave us after a visit, he would kiss her and tell us, ‘Take very good care of my sister.' She knows nothing. The doctors won’t let us tell her. The doctors say she can’t know. She’ll die if she knows.”