The Killer Santa: How One Man Painted a Family’s Christmas Red
The story of Bruce Pardo and the Covina Massacre
We’re at that festive time of the year again — isn’t that exciting? Despite the roller coaster year everyone’s had, this is surely a time to celebrate the festivities of Christmas and the New Year with family and friends.
This was exactly what the Ortega family in Covina, a city in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California, had hoped for as well, on the eve of Christmas in 2008. But it wasn’t meant to be.
Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, a 45-yr old man, entered the house at 1129 East Knollcrest Drive, into a Christmas party and shot nine people to death, and injured three others before shooting himself, to cause the loss of ten lives on the auspicious, joyous occasion of Christmas eve.
The background to the shocking Christmas eve
Pardo lived in the San Fernando Valley and was a graduate of John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, Los Angeles, and California State University, Northridge. He worked at a laboratory. He met his wife Sylvia Pardo, previously Sylvia Orza, in 2004.
The couple got married in 2006, but they soon had differences, largely over finances. Pardo refused to open a joint bank account…
