Criminology - Infamous Christmas Week Murders

Episode Date: December 21, 2019

In this episode, we are discussing three infamous murders that occurred around Christmas. The Lawson family massacre took place in North Carolina in 1929 when Charlie Lawson murdered seven members of his family. The Los Feliz mansion murders took place in California in 1959 when Dr. Harold Perelson murdered his wife and most likely would have murdered his children had they not been able to flee the home. The Covina Massacre took place in 2008 when Bruce Pardo, dressed as Santa Claus, murdered his ex-wife and many members of her family at their annual Christmas party. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss these infamous and chilling acts of murder that occurred during the Christmas holiday. What made these three men do what they did during what should be one of the most joyous and peaceful times of the year? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome everyone to episode 92 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mike, how are you today? I'm doing good. I'm trying to get some last second Christmas shopping done. But after that, I think I'm ready to go. How about you? Yeah, no, I know how it is. Things seem to get compressed, right? every day leading up to Christmas, it's like, I've got this, this and this to do and only so many

days to do it. But it's all worth it in the end. Sure. Yeah. No, I think we've talked about it. I love this time of year. It's great to spend with friends and family. And because of that, morph, you and I have made the decision that we're going to take next week off.

You know, historically the last week of the year between Christmas. Christmas and New Year's, it's a time when a lot of people are not listening to podcasts. And rightfully so, they probably really shouldn't be. They've got family, holiday parties, this and that. So we have not taken a week off this entire year. So we're going to recharge the batteries a little bit and get ready for 2020, which is kind of hard to say. And also hard to believe. That's where we're at. Time just flies by all of a sudden you look back and we've done 50 some odd episodes this year and it's like, where did the time go? Yeah. Yeah. No, it goes very quickly. So so off next week, but then we'll be back with everyone in the first part of 2020. So more if we had some

new Patreon supporter. So let's go ahead and give our shoutouts. We had Becca Williams, Jennifer Ratcliffe, Robin Isard, Roxanne Jolet, and Luis Richard. So some great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for going out of your way and taking the time to do that to help the show. It really means a lot. And if anyone out there would like to help support criminology on Patreon, they can do so by going to patreon.com. slash criminology. For all of you that are looking for our older episodes, just a reminder, they're out there on Stitcher Premium. Stichor Premium is great. There's a lot of content, not just from us and some of our other podcasts, but also just a plethora of different types of

podcasts. And, you know, everything's ad free. They have a great 30-day free trial that I know a lot of listeners used to catch up on criminology. So maybe next week might be a good time. So more if you mentioned it, we've talked about it a little bit. I think a lot of us get very excited for the holidays. And no matter what type of holiday you celebrate or observe, it seems that it's a fairly peaceful time of year, right? Most people are not sitting around thinking about some of the dark things that happen in life. Most of us are taking that time to reflect on family, health, and the things that we're thankful for.

But unfortunately, for some families, the holidays can become nightmares. In this episode, we're going to focus on three sets of horrible and shocking crimes that befell three different families on or around Christmas. A little bit about the origins of Christmas. The first recorded Christmas celebration occurred on December 25th in the year 336 AD to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, whose actual birth date is unknown. Every year since then, people all over the world get together with their families to celebrate and take part in the gift of giving. Christmas trees are decorated, gifts are open, and delicious food is eaten. You see images of Santa Claus all over the place.

and Christmastime is normally a time of peace and joy spent with family and friends. But as Mike mentioned earlier, sometimes the most wonderful time of the year can turn deadly. The first incident we're going to discuss is the Lawson family murders. Their murders in 1929 have been dubbed the Lawson family massacre. Charlie Davis Lawson was born to William and Nancy Lawson in Lawsonville, North Carolina, on May 10th, 1886. He was one of eight children. He later married Fannie Manring and the couple had eight children of their own.

Marie, Arthur, William, Carrie, Maybel, James, Raymond, and Mary Lou. That is a lot of kids more. For me, now, back during that time frame, I don't think that was out of the ordinary at all. Yeah, I think some of those farm families back there. Ben thought the more people we've got in this family, the more work we can get done around the farm. No, I think you're absolutely right. When you think about having eight children today, there are people that do, and that's awesome. They love a big family. To me, I'm wondering how in the world I would pay for all these kids. I can barely pay for the two kids I have.

Let alone get them around and transport them place to place. Yeah, not, yeah, that's actually a big thing too, right? Soccer practice, band practice, I mean, you name it, whatever it is. Until kids are old enough to drive, it seems as though you spend your, not entire time, but a lot of your time faring them around for these different activities, which is great, right, that kids are into a lot of activities. Charlie Lawson was a tobacco farmer and he and his family resided on Germantown Road. what was then Germantown Road, now is Brook Cove Road. This is about four miles west of Walnut Cove, North Carolina. Charlie was a hardworking man, and he was a fairly successful farmer who was good to his

wife and children. According to his neighbors, Charlie owned his own land and had most of it paid for. And I think that's a big deal. And it goes to show you how, you know, success. he was as a farmer to almost have your land completely paid off. I think that was a really big deal in the 1920s. During the summer of 1929, Charlie's demeanor started to change. He often complained of headaches and got agitated or nervous, so much so that he couldn't work

at times. As fall came, things only got worse for Charlie, and his family sensed that something was wrong with him. On Christmas night, Wednesday, December 25th, 1929, Charlie Lawson snapped. At around 3 p.m., Elijah Lawson, Charlie's younger brother, walked to Charlie's and Fannie's home. When he opened the door and entered the house, he wasn't prepared for what awaited him inside. He found five members of the family dead in the front room of the house. It was an awful and bloody scene.

Elijah raced off to summon police. About an hour later, Stokes County Sheriff J.J. Taylor and coroner Dr. C.J. Helzebeck arrived at the home to survey the carnage. The bodies in the home were still warm, which indicated death had occurred not all that long before they were found. An exact time of death was never determined. The victims were 37-year-old Fannie, 17-year-old Marie, 7-year-old James, 5.5.5.000. year old Raymond and four-month-old Mary Lou. It appeared that all of them had been shot to death. The Lawson bodies were lying on the floor as if they had been positioned to be ready for viewing or burial. Their heads were placed on pillows and their hands folded across her chest. But four members of the family were missing. 13-year-old Carrie, 10-year-old Maybel, 16-year-old Arthur, and Charlie Lawson,

the patriarch of the family. Police assembled a group of service. Police assembled a group of searchers to explore the farm grounds, and after a short search, the bodies of Carrie and Maybel were found about a quarter mile away from the house in the tobacco barn. As with the bodies of their mother and siblings inside the Lawson home, Carrie and Maybel also appear to have been displayed. And naturally morph, what jumps out at you right away when you hear about that? To me, it's that, okay, the killer is most likely somebody that knew this family, had some level of care for this family, because why put their heads on a pillow? Why fold their arms? Why, you know, essentially display them as if they're resting? That's the only thing that makes sense. And you have to wonder how quickly police thought that somebody within the family might be responsible for the crime since they seem to have been cared for.

for. Yeah, I think pretty quickly. Any good investigator, that would probably be the first thing that would, you know, go through their head. We've seen it in other cases as well. It often turns out to be true. When especially a family is killed in a certain way and their bodies are left in this kind of, I don't want to, I hate to use the word caring because obviously somebody killed them, but it normally, turns out to be a member of the family. And it's odd to think about if they cared about them in the first place, why did they murder them? Just a few hundred yards from the barn, Charlie Lawson was found dead from a single gunshot wound.

One of the family dogs was sitting unharmed next to Charlie. It was almost as if he was watching over him. And you've heard stories like this before where dogs are, they're so loyal and And they worry about you so much, right? They're part of the family. When somebody gets hurt and in these cases where somebody dies, you hear a lot of stories about the family dog sitting by that person. Just I don't know more if it's almost as if they're, I don't want to say they're guarding

them, but they're, they're wanting them to wake up is what I always think of in my head. It's very sad. In Charlie Lawson's coat, authorities found a note that read, Blame no one but I. And the handwriting was later confirmed to belong to Charlie, not too hard more for police to very quickly conclude that the Lawson's deaths were the result of a murder suicide at the hands of Charlie Lawson. Police found three guns inside the home.

They found a 12-gauge single-barrel shot. They found a double barrel shotgun and a 2520 rifle. I think as you mentioned, the police thought right away, this note is a confession letter by Charlie, but it was a very short one. I'm surprised that there wasn't more details in it or a reason why. Yeah, you would kind of think in your head that if you were going to do something like this, and this is without a doubt, a very heinous murder, not. to mention the fact that you committed it against your, you know, essentially your entire family,

you would think that a person would maybe include some extras in the letter as to what they were thinking, why they did it. They've already chosen to end their life. So why not lay out some additional details in the letter? But he didn't. Right. He simply said, blame no. one, but I essentially taking credit, you know, or putting the blame on himself for the murders, but giving no detail whatsoever as to his thinking or the reasons behind it. I think that's one of the frustrating things in some of these kind of cases where there's just no explanation. You don't get those answers. And that's something that a lot of people need and want and here you've got a little tidbit from him but not the not the whole reason and i think

in some part it's maybe why this case has fascinated people for as long as it has because there is this air of mystery around the murders not as to who did it but as to the why sheriff taylor attempted to recreate how the rampage played out he concluded that charlie lawson's shot the three youngest children first, and then Fannie and Marie were shot with a single-barrel shotgun. Terrified by what they had seen, Carrie and Maybel fled the home in an attempt to escape their father's murderous attack. Charlie ran after them to the tobacco barn, and then shot them in the back as they ran. He retreated to the woods and washed his bloody hands in a creek. Footsteps found in the snow showed that Charlie paced in a circle before finally shooting himself.

So the bodies were removed and taken away to be examined. Dr. Helzebeck, who was also the Lawson family physician, performed the autopsies. He determined that Fanny was likely shot and killed on the front porch because of the blood found on the floor there. Several marks found on her wrist suggested to Helzebeck that she had been holding Mary Lou at the time of her murder. The baby also had a considerable amount of someone else's blood on her. And then the oldest loss in child Marie had been shot through her breast with a double barrel shotgun. Surprisingly, it was found at autopsy that James, Raymond, and Mary Lou had not been shot. They were actually beaten to death with the stock and the barrel of the shotgun.

Maybell died from a single gunshot wound to the back. Carrie survived the initial shot to her back, but her father Charles shot her again. And it was this second shot that proved to be fatal. And once Helzebeck was done with his examinations, his findings backed up the police theory that Charlie Lawson killed his wife and children before turning the gun on himself. But there was no sign of the Lawson's older. the son, Arthur. It turned out that Arthur Lawson was safe. He had left home around noon on Christmas Day to visit his aunt, Charlie's sister, and her husband, Henry Ashby. Arthur was on

his way back home when he learned his father, had killed his mother and siblings. It's believed by many that Charlie purposely chose to kill Fannie and the other children when Arthur wasn't home, because Arthur most likely would have tried to overpower him and protect his family. after Dr. Helzebeck performed the autopsies. The bodies were taken to TB night funeral home in Madison, North Carolina. This is about 14 miles northeast of Walnut Cove to be involved. Gray diggers dug an 18-foot grave. And the victims were buried in coffins next to one another in this mass grave.

Except for the baby. Mary Lou was buried in the same coffin. with her mother. And I think more of in what some people might think is strange, Charlie Lawson was also buried with his family. So more of a couple of things jump out at me here. This is after the murders. This is strictly around the burial. The first thing that jumped out at me was that all the victims were essentially buried in the same grave. They didn't dig separate graves for each coffin, one big mass grave where they lined up the coffins next to each other. But then you add on top of the fact that the killer, the father is buried with his family.

That just really seemed very odd to me. And I guess maybe back then they had no idea of what else to do with him. I don't know. I just don't think you would see that today. Yeah, I think if this kind of crime happen today, there'd be very little chance that you would see all of these family members buried together the way they were back then. Well, and especially the killer buried alongside them. I just can't imagine you would see that. After the killings, hundreds of curious people drove out to the Lawson Farm to see where such a disturbing crime had taken place. And we've seen this before. With cases back from that time frame, this was big news.

You know, we, we didn't have the type of 24-7 news cycle where it was just basically one atrocious thing after another hitting you smack dab in the face. This was, this was huge. And back then, people would drive for miles around just to see the place where such a heinous crime had occurred. What happened was it led the extended family of the law. Lawson's to try to profit from this tragedy. I mean, they actually charged a 25 cent fee for curious onlookers to enter the home.

That'd be about $4 today. And this happened very quickly after the murders occurred. Marie Lawson had baked a cake for Christmas. It was still in the house, uneaten, and it was on display for all of these. people that had paid their 25 cents to see. Now, as you can imagine, the family members took a lot of grief over this. There were a lot of people that thought, it's not right, that you're trying to profit from this tragedy. They defended their actions by saying that the money would go to Arthur Lawson, the only surviving child of the massacre. And I wonder if it ties into the fact that the

stock market had crashed a couple months before in October, and perhaps this family was so desperate for money if they were already starting to feel the pinch, maybe they just thought this is a good way to raise some money. Yeah, I think it's a good point, right? That was an unbelievably turbulent time in American history. I think there were a lot of people that did whatever they could to scrape money together. So maybe that did play a part. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Authorities never determined the motive for the murders. About a year before the slings, Charlie Lawson had been hit the head with a mattock he was using to dig a ditch with. The mattock got caught in a wire fence, came off and hit him in the head. It caused Charlie to suddenly become mentally unbalanced, according to an early news report from back in that time. Dr. Helsebeck believed this injury may have been the reason why Charlie snapped and killed his family.

It turns out that this may not have been the case. During Charlie Lawson's autopsy, Dr. Spotswood Taylor, Sheriff Taylor's brother, assisted healthsebeck in removing Charlie's brain. Spotswood was an intern at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore. He put Charlie's brain in a jar with formaldehyde and took it back to Johns Hopkins for a more in-depth examination. He concluded that Charlie's brain was relatively small, and there was no evidence that his brain had been damaged by an injury.

Furthermore, the center of the brain seemed to underwent. underdeveloped and showed signs of degeneration. The whereabouts of Charlie's brain is unknown today. A week before the Grizzly murders, Charlie Lawson took his entire family to a photographer to have their picture taken. And morph, this was a pretty big undertaking in the 1920s, right? To go out and have a family portrait done. It's not like today where, you know, you can just snap a digital camera.

It was kind of a big thing. And this was something that kind of went against what was known about Charlie Lawson. Not only was this family portrait thing a big undertaking, it was also rather expensive. And Charlie Lawson was known to be very thrifty. That's probably being euphemistic. But they did have the picture taken. And it can be found on the internet. When you look at the picture,

Arthur, Marie, Charlie, and Fannie are standing behind the younger children who are sitting down. Fanny is holding Mary Lou and she's looking away. Charlie is also looking away from the camera, but he has what is almost like a slight smile on his face. Arthur and Marie stare unsmiling at the camera, which I think was what most people did during pictures of that time. frame. Marie is standing next to her father. So there has been a lot of speculation about this photograph. Did Charlie know then while this photograph was being taken that he was going to murder his family? No one knows for sure, but I think it's this grin or what people take to be a smile or a grin on his face that leads them to think he was plotting at that.

point. When I look at pictures from the 1920s and that era, the people just look very unnerving. There's something off about many of the pictures. They're not happy and smiling like we see in current pictures. Well, in the 1920s, was that still during the time period where you had to stay still for a certain period of time? I'm thinking it was, and that's why people didn't smile, because it's too hard to hold a smile for that long. Some people have stated that at the time the picture was taken, Marie was pregnant, and her own father, Charlie, was the baby's father. The theory is that Charlie didn't want it to be known that he had possibly raped and impregnated his own daughter, so he killed his family to protect the secret. But the autopsy reports

didn't mention anything about Marie being pregnant, so that theory may just be a rabbit hole. The sole survivor of the Lawson family murders, Arthur Lawson, was killed in an accident while driving his truck near Walnut Cove in May 1945. He left behind his 26-year-old wife, Nina. And Morph, I do think it's this theory about Charlie and his daughter, Marie, that gets a lot of traction on the internet surrounding this Lawson family murder case. I don't know how the autopsy plays into that, whether, you know, Marie was really pregnant and it wasn't noted or they didn't know she was pregnant.

and maybe the whole thing, like you said, is just a rabbit hole. But a lot of the speculation on why Charlie committed these murders, at least on the internet, centers around Charlie and Marie, plain and simple. To me, the Lawson family murders are very reminiscent of the Hintr Kifek murders that we covered in our Halloween episode back in October. You have this alleged relationship between father and daughter that results in a child and that the motive for these murders in both cases may be tied to that. Again, it's a little bit of uncertainty there, but the murders themselves also have some parallels to. Today, almost 90 years after the loss in family massacre occurred, you can visit a museum located on the top floor of the Madison Dry Goods store.

store in Madison, North Carolina. There's not a lot of artifacts there. It's really more of a shrine. But the second floor of the building house the TB night funeral home from 1920 to 1939. This is where the family members were embalmed. Admission is free and it's open daily. On the main floor of the building is a country store and it's in this country store that you can purchase a couple of books in a documentary about the Lawson massacre. So Morph, it's a very famous case, right? This Lawson family massacre. I mean, number one, it happened in the 1920s. So there's been a lot of years for people to speculate exactly what happened. And I think that's one of the reasons why it draws so much interest is because there is still pieces of it that are unknown, right?

The motive, exactly why. And then you have this theory about Charlie and his daughter. It just leads to a lot of speculation. I think, unfortunately, as in a lot of the old cases that we discuss, there just won't be any answers beyond what's already known about the case. Yeah, I don't think anybody's going to come out of the world. woodwork 90 years later and say, oh, here's what happened. I think what we have is what we have. Our next case happened three decades after the Lawson family murders. It's the 1959 Los Felas Mansion

murders. For almost 60 years, the house located at 2475 Glendower Place in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, has set empty. Here, time simply stood still. or so it appeared. Built in 1925, the Spanish architecture influenced home has over 5,000 square feet of living space, large windows, five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a three-car and two-car garage, a 20-foot by 36-foot ballroom with a bar, and an amazing view of downtown Los Angeles. The first floor entrance has a glaston conservatory, large living room, formal dining room, and a library. The stairs leading to the upper floors are decked out in Spanish tile. The basement contains a maids quarter.

In addition to a great design and amenities, this mansion also comes with a dark and disturbing history, one that has intrigued many people for decades. On the night of December 6, 1959, the mansion's owner, a popular 50-year-old cardiologist named Dr. Harold Perilsson, committed an unthinkable crime. He waited until his...

his 42-year-old wife, Lillian, went to sleep before grabbing a hammer and beating her to death as she slept. Afterwards, he walked into his 18-year-old daughter, Judy's bedroom, and attacked her. But Judy woke up after being struck with the hammer, and she started screaming, waking up her younger siblings, Joel, who was 13, and Debbie, who was 11. Judy managed to flee the bedroom, and and run to the home of a neighbor named Marshall Ross, who lived at 2471 Glendower Place, to get help. Marshall's daughter later recounted that she remembered having her hand in Judy's blood. As they tried to give aid to her,

ironically, she was supposed to babysit Joel and Debbie and spend the night at the Perilsson home that night, but the Perilsons changed their mind. They decided not to go out, so she stayed home. Inside the Perilsen home, Harold ran into Debbie's bedroom and told his terrified daughter, Go back to sleep. This is a nightmare. Harold then left Debbie's room. Marshall Ross ran over to the Perilsen home and confronted Harold, who was highly agitated, and he told Harold to lie down.

Marshall then left the bedroom to wait for police. The first detectives arrived at the scene from the Hollywood precinct. By the time they got there, and Marshall led them into the bedroom. Harold was dead on the floor. Next to the bed where he killed his wife Lillian, he was still clutching the hammer in his hand. And there's a lot of different reports surrounding how Harold took his own life.

It's been reported that he killed himself with the hammer. I've seen reports that he drank acid. But I think what was most widely reported was, was that Harold downed a bunch of pills. Police searched the house for some evidence of a motive, but they didn't find anything. And then as they continued the search, outside in Judy Perilsen sports car, they found a letter written by Judy to an aunt. The letter read, for a while, things with the family were fine.

Daddy seemed to be all right, but now we're back on the merry-go round again. Same problems. same worries, only tenfold. My parents, so to speak, are in a bind financially. So this means more than just not burdening them with my problems, but to become self-supporting, which I plan to do. I realize it could be worse. So what do you make of this letter? Some people felt that it hinted that he may have had mental health problems. And of course, there's mention of financial problems. police locked in on the financial difficulties and thought that was the motive. Yeah, for me, Morp, the letter is very vague.

I mean, obviously she talks about being back on the merry-go round again, but what is the merry-go-round? Is it that her dad is displaying, you know, mental health issues or is it just that his parents are fighting over financial issues, we really don't know. To me, it speaks more to the financial issues, which may be the reason why police honed in on that aspect. Judy was treated at Central Receiving Hospital and then taken to general hospital with a possible skull fracture, according to a December 7, 1959, LA Times article. Joel and Debbie were temporarily taken to the Ross home, and eventually relatives took the children back to the East Coast.

to care for them. Harold and Lillian were buried next to one another at home of Peace Memorial Park in East L.A. Now here again, more if you have perpetrator and victim buried next to one another, maybe it's more common than I thought it was. It's interesting to think about the fact that you're buried next to the person that murdered you. And this is 30 years after the Lawson family massacre, so it seems that the thinking, at least in these two situations, was similar despite three decades, separating the cases. About a year after the tragedy, the mansion was sold in a probate auction to Emily and Julian Enriquez. While the couple took personal property of theirs to store at the mansion, they never actually lived there. Instead, the house sat empty. The Perilsen's furniture and other

household belongings remained in the house for almost 60 years. It was essentially as if the entire house was frozen in time. The house became a tourist attraction of sorts. Curious visitors would flock to the home to peek inside. Through the years, the neighbors did their best to keep an eye on the house. Homeless people, sex workers and burglars invaded the home from time to time. Eventually an alarm was installed, but not before several items, including antique outdoor light fixtures from the 1920s were stolen. It's unclear why the Enriquez family never lived in the home.

In 1994, Emily Enriquez died, and her son Rudy inherited the home. He never lived there either. In 2009, he told Bob Poole of the L.A. Times, I don't know that I want to live there or even stay there. It turns out, he never did. Rudy passed away in 2015, and the Los Feliz Mansion, which had fallen into disrepair, went up for some. for the first time since 1960. In April 2016, Lisa Bloom, the daughter of famous celebrity civil rights lawyer, Gloria Allred, stepped in. Lisa is also a civil rights attorney, and along with her husband, entrepreneur Braden Pollock,

they bought the murder mansion for $2.3 million in a probate sale. Pollock said at the time that the murder didn't affect him. He and Lisa planned to renovate the home. They filed remodeling plans with the city of Los Angeles that would have nearly doubled the square footage of the home. They gutted the house and planned to move into the master bedroom where Lillian Perilsen was brutally murdered once the renovation was finished. But the couple spent three years going back and forth with city officials who told them that they would need to demolish the home and regrade the hill because the slope wasn't up to code for the scale of their proposed renovations. Eventually, the couple became fed up and decided to relist the home for sale.

As of May 2019, it was back on the market for a whopping $3.5 million. But they left a future owner with a huge project. The house was taken down to the studs. There's no electrical or plumbing in the home now. Not only that, but whoever buys the home has to pay in cash. Braid and the lease are only accepting cash offers on the home. As of the airing of this episode, you can view pictures of the home on Zillow. And if you want to check out the before pictures when the mansion sat empty, just Google.

Los Felous Mansion murders. Today, it's not completely known what happened to the Perilsson children. Judy Perilsen, the oldest, is now Judith Henler. She was previously married to her Brits, a furniture businessman, but they divorced. Judy's now 78 years old, lives in Los Angeles, and has been a jewelry designer for many years. All that's known about Joel Perilsen is that he's now 73 and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Debbie Perilsen is now 71 years old. At some point, she married a man named Donald Gable, but it's unknown if they are still married, and her current whereabouts are unknown. The siblings have never talked publicly.

about their mother's murder at the hands of their father. Such a strange case, Morf. I mean, I think first you talk about the family dynamics. A father murdering his wife, the mother of these children. They all survived and had to grow up knowing what happened in that house. They lost both their parents and their father murdered their mother. I mean, that's unbelievable. tragically tragic for them. And then you have the house itself that almost, you know,

becomes sort of this central character in the story. These individuals buy it. They never live in it. It sits empty for, you know, many, many years. And it becomes almost a tourist attraction with, you know, people peeking through windows. I mean, it's been said that, you know, people could see the Christmas tree up in one of the rooms. There were presents underneath it. And you mentioned the house being almost a character in a story. To me, it sounded like a beautiful house that should have been filled with family memories in good times. And instead, it's known for this tragedy. Well, and it also goes to show you the real estate market in Los Angeles and how over the top it is. I mean,

mean, this is a house that has fallen into disrepair over the years. It has this murderous history, yet it's on the market for $3.5 million. It just shows you how high the real estate market is in L.A. The final case we're discussing is the Kavina Massacre, which happened almost 50 years after the Flee's mansion murders. Bruce Jeffrey Pardo was born on March 23rd, 1963, and grew up in the San Fernando Valley. He graduated from John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, California, and went to Cal State Northridge to study computer science. He was considered a bright student, and he landed a job after college as a software engineer for jet propulsion laboratory, known to many as JPL, which is located in La Cognada, Flint Ridge, California. In 1988,

Bruce became engaged to a co-worker named Delia. On the day they were to be married, June 17, 1989, 250 guests had been invited to the nuptials at the San Fernando mission. Bruce Pardo's mother and brother were among the guests waiting for the wedding to start. But the groom never showed up. Bruce's fiancé Delia soon found out that Bruce had withdrawn the $3,000 that was left in their credit union account. Several weeks later, Delia saw Bruce with a very nice tan.

She found out that he went to Palm Springs and blew all of their money. Delia, after being jolted at the altar, wasn't interested in hearing any of Bruce's excuses. And she immediately ended things with him. So you have some troubling and unexplained behavior by Bruce Pardo. But this was just the beginning. It was just a sign. of things to come. By early 2001, Pardo was 37 years old and had a girlfriend named Elena Lekano.

Together, they had a 13-month-old son named Matthew. About a week after the New Year started, Matthew fell into their backyard swimming pool while Bruce was watching TV in the house. When Elena returned home, Bruce was holding Matthew in his arms and screaming. Bruce sat by his son's bed in the hospital for about a week, but the doctors told him Matthew would never fully recover. Matthew was severely brain damaged and was left the paraplegic. The strain of the life-altering damage to their young son was too much for their relationship to survive.

And Bruce and Elena broke up shortly after. Bruce never saw his son again. Three years later in 2004, Bruce met Sylvia Ortega through her brother-in-law who worked with Bruce. Sylvia was born on July 5, 1965, to Joseph and Alicia Ortega, when she met Bruce. She had already been married before and had three children from previous marriages. Sylvia was down to earth and she came from a large, tight-knit family. The two hit it off immediately.

And on January 29th, 2006, Bruce and Sylvia got married. Not long after, they bought a three-bedroom home in Montrose, California. The marriage was good for about a year. before Sylvia noticed that Bruce was starting to change. He became cold and distant and the two often argued about finances. By late 2007, Sylvia and Bruce's mother, Nancy Windsor, had become pretty close. And Nancy told Sylvia about Matthew, Bruce's disabled son, a son that Bruce had hidden from Sylvia. The news that he had a disabled son that he hid from her was too much for Sylvia.

A few months later in March 2008, the two separated. And Sylvia filed for divorce soon after. And it wasn't long after this that Bruce left JPL. And he got an engineering job at ITT radar systems in Van Nuys, California. This was a good job. He was making over $100,000. a year, three times Sylvia's salary as an administrative assistant. In June 2008, Bruce and Sylvia appeared in a Burbank courtroom where a judge ordered Bruce to pay Sylvia

almost $1,800 a month in spousal support. Despite his six-figure income, Bruce's first check to Sylvia bounced, and he stopped payment on the next one. On June 13th, Bruce bought a Sig Sour nine millimeter handgun at a small gun shop in Burbank called Gun World. Then on July 31st, Bruce was fired from ITT radar for billing fraudulent hours. He applied for unemployment, but was denied due to the fact that he was fired. Life for Bruce Pardo was unraveling. And soon he would take out his frustrations on many of the people in his life. Not long after he was fired, Bruce bought another.

Sig Sauer 9mm handgun at Gun World. And then a month later, in September, he bought a third gun from the same store. It was on this same day that Bruce Pardo ordered a Santa Claus suit from his neighbor, Jerry, who owned a costume shop. He put a $200 deposit on the suit and promised to return in November. Around this time, a judge suspended Bruce's spousal payments. due to lack of employment. Bruce flew to Iowa to spend time with an old high school friend named Steve Irwin. And it was during this time that he was in Iowa that he bought 16 handgun magazines. Each one of these magazines held 18 bullets, eight more than California law allowed and magazines sold

there. And I think this is a very important distinction to make. I don't know when it happened exactly, but for a long time, California has had a law in place that limited the number of bullets that a magazine sold in that state can hold. And the limit has been 10 for a very long time. In other states, you can buy magazines that hold many, many more bullets. But California limited it. And you mentioned some of the restrictions about,

the magazines for guns and ammo there. And it seems like Bruce figured out a way to circumvent the system. Well, and the other thing that you see here, Morp, is planning, right? There's a lot of planning in advance, the costume, the buying of the guns at separate times, and now going to Iowa and buying, what is a large number? 16 magazines? That's a lot. After Bruce returned from Iowa, He went to Gun World and bought a fourth gun on October 11th and a fifth on November 14th. Then he picked up the Santa Claus suit he had ordered from his neighbor. The suit was custom made to fit Bruce's large 6'4, 275-pound frame, and he had also requested that the suit have extra room inside of it.

On December 18, 2008, Bruce and Sylvia's divorce was finalized, and he agreed to pay her $10,000. $1. Sylvia kept their dog, Saki, and her diamond engagement ring. The next day, Bruce stopped at a travel agency for a price quote on airfare to Quad City International Airport in Maline, Illinois, the closest airport to his friend, Steve Irwin's home. He returned on Monday and paid $650 cash for a round-trip ticket. Bruce was to depart at 1220 a.m. on Christmas Day and fly back two weeks later. He then called Steve and told him he was planning a visit.

After calling Steve, Bruce rented a Dodge caliber from budget car rental and a silver Toyota Ravrefour from Rennarack. In the Ravre, he packed maps of the southwestern United States and Mexico, a can of gasoline, as well as both a laptop and a desktop computer. He also packed food, water, and some clothing. Bruce Pardo's evil plan for revenge was now in place. And it was on Christmas Eve 2008 that Bruce drove the RAV4 to Glendale and parked it near the home of Sylvia's divorce lawyer, Scott Nort. Around 6 p.m., Bruce phoned his buddy Steve Irwin to tell him he would see him the next day.

It's known that sometime later, he snorted some cocaine. This would later be found in his system. through toxicology tests. Later that evening, Bruce's next-door neighbor, Bong Garcia, was smoking a cigarette with his nephew on his front porch. Bruce walked by and greeted them, saying he was headed to a Christmas party. Bruce seemed fine. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

But Bong noticed that Bruce got into a blue dodge parked in the driveway, instead of his black Cadillac Excalade or his white Hummer. At around 10 p.m., Bruce's brother, Brad Pardo, arrived at Bruce's home. The two were supposed to go to a friend's Christmas party, but Bruce wasn't home. And Bruce also wasn't at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, where he had signed up to be an usher for midnight mass. After Bruce dawned the Santa Claus suit he purchased, he headed to Sylvia's parents' home on Noel Crest Drive in Covina. This is about 22 miles east of Los Angeles.

Joseph and Alicia Ortega lived in a brick home at the end of a colder. And they were wrapping up a family Christmas party, which about 25 to 30 people attended. Joseph, Alicia, and their children had played a late night game of Texas Holdham while their grandchildren played video games and hung out near the pool in the backyard. Their grandson, Michael, was playing on a computer on the second floor of the home. Just before 1130 p.m., someone knocked on the door. By this time, some family members were preparing to leave. Sylvia's eight-year-old niece, Katrina, answered the door and was excited to see Santa Claus standing before her.

But her excitement didn't last long. It wasn't Santa Claus. It was a vengeful Bruce Pardo dressed as Santa. Bruce pulled out a semi-automatic handgun and shot the little girl in her face. He then stepped into the house and opened fire on everyone else. Sylvia's brother James was shot, followed by their brother Charles. They managed to get up and tried to overtake Bruce, but weren't able to due to their injuries. Some of the family members started smashing windows, hid behind or under furniture,

and ran upstairs in a desperate attempt to escape. After Bruce started shooting, Sylvia's sister Letitia, who was the mother of the wounded eight-year-old, called 911. This was around 11, 27 p.m. She told the dispatcher that someone was shooting at them and that the shooter's name was Bruce Pardo. Leticia then grabbed her injured daughter and ran from the house. After the shooting, Bruce used a pressurized fuel tank disguised as a Christmas gift and he sprayed high-octane racing fuel all over the house. His intention was to ignite it with a flare.

But the fires burning in two fireplaces inside the home triggered an explosion that badly burned Bruce. He suffered second and third degree burns. It was so bad that the Santa suit he was wearing seared onto his skin. He fled the home and drove about 40 miles away to his brother's home in Silmar. Around midnight, Covina Police Chief Kim Raney was at home with his family. Other detectives were doing their last minute preparations for Christmas morning, and some were starting to nod off. when their phone started ringing.

The call was from a police dispatcher who said units are responding to a shooting in progress. None of those detectives as well as the patrol officers who responded to the call were prepared for what they were about to find. When police and firefighters arrived at the scene, the house was an inferno. A man named Joshua Chavez was visiting his mom's house, which was directly behind the Ortegas. He later told authorities that he, He heard a loud explosion and then saw black smoke and a large flame coming from the Ortega home. He ran out to the backyard and saw three girls trying to climb over his mother's wall. One of them had been shot in the back.

The girls told him that some guy dressed as Santa was shooting in the home and then about 20 seconds later. The house was engulfed in flames. Another neighbor, Jeannie Goltz, saw three more party guests flee the burning home. One was a young woman who had escaped upstairs from the living room, and she did this by jumping out a second-story window, breaking her ankle in the fall. Jeannie took the girls into another neighbor's home. SWAT teams arrived shortly after,

but by this point, Bruce was already gone. When the chaos was finally under control, the full scope of just how bad things had been was revealed to police, Killed in the horrific attack were Bruce's ex-wife Sylvia, her 80-year-old father, Joseph Ortega, her mother Alicia, who was 70, 52-year-old James Ortega, his 52-year-old wife Teresa, 50-year-old Charles Ortega, his 45-year-old wife Sherry, Alicia Ortiz, who was 46, and Alicia's 17-year-old son Michael. Nine people were dead. Amazingly, Sylvia's niece Katrina, who had been shot in her face, survive, as did her mother, Letitia.

The girl who was shot in the back and tried to jump the neighbor's fence also survived. As a result of the carnage, 13 children were left without parents. In the smoldering ruins of the home, police found two handguns. They would eventually trace these guns back to Bruce. But they were already looking for Bruce after the 911 call identified him as the shooter. The problem is they didn't know where he was. When Bruce's brother Brad returned from the holiday party around 3.10 a.m., he found Bruce dead on his living room couch. Bruce had taken his own life by shooting himself in the head.

So his brother Brad called the authorities. When police arrived at Brad's home, they found two pistols at the scene. Bruce had $17,000 in cash strapped to his body, his airline tickets to Moline, Illinois, and they found the Dodge caliber several blocks from his brother's home. According to Ruben Vives of the LA Times, the rental car had been booby-trapped with a tripwire that would ignite a fire and explode 200 rounds of ammunition. Autopsies were performed on the nine victims. All died of multiple injuries, including gunshot wounds,

thermal wounds, and smoke inhalation. Michael died from the fire caused by the explosion. He wasn't shot. The Kovina massacre made national headlines. The surviving Ortega family members struggled to cope with such a huge loss. Leticia and her husband took in Sylvia's youngest daughter. Leticia's nephew, whose parents died in the killings, became the guardian of his three minor siblings. The Kovina Police Department wrapped up their investigation into the massacre in 2011,

but they continued to keep in touch with the family and survivors. In March 2018, Letitia's daughter, Katrina, who by that time was 17 years old, joined in a school walkout for gun control and to honor the 17 lives lost in the Parkland Florida shootings. Since the Covina Massacre, her mother, Leticia, has made sure her children and other family members continue to celebrate Christmas, despite the bad memories associated with it. This is a horrible, horrible story, morph. There's no way around it. A lot of people lost their lives at the hands of this man, Bruce Pardo, and even those that survived were injured or traumatized at the very

least, it would be tough to continue to celebrate that holiday given all that happened. But Leticia thinks it's very important. And I get that thinking, right? Because if you, if you, you don't, what does that mean? In some way, you can make the argument that that means that Bruce won, right? If he, he altered your life in a way that you couldn't recover. I can see someone making that argument. I think along those lines, this could just be another case of someone taking out their frustrations and their shortcomings and blaming others and trying to terrorize them and make them pay for things that weren't right in his life. But he went above and beyond and went as far as to wear a Santa Claus suit while attacking

this family. Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt, Morph. He purposefully planned the attack for Christmas. He had this custom-made suit ordered months in advance. You know, he bought the guns months and months in advance. This was planned out. But it was all. all planned leading to this Christmas Day massacre.

He chose it specifically. And the question is why? Was it because he knew that so many members of his ex-wife's family would be at one place at one time? That was my initial thought. So therefore, he could inflict the most damage possible at one time. So three pretty tough cases.

right that happen around the holidays. I think what it shows, as it does with many of the cases that we do more, you never know what's going to happen in life, right? Some of these people, they had no idea that Bruce Pardo was going to do what he did. So to me, what I take away from it is, yes, these cases are tragic. There's no doubt. But to me, it means you have to live every day. And as the holidays are coming up, especially. This is time to spend with friends and family. And I mean really spend it with friends and family. Just don't go through the motions of the holiday season,

no matter what you celebrate, enjoy it. Enjoy your friends. Enjoy your loved ones and that time that you get to spend with them. I think doing this podcast and covering these cases that we do all year long, really makes me sit back and think this is the time to reflect on what you do have and appreciate what you have with your family, knowing that these kind of things happen, not just during the holidays any time of the year, but especially during the holidays, sit back and remember that. Yeah, I agree. I mean, you and I, we do a lot of research, and that research centers around

really bad things, happening to a lot of good people. So that, is one of the things that kind of gets drilled into you. And I hope it does for the people that listen as well. I hope they take that away. Thanks goes out to Debbie Buck at truecrime diva.com for writing and research assistants in this episode. As always, if you haven't done so yet, please go out, give us a five-star review if you love the show. That helps out a lot. Also, keep telling your friends and family. Word of mouth goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for a criminology podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, which is

Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. So more if I think we both want to wish everyone a happy holiday and remind the audience that we'll be back in January after spending some time with our own friends and family. Yet everyone that supports the podcast and it listens to us all year long. I just want to send out happy holiday wishes and hope that your family and yourselves are able to spend it together. And just want to say special thanks to my family

who puts up with all my annex through the year. My wife, Rhonda, and my kids, Abigail and Jack, and my mother-in-law, Pat, and sister-in-law, Becky, that are big fans of criminology and support me all year long. Happy holidays to all of you. I think that's a good point, Morif. I mean, our family's put up with a lot, right? and allowing us to do what we do.

I know my family has to sacrifice a lot. There are times when they can't walk upstairs because it wouldn't make too much noise and it would come through on the podcast. So, you know, there's hours at a time where they have to stay in their bedroom or, you know, whatever it is. They give up a lot as well. So I agree with you there. Yeah.

And I want to say a special holiday shout out to you and your family too. I know it can do. get a, it can get to be a lot of work all year long. All right. That is it for another episode of criminology. And we'll be back with everyone, not next week, but the week after in the new year. 2020. That's hard to say.

Kind of hard to believe that it's going to be 2020. But for Mike. And Morph. We'll see in the new year. Take care, everyone.