Going West: True Crime - Covina Christmas Massacre // 50

Episode Date: December 24, 2019

In 2008, a man dressed in a Santa suit entered the home of his ex-wife's family during a Christmas party and opened fire on everyone inside before setting the home on fire. This is the story of the Covina Christmas Massacre. ___________ Get 20% off your Microdose order AND free shipping by using promo code "goingwest20" at checkout! The CHD, THC, and CBG benefits can help relieve body pain, anxiety, anger, addiction, and insomnia. Try it today! https://www.lumicbd.com/shop-home#!/Microdose/p/147261371/category=36915054 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on through Crime fans? I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your other host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Big news, guys, he and I are going to CrimeCon 2020. We're gonna be on podcast row. It takes place in Orlando, Florida May 1st, May 3rd, 2020. We actually have a discount code to offer you guys. If you go and buy a standard badge, you can get 10% off by using code west20 at checkout. So we really hope to see you guys there

and meet you. We're gonna have some cool giveaway stuff. It's gonna be so fun. We're so excited to meet you guys. It's gonna be a great time. And if you guys are gonna go, make sure you use that code West20 at checkout, in which you can go and find at crimecon.com.

Also, we still have merch in the store. It's gonna be up for a while, but we have some really great sweatshirts and pullovers. So that'll be perfect for these winter months. They're super, super cozy. We also have coffee mugs, bunch of stuff. So go check that out goingwestpodcast.com. Yeah, just make sure you go to our website

and hit the shop tab and you can shop away. Also, we've still got 20% off going on through this next week for our patrons. So if you are a Patreon member, make sure you go over to our store so you can use that 20% off. And if you aren't a part of Patreon, head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. You get bonus episodes every month. We're releasing our December bonus episode this week, so it's going to be somewhat Christmas related as well as this episode today, so make sure to check that out and get your discount. Before we get into today's case, we want to give thanks to everyone who gave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts this week. Thank you so much to Christina from Jefferson City,

Missouri and Ali from Boston, Massachusetts. In a big thanks to Christina from Jefferson City, Missouri and Allie from Boston, Massachusetts. In a big thanks to Hannah from Alaska and Miranda from Vacaville, California, we miss you too. We miss you Miranda. Thank you so much to Brandon from Paintsville, Kentucky and Melissa from Hudson, Ohio. And then we have Samantha from Mississippi and Tracy from Lawrence, Kansas. Last but not least, thank you so much to Betsy from Idaho and Lewis from Colorado. We really appreciate your guys' reviews.

They're mean a lot to us. And if you guys want to shout out in the show, make sure that you go over to Apple Podcast, leave a five-star review, but make sure you leave your name and your location. And one last thing, we have to give a shout out to our patrons this week. So thank you to Wendy, Lisa, Zadina, Emily and Ally. Thank you so much guys. Thank you everybody. So without further ado, we're gonna get into our 50th episode. Yes, that is correct. 50 episodes. This one's gonna be a holiday one. So let's get into it. Happy holidays gang! A Christmas Eve party became a crime scene.

The bodies inside so badly burned that police were unsure if the victims died in the shooting rampage or the subsequent fire. The extremely unusual and very shocking, it's just not something we see here at any time of the year, especially during Christmas. Police say 45-year-old Bruce Pardo was having marital problems. He walked into the party dressed to Santa just before midnight, then immediately took

him with a handgun at his estranged wife, her mother, father, sisters, brother, and sister-in-law. My God, I'm so glad! He was glad to look straight on the side of the roof, he's breathing. So, what do you do? You're not going to let your hat dress. Yeah, I'm going to let you stand up. You're not going to let my hat dress stand up. You He's breathing. Let your hat dress. Let your hat dress. Yeah, let my hands understand. Let your hat dress.

Let your hat dress. Prismas' were like, you know, just that special time of the year it meant so much to them. And it's almost like he planned it, you know, for him to come and do this on such a special night. For the victims, friends, and family, the holidays will never be the same. Bruce Pardo was born on March 23rd, 1963 in Los Angeles, California, and more specifically in the San Fernando Valley. He attended John H. Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley, and once he graduated,

he headed off to Cal State University in Northridge, which is in the same area as where he grew up. He was a really smart guy and he was always interested in building things, so during college he studied electrical engineering. Once he graduated school, he got a job at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Luck and Yada Flintridge, which is a city in L.A. County right next to Pasadena for those of you who know the area. And the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is actually NASA's partner in space exploration, and they make space crafts, but Bruce wasn't the greatest

employee because he missed work a lot, and he just didn't seem to really care that much about it. He would also spend a lot of his work hours hacking their system so he could gain access to various tax information, etc. But he seemed to catch the eye of another woman in the office named Delia. In 1988, when Bruce was 24 years old, he proposed to her and she accepted. At this time, Bruce was still living in his mom's house, and although he had a good job, he wasn't very good at managing his finances, so Delia ended up paying for their wedding, which was held at a local country club on June 17, 1989. She also paid for their entire honeymoon to Tahiti, which was a trip that they planned

to set off on directly after the wedding. But on their wedding day, while Delia was waiting at the church where their ceremony was being held, Bruce never showed up. She was absolutely devastated. It wasn't until a little later that Delia decided to check her and Bruce's joint bank account until she noticed that he had withdrawn $3,000 and booked a solo trip to Florida. So that relationship was obviously over, but it's unclear why Bruce left her like that.

Years passed and he got another girlfriend, whose name was Eleanor, and she became pregnant with his child in 2001. At this time, they were living in Woodland Hills, California, which is also in the valley in Los Angeles, when Eleanor birthed their son who they named Matthew. The relationship was pretty good, but again they weren't married, so I'm not sure what their plans were regarding their future, but one day Bruce made a mistake that would

change his son's life forever. When Matthew was just 13 months old, Eleanor went out for the day and left Bruce to watch him, but Bruce decided to turn on the TV and, in turn, wasn't paying attention to what Matthew was doing. That day, Matthew fell into the pool, and being just 13 months old, of course, he didn't know how to swim. Bruce went out to the pool to find that Matthew had fallen in, and so he went in after him. So when Eleanor came home, Bruce was very emotional and holding Matthew like totally freaking out of course,

and they all went to the hospital where Matthew was put under intensive care for around a week. The doctors were able to save his life, but due to his significant brain damage, Matthew became a paraplegic and would never be able to learn how to walk. So, in typical Bruce fashion, he bolted. He didn't want anything to do with the burden of his mistake, and he just wanted to get as far away from the situation as he could. So, he abandoned his one-year-old son and girlfriend and would never see either of them again. So poor Eleanor, she now has to deal with her ex-boyfriend's careless mistake that affects her and her son's lives from that moment forward, and this poor little boy who will now never get the opportunity to walk, and this coward of a man just bails on them.

But lucky from Matthew, he had a wonderful and caring mother who would take care of him. So right off the bat, we're beginning to see these patterns with Bruce, how he clearly is kind of a mess up. So let's fast forward a little bit. A few years after this horrible tragedy in 2004, one of Bruce's co-workers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory introduced him to his sister-in-law named Sylvia Ortega. At this time, Bruce was 41 years old, and Sylvia was 40. Sylvia had previously been married, and she had three children of her own, and within two years of meeting Bruce, the two were

married. Bruce ended up buying them a house in Montrose, California worth $450,000, which is the town right next to where Bruce worked, and they had a great start to their marriage. Bruce would go to church with Sylvia and her children on a regular basis, and he even volunteered there from time to time. Sylvia Ortega was born on July 5, 1965 to Joe and Alicia Ortega, who married in 1955 just three weeks after meeting each other. Joseph was a first-generation kid of Mexican parents while Alicia was born in Mexico, but they both ended up in California.

They were very much in love so they raised Sylvia and her three siblings with all of that love and in South Los Angeles. Sylvia went to Sacred Heart of Mary High School in Montabelo, California, and after graduating, she began working as a secretary with a big interest in business. She went on to marry a man who she had her two oldest children with, but he was killed in a car accident

in Arizona. So after that, she met a man named George Orza, who she had her third and last child with, but they ended up divorcing and he moved to Oklahoma. So shortly after that, Sylvia was still single and that's when she met Bruce, and like Heath said, things started off pretty well. So just like in Bruce's previous relationships, he still had a lot of financial issues, which was hard for his mom Nancy to watch. Nancy and Sylvia had a lot of financial issues, which was hard for his mom Nancy to watch. Nancy and Sylvia had a good relationship and they had a conversation one day about Bruce's

difficulty with money. Like we mentioned, he had a good job, but he liked to spend money and he didn't know how to save it or be smart with it. During their conversation, Nancy mentioned something about Bruce's son Matthew, and Sylvia was totally confused. After over three years of dating, she had no idea Bruce even had a child. So it really upset her that he never mentioned this, and she had no idea why. She was also upset about how irresponsible he was regarding watching Matthew that day, and then abandoning them. So she began thinking about her own children and immediately felt like she couldn't trust Bruce anymore.

On top of all that, after this conversation took place, the partos received a letter in the mail from the IRS. Sylvia opened it and it stated something about Bruce claiming Matthew as a dependent on his taxes, which he had been doing for years. So obviously, she's not trusting him because he's not being honest with her, but now she's seeing that he's trying to bank on his son that he hasn't seen for years, who he abandoned, and who he basically destroyed the life of.

And that's just like what kind of person does that? So basically he's just a manipulator that manipulates situations to benefit himself in mainly every situation. So now I mean Sylvia feels like she can't trust him at all. And then the whole thing about Bruce claiming Matthew as a dependent is so conniving and shady. So shortly after all this in April 2008, Sylvia Pardo filed for divorce, which totally blindsided Bruce. He was so upset by this because he loved Sylvia, and because of the divorce, he would now

have to pay a monthly spousal support fee of $1,785, and we all know Bruce isn't good with money, so this also upset him. The first check he wrote balanced and then after that he didn't attempt to make another. In June when the divorce was in motion, Bruce went out and bought a 9 millimeter handgun. The following month on July 31st 2008, Bruce was fired from his job at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he had worked for nearly 20 years because he had built them for hours he didn't actually work. He then applied for unemployment so he could get paid until he found another job, but

they denied him. Because with unemployment, you have to be let go on certain terms, like if the company shuts down or if you are laid off for reasons that weren't your fault, but if you're fired, you don't actually qualify for unemployment. So now Bruce is in the middle of a divorce with a woman that he doesn't want to divorce with. He was fired from his job and he has no income. And to be fair, these are all things he brought on himself. So we're not saying this, so you sympathize with him.

I mean, he shouldn't have lied and kept a very serious secret from his wife, and he shouldn't have billed his work for hours he didn't work. Especially since we know he had been a poor employee for a long time, he probably just thought that he could get away with it, but he didn't. Just about a week later, Bruce purchased yet another 9mm handgun. Then, one month later, in early September, he bought another. So Bruce's neighbor Jerry owned a costume business, and just after Bruce bought his third gun, he called Jerry to see if he could get a custom sanisuit made for him, and he told Jerry that it was for a children's party in December. He gave Jerry all his measurements, and it was that he was six'4", tall and 270 pounds. So that makes it pretty obvious that Bruce was a pretty big guy and he needed a custom-made suit since none of the ones in the

regular shops would fit his build, let alone his height since he was pretty tall. He also wanted it to be a little roomy. Jerry requested a $200 deposit, which Bruce paid, and also stated that the suit would be ready sometime in November. A few weeks later on October 11, Bruce bought yet another handgun, and this time the divorce was still happening and Bruce and Sylvia were in court. But one of Bruce's high school buddies who lived in Iowa named Steve called Bruce on the phone and asked him if he would fly out for his birthday. Since Bruce didn't have much going on other than the divorce, he said yes. And Steve hadn't really known what was going on at that time, so when Bruce got there, he broke down a little bit and explained that his entire family all knew of him being dishonest

to his work and that he was fired and jobless, and it was all very embarrassing for him to have the divorce court lay out all of his mistakes. And on top of that, his own mother was against him. Nancy was very supportive of Sylvia during this time because she knew that Bruce had messed up a lot and wasn't very responsible, but he was mad at her anyway for telling Sylvia. Because had she not mentioned anything about Matthew, Sylvia would have been none the wiser and their marriage would have continued. But it's also not Nancy's fault for sharing what she shared, and it's unclear whether or not she knew if Bruce had shared the information regarding his son

with Sylvia, but it's just such a bad thing to keep hidden, so maybe Nancy just didn't want to lie for him or she didn't know that Sylvia was in the dark. So in November, Jerry let Bruce know that his custom Santa suit was finished. So Bruce went down to the costume shop and paid for the rest of the suit. Just after getting the suit, he bought a fifth handgun. Alongside these purchases, Bruce bought some other items, including an electric air compressor, a tank of high octane fuel, and a 50-foot hose. And electric air compressors are typically used to fill gas cylinders, but can also be used to fill tires, etc. And I was told that high octoctane gas ignites faster than regular gas, but we're not clear on that.

On December 18th, 2008, Bruce and Sylvia's divorce was finalized. Bruce was given the house while Sylvia was to be given $10,000 by Bruce, and she was also granted their dog Saki. Bruce agreed to let Sylvia keep her engagement ring as well. Of course, Bruce didn't want to give Sylvia $10,000 since he didn't want the divorce to be happening anyway, and he absolutely loved their dog, so he just felt like everything was falling

apart. A day later, Bruce called his friend Steve and told him that he wanted to visit him in Iowa again, and they agreed to spend Christmas together since Bruce now didn't have a wife, and wasn't on the best of terms with his immediate family. So he booked the flight to depart on Christmas Day and returned 14 days later. He also rented a Dodge Caliber as well as a Silver Toyota RAV4 from a different company. In the Toyota RAV4, he packed up a map of the southwestern United States, clothes, his computers, food, and water. He had told Steve that he would fly to Illinois and then drive to Iowa. I mean a lot of this doesn't make sense so obviously Illinois and Iowa are right next to each other, but he bought the

rental cars in California, so it doesn't really make sense that he would fly to Illinois and then drive to Iowa when both rental cars are in the state of California, so I don't really understand what that was about. Like, why did he put maps and food and everything in the Toyota in California as if he was taking a road trip when he was supposed to be flying? So that's a little suspicious. Right, so you fly to Illinois and then you drive to Iowa, is this what I'm getting? And that also doesn't make sense. I mean, some people like to road trip, but why didn't you just fly to Iowa? Like you did two months prior. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he's got some plans up his sleeve.

It was Christmas Eve 2008, and Bruce was just a day away from visiting his friend Steve in Iowa. That morning, he spoke with one of his neighbors and mentioned that he planned to go to a Christmas party that evening. Like we mentioned earlier, Bruce had sometimes volunteered at the local church when he was married to Sylvia, and that day, he volunteered to usher at the church that evening. But he went somewhere else instead. At 11.30 pm, Bruce Parto entered the Ortega's home and began aimlessly shooting everyone enjoying the holiday party inside, before he set the home on fire. So, on December 24th, 2008, Bruce drove to Sylvia's father's house in Covena, California, which is about a 30-minute drive from his own home. Dressed in a custom sanisuit, Bruce walked up to the door with a gift-rapped item in one hand

and a handgun in the other. An eight-year-old girl named Latisha, who was Sylvia's niece, answered the door and was really happy to see that Santa was on the other side. But in that moment, Bruce shot at her and hit her in the face. There was about 25 guests in the house total, and Bruce began shooting at as many people as he could. When he ran out of ammunition with the gun in his hand, he unwrapped the package he was holding to display a large, homemade device that he used to spray fuel around the house. A lot of people will say that it was a flame thrower, but in reality, it was pretty much a big air compressor connected

to a fuel tank with a spray nozzle. As an engineer, he would know how to build this so he could fill the house with gasoline as fast as he could so he could set it on fire. As Bruce was shooting, people were ducking for cover as fast as they could. Most of the children happened to be in the back room playing video games, so as they heard shots, they ran out any exit they could find. Anyone who was upstairs quickly jumped out of the window. In the house, there were two fireplaces, so pretty much as soon as he began spraying the fuel, the house exploded into flames. And this wasn't Bruce's plan.

He wanted to spray the fuel and then exit before the house ignited. But because the fire started while he was in the house He caught himself on fire. He ran out of the house immediately to escape the flames But ended up with third degree burns on his arm and the sanestute that he was wearing even melted to the skin on his arm because of the fire But he was able to extinguish the flames on his costume and flee the scene in his Dodge Calibur rental car. In the meantime, Chaos was unfolding inside the house. Before Bruce had left, the one kid who had been in the front room with the adults, other than the little girl Latisha who opened the door, had yelled that it was Bruce, so everyone quickly realized that it was him, and they all knew him, of course,

since he had been with Sylvia for years. Here are the 911 calls that were placed that evening. Okay, can you tell us if anybody is injured because we have signed up on the in-offices and we're out. Hello, hello. Hi. Hello, Emily. Hello, Emily. Hello, Emily. Emily. It's about in your house, 3D.

Hello, we're having two houses down on the kitchen. Okay, okay. Yeah, man. Hold on. Is he at your house? No, he's at your house. What do you think is the name of this person? This person, no. Okay, enjoy it.

See you guys. So, it's he to you. Yes, he was inside. I saw him walk. This person was inside now. Okay. He's not scared. He's not scared.

He's not scared. Hold on one second. Okay. I don't know what this person was. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Just stay on the phone with me. Okay. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the law says. I know, I know, man. Just stay on the phone with me, okay? I lost family. I'm spending people, so I need my family. I know, I know. It's okay. The officers are there. They're trying to get to you guys, okay? He came in through the entrance of the door, and it was the Santa Claus who was on the side of the seat from when he shot. I heard the shot, and we said we were like, poppers, and I wasn't sure what it was. We all, everyone said it's kind of thing and running. So we all drove under the dining room. Some of us drove, some of us went, I don't know.

My mom calls me on the map. I'm the fire department there. OK. You were, what is he wearing? Please. What is he wearing? He's funny. What is he wearing?

Now he changed his clothes and Santa Claus clothes. OK, let me know what he's wearing. Rock clothes. I'm wrapping on a dress. What is he wearing now? He keeps his clothes from chemicals. Okay, let me know what he's wearing. What's wrong with that? I'm laughing on the rest of life. The fire was about 50 feet tall and took nearly an hour and a half to put out all the way after 80 firefighters worked the scene. When the flames were completely extinguished, they removed nine bodies from the home.

But they were pretty much unrecognizable due to the fire, so they couldn't be identified until the dental records were examined. And this must have been so horrible for the surviving members of the family and friends, to not know whether or not their family member had made it out, especially on a holiday that's supposed to bring family together, so this is just so horrible. So here's a list of the victims that had passed away that day. Sylvia Ortega, who was 43 at the time and her death was from a gunshot wound, Alicia Ortega, who was Sylvia's mom and age 70, she was shot in the abdomen and it killed her.

Joe Ortega, Sylvia's dad and Alicia's husband, who was shot multiple times and died at the age of 80, Charles Ortega, who was Syl multiple times and died at the age of 80. Charles Ortega, who was Sylvia's 49-year-old brother, died from gunshot wounds alongside smoke inhalation. Sherry Lynn Ortega, who was Charles Ortega's 45-year-old wife, she also died from a gunshot wound mixed with smoke inhalation. James Ortega, Sylvia's 51-year-old brother, died from gunshot wounds. Teresa Ortega, James's 52-year-old wife, who died of gunshot wounds in smoke inhalation.

Alicia Ortega Ortiz, who was Sylvia's 46-year-old sister, she died of smoke inhalation and gunshot wounds as well, and then Michael Andre Ortiz, Alicia's 17-year-old son and Sylvia's nephew, he died from the fire alone. It's so devastating and also strange that Sylvia, along with her entire immediate family, was killed in this attack, despite the fact that there were 25 people in the house, and that's probably exactly what Bruce wanted, so it's really awful that he got his wish. And this kind of makes me wonder if it was Bruce's plan before he even entered the house to kill Sylvia's immediate family and leave the bystanders alone.

Well, he probably was aiming a little bit. It just, I think he just got, quote unquote, lucky that they all happened to be in that front room together. It's not like her dad was in the kitchen at that time or she was in the bathroom. Like the fact that everyone happened to be in that front room just worked out for him, unfortunately. And there were a few other people, you know, her nephew, etc. who passed. But just the fact that he got every single person in her immediate family is just wild. Yeah. And Latisha, the eight-year-old girl who had opened the door for Bruce that night,

survived the attack and fully recovered, so we're not sure where in her face she was shot, but there are photos of her recently and she's now around the age of 19, and you would never automatically know that she had experienced what she did. She wasn't the only one wounded though. There was a 16-year-old girl who had been shot in the back, but she had also survived. And then a 20 year old woman who broke her ankle jumping out of the second story window, but she also survived and luckily didn't come in contact with Bruce or the fire. Since so many of the adults were killed, almost all of the children present at the party had lost one or both of their parents.

As we can tell from the 911 call, police already knew who to look for. Sylvia's ex-husband, Bruce Partell. He had taken the Santa suit off to show regular clothes, which police also were aware of. Bruce drove his Dodge Caliber rental car to his brother's house in Silmar, which is also in L.A. County, but it took around 45 minutes to drive there from Covina, where the attack took place. Police originally were worried that Bruce was gonna flee to Canada since they noticed that he had a plane ticket for Christmas day on air Canada, but when

they looked into the flight, they noticed it was going to Malin, Illinois, and it had a layover in Minnesota. But at this point, police weren't actually sure if he was going to Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, or somewhere else. Or maybe he would even flee to Canada or Mexico after all. The possibilities were endless for Bruce, but they knew he had rental cars as well as his own vehicle, so they had units searching for those in the general area

throughout the night and early Christmas morning. Police were later called by Bruce's brother after he came home to find Bruce dead on his couch. He had shot himself in the mouth. So Bruce hadn't gone anywhere after all. They believed he may have done this because of his intense third degree burns on his arm. It may have just been too painful for him to go on. Since he couldn't seek medical help without getting caught, he may have just come to terms

that he was either going to die or go to prison for the rest of his life for what he did. When they found him, he had $17,000 plastic wrap to his legs, along with other handguns, which is probably why he wanted the sanisute to be roomy. And they never found out why he had that money strapped to him. Some speculate that it could have been what he owed Sylvia, but I mean why strap it to your body, especially if you plan to murder her. While I'm assuming that if he had that money strapped to his body, he was probably planning on taking it on the plane, just in case police were after

him and he didn't have any place to stash that money for the meantime. Like if you're running from police and you're like headed to the airport or something, you're not going to have like money in a briefcase probably, you might just strap it onto your body because it's easier that way. Yeah, but what's that going to look like when you go through TSA? Yeah, I mean, I don't know how he was planning to get through TSA. Maybe he planned on having a gun and just like forcing himself on the plane, who knows. Well, they also speculate that because he got those rental cars in California,

that either some of them were like decoys so that people, or the police would look for the wrong cars, or instead of flying, just take a rental car with all the stuff in it and just flee that way. But again, why strap the cash to yourself? Yeah, I'm not really sure about him strapping that money to himself, but it does make a lot of sense for him to have those multiple cars, like you said, as being a decoy. So that way, if police are trying to run license plates, they're pretty much running three different license plates for Bruce. I also feel that it's possible he was trying to actually go to Iowa, but he was going to drive, like he had told his friend Steve, but he booked a flight to Illinois so that police would go to

Illinois thinking that he was there when in reality he was driving to Iowa. So maybe that was his plan too. But like also, what are you gonna do when you get to Iowa? You're gonna be like, hey, Steve, I just killed my ex-wife's whole family and my ex-wife. Can you you want to hang out or something? Yeah, you want to like keep me in your basement for the rest of our lives? Yeah, like I don't know what his plan was going forward when he got to Iowa. Just with everything It doesn't seem like his goal was to kill himself. It seems like that was kind of like a last-minute decision because he had the carful of stuff. He had the plane ticket like if he was gonna kill himself, he

probably was just what had done it at the Artegas. Yeah, and it also kind of seems like he had this whole plan in place and as soon as that fire lit up, because he wasn't expecting it, obviously, everything kind of went awry for him, and his plan kind of fell through. When they found his dodge rental car just a block away from his brother's house, it blew up as bomb experts were investigating it. It turns out that the Sanisute had also been rigged by Bruce. Luckily, no one was heard in this explosion. When they found the second rental, which was the Toyota RAV4, they were extra cautious, hoping it wouldn't be rigged too. Luckily, it wasn't, and that's when they found another canister of gas, computers, a

map of Mexico, and Christmas presents. So maybe he was trying to go to Mexico. Yeah. I mean, it's very obvious he was trying to flee somewhere and that just didn't end up happening. Well, it's kind of weird. Maybe he set it up to where each car was going to go to a specific place. Like maybe he had the map of Mexico in one car. He had another map and a different car, like, I don't know. It just seems like he also might have been just trying to throw everyone off.

But I mean, considering he bought the guns ahead of time and the Santa suit three months prior, he definitely planned this attack for many months, but I think that the finalization of the divorce and all the negative things that came with it really put it into play since that happened a week before the attack. And also, with everything that's happened in Bruce's life, even though a lot of things were decisions that he made, I think at this point he feels like he had nothing left to live for. And he probably felt like it was Sylvia's fault, when in reality, she was just doing what

she thought was best for her and her children when she filed for divorce. So when Sylvia left him, she went off to live with her parents, who she was very close with. And because of this, she wasn't paying bills, so she had more money to spend on herself. And this likely angered Bruce, who we know was very bad with money and spent a lot of money. Because here's Sylvia living her best life, while Bruce is kind of living his worst. Absolutely. and it's just horrible that he had to wreck havoc on this entire loving family because he wasn't happy with the decisions

he made in his own life. This caused so many repercussions for the entire extended family and friends of the Artegas between losing family members to dealing with the trauma of being involved in the attack, but this family is so strong and they still celebrate Christmas together and try to remember it as a joyful time to come together with the family they have left and remember those they've lost. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everybody and happy holidays.

Next week we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. If you want to see photos from this case, we have photos of his cars and we have photos of the house after it was set on fire. If you want to see anything like that or the beautiful or take a family, visit our Instagram at GoingWestPodcast or our Twitter at GoingWestPod. And remember guys, we have merch available right now. In our merch store we got sweatshirts, stickers, all sorts of good stuff. So go over to goingwestpodcast.com, make sure you hit the shop tab and shop away. And we'd love to see you guys at CrimeCon in Orlando in May 2020.

It's just five months away, so get on buying those tickets, but get 10% off using code West20. We're gonna have so much fun. Yes, that is code West20 for your standard badge if you want 10% off. So for everybody out there in the world. Cheerio and don't be a stranger. 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh

1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 tbh 1 t 1, 1 Thank you. you