Mind of a Serial Killer - HOLIDAY SPECIAL: The Santa Claus Massacre Pt. 2

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

On Christmas Eve 2008, the Ortega family gathered at their home in Covina, California, for their annual holiday celebration. Laughter, food, and music filled the night—until a man dressed as Santa Claus knocked on their door. In Part 2 of The Santa Claus Massacre, Carter Roy reveals the shocking and tragic events that unfolded that night, when 45-year-old Bruce Pardo—Sylvia Ortega’s embittered ex-husband—turned holiday cheer into unimaginable horror. What began as a festive family gathering ended in one of California’s deadliest crimes. This episode traces Bruce’s meticulously planned attack, the inferno that followed, and the chilling aftermath that left investigators searching for answers—and a surviving family struggling to rebuild their lives. But out of the ashes, hope emerged: a story of survival, resilience, and the enduring strength of the human spirit.Listen to Murder: True Crime Stories wherever you listen to podcasts: https://play.megaphone.fm/zooymjyirj-p1yeorxgirwOn Christmas Eve 2008, the Ortega family gathered at their home in Covina, California, for their annual holiday celebration. Laughter, food, and music filled the night—until a man dressed as Santa Claus knocked on their door. In Part 2 of The Santa Claus Massacre, Carter Roy reveals the shocking and tragic events that unfolded that night, when 45-year-old Bruce Pardo—Sylvia Ortega’s embittered ex-husband—turned holiday cheer into unimaginable horror. What began as a festive family gathering ended in one of California’s deadliest crimes. This episode traces Bruce’s meticulously planned attack, the inferno that followed, and the chilling aftermath that left investigators searching for answers—and a surviving family struggling to rebuild their lives. But out of the ashes, hope emerged: a story of survival, resilience, and the enduring strength of the human spirit.Listen to Murder: True Crime Stories wherever you listen to podcasts: https://play.megaphone.fm/zooymjyirj-p1yeorxgirw To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Looking for another Crime House original podcast to add to your rotation, you will love Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelin Moore. Every Wednesday, Morgan and Kaelin dig into the world's most notorious crimes, clue by clue, from serial killers to shocking murders. They follow the trail of clues, break down the evidence, and debate the theories. It's like hanging out with your smart and true crime-obsessed friends. Listen to Clues on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. Happy holidays to all you Crime House listeners.

I'm Carter Roy, host of Murder True Crime Stories, and this is the second episode of of Crime House's Christmas Crime Special, the Santa Claus Massacre. It doesn't get more iconic than Santa Claus, the red and white suit, the fluffy white beard, the sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks. St. Nick is a Christmas staple, a symbol of magic and holiday cheer.

But on Christmas Eve 2008, One man took that image and corrupted it. Forty-five-year-old Bruce Pardo donned a Santa suit and fastened his beard. He drove to Covina, California, where his ex-wife's family had all gathered for a holiday party. But Bruce wasn't there to celebrate Christmas. He was there to destroy it. Last time, we met 43-year-old Sylvia Ortega and her family. We discussed her tumultuous and tragic love life

and how she learned the truth about her husband, Bruce Pardo. When their divorce was finalized in December 2008, Sylvia was ready to move on, but he wasn't. Today, we'll walk through the fateful night that changed. the city of Covina, California forever. That Christmas Eve, the holiday was shattered as 9-1-1 calls came pouring in, a shooting, an explosion, and a raging house fire were tearing one family apart. And it was all the work of a man dressed as Santa Claus.

All that and more coming up. Having a big gathering is a Christmas staple in a lot of households. It certainly was for the Ortega's. Papa Joe and his wife, Alicia, loved the holiday for exactly that reason. It was an excuse to get their ever-growing family under one roof. By 2008, they had five grown children and 13 grandchildren. but the Ortega's didn't limit the fun to their own relatives. Joe and Alicia had lived in their home on East Nolkrest Drive in Covina, California since 1981.

Over those 27 years, they'd become pillars of their community, known for their generosity. Friends and neighbors were always welcome, but the Ortega home was never more full of joy and people than at Christmas. Every inch of the house was decked out for the occasion. There were twinkling, brightly colored lights inside and out. A huge tree covered in ornaments, filled one corner of the spacious living room. Presents spilled out from under it, wrapped in colorful paper and shiny ribbons. The Ortega's annual party always took place on Christmas Eve, and 2008 was no different. Friends and family would arrive throughout the day.

There was a huge spread of food and drinks. The adults chatted while holiday music played, and the younger cousins and neighbors would run around and trade toys. Things were already in full swing when 43-year-old Sylvia Ortega arrived with her three children. The annual Christmas party was one of her favorite family traditions, but this year in particular it was a welcome distraction. About a year ago, Sylvia learned that her husband of just, Just over a year, 45-year-old Bruce Pardo had been hiding a terrible secret.

He had a son from a previous relationship, an 8-year-old named Matthew. When Matthew was a toddler, Bruce had left him unattended and Matthew nearly drowned in the pool. The accident left him severely disabled. Bruce was presumably unable to cope with having a special needs child and took off. He hadn't seen his son in years. When Sylvia found out, she realized that Bruce wasn't the man she thought she'd married. Even worse, Bruce wasn't supporting Matthew or his mom at all, and yet he'd been claiming him as a dependent ever since.

He was using the boy as a tax break. Sylvia was disgusted. She couldn't live with someone capable of such cruelty, so she filed for divorce. and the process lasted almost as long as the marriage. But all of that was finally over, and Sylvia was ready to move on. She just wanted to hug her mom and laugh with her sisters to listen to her brother Charles and their dad brag about the ridiculous racehorse they bought together and watch all the kids not so sneakily peek at the presence,

trying to guess what was inside. around 5 p.m. They all sat down for dinner. It was always a delicious blend of traditional Mexican and American holiday favorites. After the meal, the table was cleared so the usual Ortega family poker game could start. Papa Joe was a card shark, something he passed down to his children and grandkids. They also inherited his competitive streak. So when the cards came out, everyone knew the party. was about to get rowdy, but even as they trash-talked each other, it was always said with love and laughter. The party stretched on into the night. Eventually, only the family remained, which was still 25 people. Things were finally starting to wind down by 11 o'clock. The youngest Ortega's sibling, 36-year-old Letitia, was gathering her things in the living room when her daughter Katrina spotted something in the window. The eight-year-old's face lit up, and she ran to the front door shouting that Santa was there.

It had been a few years since they'd had a Santa at this party. The neighbor who used to do it moved away, so Katrina was especially excited to see the man in the jolly red suit approaching the house with a large package. He rang the bell, and she flung the door open wide. a grinning from ear to ear. But her surprise soon turned to horror. The man dressed as Santa put down the package, reached into a suit,

and pulled out a nine-millimeter handgun. And then he began firing. When Letitia heard the first shots ring out, she thought someone was popping balloons, but her husband sprang into action, telling her to grab the kids and run. That was when Leticia realized the man dressed as Santa was shooting into the party. Leticia scooped up Katrina while her husband grabbed their younger daughter. They ran out the front door and rushed to a neighbor's house.

Behind them, they could hear more gunfire and the screams of the family members still inside. Once they were a safe distance away, Leticia noticed Katrina's face was bleeding heavily. She'd been shot. Leticia called 911, begging them to send help quickly. Back inside the Ortega home, people fled in any direction they could. They hid behind furniture and squeezed out of windows as the man in the Santa suit continued to fire. But as quickly as the shooting began, and it suddenly stopped.

The attacker went back to the front door to retrieve the large package he'd brought. Inside was a homemade, pressurized spraying device. He began spraying everything with some kind of flammable liquid. The walls, floor, furniture, even the ceiling. It was clear he was going to burn the house down. But he hadn't accounted for the candles still burning from the holiday party.

And before he knew it, a jet of liquid fuel caught an open flame. A massive explosion rocked the house. At least one person jumped out from a second-story window, but others didn't have a chance. Within minutes, the Ortega family home was a raging inferno. The flames could be seen for miles, and 911 calls flooded in from across the city. Neighbors gathered on the street, fire trucks began arriving at the scene, sirens blaring. In the midst of the chaos, the killer slipped into a car and drove off into the night. Meanwhile, firefighters battled the blaze, and EMTs tried to stabilize the survivors.

drivers. Once the flames got under control, the police tried to piece together what had happened. They spoke to one neighbor who reported that they saw a blue Dodge caliber racing away from the Ortega's around 1145 p.m. The authorities put out an all-points bulletin for the car. As they interviewed the other witnesses, detectives realized it would be difficult to get an accurate description of the killer the Santa hat and white beard obscured his features and witnesses couldn't agree on his height but one person thought she knew who it was during the attack something about the killer struck Letitia Ortega he seemed familiar and then it hit her she'd seen part of his face just enough to realize the killer Santa was really her ex-brother-in-law, Bruce Pardo.

Police in Covina would never forget the night of December 24, 2008. The scene on East Noel Crest Drive was chaotic, a massive house fire, over a dozen victims, missing persons, and a shooter potentially still at large. But thanks to one of the survivors, they had a suspect, 45-year-old Bruce Pardo. Just a few miles away from the raging inferno, Bruce was running into trouble. He'd escaped, but he didn't get away unscathed. His arms and legs had been burned in the blast. He couldn't tell how they looked in the dark,

but he could probably feel how bad the damage was. He raced north on the freeway, not quite sure where he was going. He'd started the night with a plan, but with his injuries, that had gone out the window. He needed help. If he went to a hospital, he would certainly be arrested. There was only one person who might help him now. His little brother, Brad Pardo.

But when Bruce pulled up to Brad's house in Silmar, about 40 miles northwest of Covina, it was dark. Brad wasn't home. Bruce parked down the street, just in case the cops were looking for his car. Then he gingerly removed the Santa Santa. a suit. He tossed the ruined costume in the passenger seat before walking back to Brad's place. Even though Brad wasn't home, Bruce was able to let himself in, he turned on the lights and got his first good look at the burns. They were severe, the kind that required immediate medical attention. Bruce sat on his brother's couch and weighed his options. He could keep running until his

Injuries got too severe, or he could go to a hospital and hope he wasn't arrested. Neither choice was a good one. Seeing no other way out, Bruce decided to use one of his guns to take his own life. At some point, Brad had returned home and found Bruce's body. He immediately called 911 and officers arrived on the scene at 3.3. 30 a.m. Bruce had severe burns on both arms and his lower legs, as well as the back of his neck, but his death was caused by a single gunshot wound to the head. The burns were a clear indication that Bruce was in the Ortega home during the fire, and as investigators look closer, they saw

melted bits of red and white fabric in the wounds. All signs pointed to Bruce. Bruce as the perpetrator of the attack, but they still needed to figure out why he'd done it. They continued to search Bruce's body and found that under his clothes, he had $17,000 in cash strapped to his chest. He also had a plane ticket to Molin, Illinois with him. Obviously, his brother's house wasn't meant to be his final destination. Investigators interviewed his brother, Brad Pardo, but Brad was completely blindsided. He said they were supposed to go to a Christmas Eve party together, but Bruce wasn't home when Brad came to pick him up at 10 p.m. Beyond that, Brad explained that the recent divorce

from Sylvia had been hard on Bruce. Brad worried he might have been depressed. Still, he never thought Bruce would harm anyone. Now, he wasn't so sure. As Brad spoke to the officers, detectives continued to examine the crime scene, and they quickly found a set of car keys on the floor near Bruce's body. After confirming they didn't belong to Brad, the detectives went outside to search for the car. Officers walked along the street, clicking the electronic key until finally a vehicle responded. It was a blue Dodge caliber. The same car witnesses had seen fleeing from the Ortega's home. They ran the plates and learned the car was a rental. Inside, they found a trove of evidence. Bruce's charred Santa costume lay crumpled in the passenger seat. The rest of the car

was littered with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. After taking, crying, seen photos, investigators began removing things from the vehicle, but when they touched the suit, an explosive ignited. The car burst into a fireball. The force of it sent the bullets flying in all directions. Miraculously, no one was hurt, but by the time the flames were extinguished, the car was a little more than a charred hunk of metal, and all the evidence inside it was gone. The same was true of the Ortega family home back on East Nolkrest Drive. When the sun came up on Christmas morning, all that was left was a smoldering pile of debris. It had taken 80 firefighters nearly all night to put out the blaze.

As soon as it was safe, the Los Angeles County Coroner's office sent a special team to begin searching for us. evidence and to retrieve the victim's bodies. Of the approximately 25 guests at the party during the attack, police confirmed that 16 had made it out of the house before it went up in flames. That meant there were nine people still missing. Forty-three-year-old Sylvia and her parents, 80-year-old Papa Joe and 70-year-old Grandma Alicia, both of the children. Sylvia's older brothers, 52-year-old James and 50-year-old Charles, their wives, 51-year-old Teresa, and 45-year-old Sherry, and finally Sylvia's older sister, 46-year-old Alicia, and Alicia's 17-year-old son, Michael.

One by one, the bodies were found and removed from the wreckage. All of them were burned beyond recognition and could only be identified with dental records. Full autopsies were performed, but it was difficult to determine their specific causes of death. Most had suffered from gunshot wounds, smoke inhalation, and extreme burns. Even without those specifics, police were well on their way to figuring out how this had happened and why. Their next order of business was searching Bruce's house. Police arrived at his home in Montrose at around 9 a.m. on December 25th. Inside, they found the pieces of Bruce's plan laid out like presents on Christmas morning.

It was all there. Packaging from the five handguns, boxes and boxes of bullets and gunpowder, and even handwritten packing lists, reminding Bruce, to bring extra magazines. In his backyard workshop, they found parts for a pressurized spraying device, along with tanks of high-octane fuel like the kind used in race cars. And that explained the intensity of the blaze. It also made it obvious that the fire wasn't an accident.

It was all part of Bruce's meticulous scheme. Bruce had planned to go to the party. kill his ex-wife and as many of her family members as he could, and then set the house ablaze. But there was still one question police didn't know the answer to. How had Bruce ended up dead on his brother's couch? If he was going to die by suicide, he could have done it at the scene. Something was missing. Detectives interviewed Bruce's neighbors to get more information.

They were all shocked. From what they could tell, Bruce was a perfectly nice and friendly guy. The man who lived next door recalled seeing Bruce leave the night of December 24th, though he didn't specify a time. Bruce smiled and waved like always. He said he was on his way to a Christmas party. According to the neighbor, nothing seemed unusual. except for the fact that Bruce didn't take either of his cars.

Instead, he'd driven off in an unfamiliar blue dodge. None of that was particularly surprising. It aligned with what the authorities already knew. But just when they thought they understood the scope of Bruce's plans, another piece of the puzzle dropped into their laps. A man in Glendale called in a report about a suspicious vehicle parked outside his house. He'd never seen the gray Toyota Rav for before, and it had been there for over 24 hours. LAPD ran the plates and found out it was a rental car that was currently under contract to none other than Bruce Pardo.

After learning their lesson with Bruce's first vehicle, this one was closely inspected for booby traps. The Toyota was clear. It was also full of everything Bruce would need to flee. He had food and water, clothes, toiletries, his personal computer tower, even maps of the southwestern U.S. and Mexico. Now the police knew. Bruce hadn't planned to take his own life. He was going to run. But the maps to Mexico seemed to contradict the plane ticket they'd found.

Clearly, one of these was a decoy to throw authorities off his trail. Though the clues were starting to paint a picture, there was one thing investigators couldn't figure out. Why had Bruce parked this car in a random neighborhood in Glendale? They canvassed the nearby houses looking for someone with a connection to Bruce Pardo or the Ortega family, and they found one. It turned out, Bruce had parked the Toyota about 500 feet from the home of Sylvia's divorce attorney, which could only mean one thing. Bruce had planned to kill the lawyer on his way out of town. It's one of Britain's most notorious crimes,

the killing of a wealthy family at White House Farm. But I got a tip that the story of this famous case might be all wrong. I know there's going to be a twist, won't they, a massive twist. At every level of the criminal justice system, there's been a cover-up in this case. I'm Heidi Blake. Blood Relatives is a new series from, in the dark and the New Yorker. Find it now in the in the dark podcast feed.

In 2008, Christmas in Covino was marred by tragedy. 45-year-old Bruce Pardo had gone on a rampage and killed nine members of his ex-wife's family. Then he fled the scene and died by suicide. Over the next few months, Covina Police and the FBI tried to uncover how and why he'd become a mass murderer. Eventually, they put together a complete criminal profile. They found Bruce had been stockpiling weapons as early as June 2008, about three months after Sylvia filed for divorce. That meant he'd been preparing this attack for at least six months.

Bruce's bank records also led police to Steve Irwin, the old friend that Bruce had visited in Iowa in October. According to Steve, Bruce had said he planned to visit again after Christmas. Bruce even called on Christmas Eve the day of the murders to confirm. Steve said Bruce had sounded normal on the phone, perhaps a little sad, but that was expected since it was his first Christmas post-divorce. It's still unclear whether Bruce actually planned to fly to Iowa or if it was another red herring to distract the authorities. It's one of many unanswered questions he left behind. But from the evidence they gathered, investigators theorized his plan went something like this. He would gain entry to the Ortega's party by disguising himself as Santa.

then he would shoot as many people as he could as quickly as he could. Next, he planned to spray the house with the accelerant, triggering the blaze with a flare when he was a safe distance away. Emergency workers would be distracted by the mayhem on East Nolkrest Drive, which would give Bruce time to drive to Glendale and attack Sylvia's attorney. After that, he would hop into his getaway car and disappear. likely over the Mexican border. His plan went off without a hitch until open flames in the Ortega home set off the explosion early.

If that hadn't happened, there's no telling how much more devastation he might have caused or how long it would have taken authorities to bring him to justice. As for his motivation, it's pretty straightforward. Bruce Pardo was an angry, disturbed man. with a vendetta and with his violent act he joined the ranks of a particular subset of killers the family annihilator as the name suggests and these are people who kill their families experts consider this an extreme form of domestic violence like with typical cases of domestic violence the vast majority of family annihilators are men

And many of them, like Bruce, have no previous criminal record or history of violence. The nuances vary from case to case, but generally, the motives behind these types of murders fall into four categories, financial trouble, power struggles, untreated personality disorders, and the most common family breakups. It was clear that the divorce triggered Bruce, given him, his history, he was used to being the one who walked away. So when Sylvia left him, it was a devastating blow to his ego. And he couldn't handle the humiliation he felt throughout the entire divorce proceedings. He also felt betrayed when his own mother supported Sylvia over him. Not only did Sylvia have her own large, happy family behind her, but in Bruce's mind,

she'd also stolen the only family he had. He was alone. Rather than reflect on his own actions, Bruce blamed Sylvia, so he decided he would make her and her family pay. While learning Bruce's motive helped bring the case to a close, it wasn't much comfort for the surviving Ortegas.

But in the spirit of the holiday they all loved so much, the family rallied together to move forward. On the morning of January 16, 2009, a public mass was held at a nearby Catholic church. Over 1,500 people came to remember and honor the Ortega family and offer condolences to the survivors. One month later and two months after that traumatic night, Letitia Ortega had her 37th birthday, her first without her parents or siblings. Understandably, she wasn't in the mood to celebrate. More than that, she didn't have the time. Overnight, Leticia went from being the baby of her large family to the matriarch, as the oldest surviving Ortega, the heavy weight of responsibility landed on her shoulders.

In the immediate aftermath, the city sent mental health counselors to talk to the survivors, but they needed more than emotional support. Of Letitia's 13 remaining nieces and nephews, 10 of them were suddenly orphaned. Most were in high school or younger. These kids needed, a place to grieve and somewhere to live. Extended family, friends, and community members came together to work out the logistics. Their main goal was to keep things as stable as possible. For example, even though the father of Sylvia's youngest daughter was still alive, he lived in Oklahoma. Rather than uproot her, Letitia and her family took her in. The Covina community also showered the family with donations, which went a long way toward paying for the huge funeral cost.

Sylvia's employer, a family-owned seed company, established a trust for her kids in her honor, and Nancy, Bruce's mom, vowed to make sure that every penny from Bruce's estate would go to them as well. Once everyone was settled, Letitia could finally turn to the business of grieving herself. As the de facto head of the family, she was keenly aware that she had to lead by example. She was angry and devastated just like they all were, but she'd seen her parents lead their family through tragedy before. Letitia was 16 when Sylvia's first husband died in a car accident. As the only sibling still living at home, she had a front row seat for how Papa Joe and Alicia supported Sylvia through her grief. It was time for Leticia to do the same.

Leticia encouraged herself, her daughters, and her nieces and nephews to focus on love. their love for everyone who was left as well as for the ones they'd lost was going to carry them forward and with a lot of time and grace it did leticia eventually turned her pain into a calling she became a certified grief counselor and today she uses her experience to help others heal from loss and in 2018, her daughter Katrina followed her example. After a devastating school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, high school students around the country held walkouts as a fellow survivor of gun violence and struck a chord with Katrina.

Her survival back in 2008 had been a real Christmas miracle, despite being shot point blank in the face the bullet missed everything vital instead it traveled through her mouth and exited the back of her cheek near the jaw and the damage had been almost entirely cosmetic and Katrina made a full recovery while the physical healing happened relatively fast the emotional recovery took much longer, and her experience meant she was deeply affected by the news out of Parkland. So at 17 years old, she worked with another friend to organize a sister demonstration at their high school in Pasadena. Katrina shared her story to call for important changes to gun legislation. It's clear that Bruce Pardo failed spectacularly in his mission.

to destroy the Ortega family. In the years since the tragedy, they've only grown closer. And instead of letting a monster destroy Christmas, the Ortega's choose to embody the spirit of the holiday all year round. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories. Come back next week for the story of a new murder and all the people it affected.

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This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Natalie Pertzowski, Sarah Camp, Megan Hannam, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening. Looking for your next crime house listen, don't miss Clues with Morgan Absher and Kalyn Moore. Every Wednesday, Morgan and Kalen take you deep into the world of the most notorious crimes ever, clue by clue. It's like hanging out with your smart, true crime-obsessed friends. Listen to Clues on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you.