Unseen - The Covina Christmas Massacre | The Case of the Ortega Family | UNSEEN

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

“He shot my daughter in the face!” On Christmas Eve 2008, just before midnight, 911 operators scramble as every phone rings off the hook in the city of Covina, California. All the callers frantically report a massive explosion on East Knollcrest drive—the Ortegas' family home. In the chaos, neighbors are sheltering the panicked surviving family members, running for their lives from what should have been a normal Christmas dinner. But what the survivors tell 911 dispatchers is even more deeply disturbing: the nightmare actually began before the house went up in flames when a man dressed as Santa Claus opened fire at the family dinner. Now, the surviving Ortega family must figure out how to rebuild after an unimaginable tragedy, and keep the Christmas spirit alive. In her journey to rebuild, Leticia Yuzefpolsky now shares empowering stories about healing, love, & family on her blog: https://leticiashope.com/about/ CreditsDirected, written & edited by Alexandre Gendron & Justin ChalifouxResearched by Manon LafosseProduced by Alexandra Salois & Salim SaderVoiceover by William AkanaSourcesOxygen Emerge Pictures Jarrett Creative GroupKristina KuzmicBellum Entertainment OWNMichele F RosenthalABC7CNNAP ArchiveAssociated PressCBS NewsAssociate Press2KCAL9Chasing reality RawBill Rhetts - hi-caliber.orgWhy are we friends? PodcastRory Smithristmas - Short Film 2022Little Help - Christmas Short Film 2022Advent - Christmas Short Film 2024Santa Flamethrower - Garden CenterSanta Claus On Fire - Stuntman Phil Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I put my hand to his throat just for a few seconds. This is Bruce. For the past few years, Bruce has been working at the Agincourt Mall, playing Santa. Day after day, children would come sit on his lap. On June 20, 2016, Bruce is arrested and brought in for questioning after a 911 operator received this call from an anonymous man. You guys start to sign on me to go. Okay, Bruce, starting to make out.

While the man on the phone To me on my back While the man on the phone is convinced someone just tried to kill him Police give Bruce a chance to tell his side of the story We were growing to have sex And he suggested a dude in the back of his truck I said well there was born for him in the back of my band So we went to my band and we started

Kissing anything like this ever happened before where things got out of hand That. There's things I've never gotten violent. No. And what was your reason for bringing your heads up to his deck? I just think. I thought he liked it rough. That same day, Bruce is released and goes back to playing Santa for the kids.

However, one year later, on June 26, 2017, a man named Andrew Kinsman disappears without a trace. Security footage from around the neighborhood shows Andrew getting out of his apartment and into a red Dodge Caravan. And your van is, he said, Dodge Caravan. Seven months later, Bruce MacArthur is arrested. Police will later discover that he killed eight people and buried their bodies around his yard. Two of those victims were killed after the interrogation. The Santa who held thousands of kids in his arms was a serial killer.

But he was not the worst Santa. Individuals committing crimes in Santa suits are common around the holidays. They're often referred to as. bad Santas, some of them commit simple misdemeanors like public urination. Others commit more serious felonies like theft or arson. But perhaps the worst bad Santa case happened on Christmas Eve of 2008. Terror, chaos, and carnage on a Southern California Christmas Eve. The man dressed as Santa, armed himself with four guns and a makeshift flame thrower.

Some hide under furniture. Others jump from windows to escape. The bodies inside so badly burned that police were unsure if the victims died in the shooting rampage or the subsequent fire. This was not a random act of violence. Neighbors can't believe this happened to what they call a happy, tight-knit family. Witnesses say they saw the suspect take the Santa suit off and walk away. He said Merry Christmas to me and just kept walking down this way and now is it. December 24th, 2008, it's Christmas Eve in Covina, a small and peaceful suburban community near Los Angeles, California. Only a handful of 911 operators and police officers are on shift at the moment.

After all, it's a holiday, and the town has one of the lowest crime rates in the area. Everything seemed fine until 10 minutes before midnight, when every phone in the dispatch started ringing at once. One operator quickly answered. At the other end of the line was a panicked woman screaming into the receiver. Hello, hello. Hi. Ma'am, I understand. I need to know your address.

Before the woman could answer, the other operators also started picking up calls. Every resident on East Nolkrest Drive seemed to be calling at the same time. Responders gathered that a massive explosion was heard. A house was on fire, and terror-stricken people were running amok around the property. But the woman who called first somehow had an even more pressing matter. Okay, is there, can you tell if there's anybody injured because we have fire department and officers en route? My daughter has been shot. I let the officers know.

The officers are speaking shirt safe for the paramedic. Oh, me, bandage, please. She was caught in the face on the silence. As the operator heard the sirens approaching in the distance, the woman at the other end kept asking her to send more people. Even though the police were filled in on the fire, nobody, up to that point, understood the gravity of what was happening inside the burning residence, except the panicked mother. He was come immediately. I don't know who else is alive. I know, I know, ma'am. Just stay on the phone with me, okay? As the woman began to explain that an intruder inside the house had started the fire, the operator cut her off to ask if he was still inside, and what he was.

was wearing so the police could apprehend him. The woman told her that he ran from the scene, but it was the description of his appearance that threw the operator off guard. What is he wearing? Okay, let me know what he's wearing. When I arrived to describe it as apocalyptic would be accurate. It was not just an ordinary house fire. Every window was gulfed in flames, and there was fire everywhere. For hours, over 80 firefighters struggled to extinguish the Inferno. Meanwhile, police and paramedics focused on saving as many people as possible. Once all the survivors were out of harm's way, police lieutenant Tim Dunin began questioning them. The people that had escaped from the house told us the suspect dressed as Santa,

made his way into the house, and began shooting everybody that he could see. But the worst was that a neighbor and family friend who left the party moments before the massacre began, saw a suspicious vehicle leaving the scene as the house slowly started fuming. It was a small blue, car and it was going at a high rate of speed and the lights were out. And that chest for both my husband and I was very strange. Before the lieutenant could assess the situation, a report came in from the paramedics, nine dead and three injured, all members of the Ortega family, including an eight-year-old in critical condition after being shot in the head. As if this wasn't enough of a nightmare, another urgent call came in. Brad Pardo, a distant relative of the Ortega's who

wasn't present at the party, just reported another murder. He had gone to a Christmas party that night and gotten home really late. He opens the door and he sees something that he never expected to find on Christmas morning. A pistol on the ground, multiple bullet holes in his living room walls, and worst of all, his brother Bruce, dead in a pool of his own blood with another gun in hand. Bruce's death was caused by one shot. It was very close up with a 9mm handgun. It was all very strange.

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The next day, the lieutenant turned his attention to the neighbors, since the surviving family members were in the hospital. He wanted to know how a stranger dressed as Santa Claus could have entered the home without anybody noticing. This was when he learned about a man named Patrick, who usually wore the red suit every other year. The neighbor next door to me always played Santa for them. We'd all sit around as cousins and wait for him to call our name to give us our one present that he gave to us.

This seemed like a promising clue, but Dunin swiftly concluded it was only a red herring. We found out that neighbor had moved away. We believed there was still a suspect on the loose. But the neighbor's testimony still proved one thing. This wasn't a random act of violence. The person behind the massacre not only knew the Ortegas, but knew of their Christmas traditions as well.

We had a shooter that knew that there would be people there. They typically went until about midnight until the kids were getting tired. And he knew that the neighbor had always dressed as Santa. and come over to deliver presents to the kids. After questioning the neighbors, the lieutenant inspected the remains of the Ortega's house. The first thing he noticed was dozens of bullet casings lying around the ashes.

These were the same type of rounds found at Brad Pardo's house the night before. So Dunin left Noel Crest Drive to inspect the second crime scene himself and questioned Brad. From the looks of it, it seemed like a gunfight happened between Bruce and an unknown assailant. When asked if Bruce had any enemies, Brad denied it and began praising his brother instead. Brad continues to further describe his brother as upbeat, charismatic, easygoing. Right out of college, he gets a job at the prestigious jet propulsion laboratory, earning $122,000 a year. But Brad flinched when asked about Bruce's family life. Only a week ago, his brother finalized his divorce from his wife of three years, Sylvia Ortiz.

Although Brad mentioned that he didn't know much about it, he still informed the investigators of the connection between his brother's ex-wife and the massacre in Covina. They learned the name of his ex-wife is Sylvia Ortiz. Digging a little deeper, they discover her maiden name is Ortega. Sylvia Ortega was present at the Christmas Eve party and hasn't been located since then. As a lieutenant was about to ask about her status on his radio, another shocking call came in. Police just found the blue Dodge caliber spotted by the Orteca's neighbors the night before. And inside that car was Santa sued and hundreds if not thousands of rounds of ammunition and a flare hanging down. When they pulled the Santa suit out of the car, it had pulled the string tight on that flare and it ignited the flare.

It was a trap. As a black powder under the flare started to sparkle, every officer ran for cover. A few seconds later, the ammunition bag and the Santa suit caught on fire before the entire car exploded, along with all the evidence it contained. So not only does the car burn, but there's bullets cooking off and firing and there's black powder blowing up. No one is hurt in the blast, but the car is completely discered. So much of the evidence was lost in the fire. A lot of questions that just go completely unanswered.

The lieutenant was puzzled. Who could hate a family so much as to attack their home on Christmas Eve, then traveled 30 miles north to kill the ex-husband of one of his victims, only to finally rig his getaway vehicle in an attempt to kill the officer who would find it. It was later in the afternoon, that very same Christmas day, that Dunin finally received some good news. Katrina, the eight-year-old in critical condition after being shot in the head, miraculously survived.

The round entered to the side of her mouth. Quite frequently, when somebody shot in the head of the face, they do die, and she was lucky to survive. She actually walked away from a shot directly to her face. At this point, investigators plan to talk with Leticia Yousaf Polsky. Leticia is Katrina's mother, and she hasn't left her child's bedside since they arrived at the hospital. At first, Dunin asked her how Bruce's murder and the massacre on Nolkrest Drive could be linked,

but the frustrated young mother cut him off immediately. According to her, the police got it all wrong. Not only was Bruce present at the party, but he was also the one wearing the Santa Claus suit. This startling revelation opens the door to many new questions for investigators. I saw him two days before Christmas. He was having dinner with his brother. We stopped buying. Merry Christmas. How are you?

Bruce Pardo had a clean record. He had no criminal history in his past. This is a college-educated, erudite guy who didn't know. necessarily fit the profile of somebody who would snap and commit a mass murder. Everybody they interviewed described Bruce as an outstanding citizen, the exact opposite of Letitia's portrayal of an evil, calculating monster. While others saw a friendly neighbor and devoted family man, Leticia insisted Bruce wasn't the victim here,

but a psychopathic killer hiding in plain sight. This monster, no, he, this is what he's done, and to carry out an act like this. So he was, I believe he was a psychopath, With most of the Ortega's gone, Lieutenant Duna never had the chance to uncover their family history. But now that 8-year-old Katrina was out of intensive care, he finally had the opportunity to talk to her mother, Leticia. She began by describing her relationship with her five brothers and sisters, all of whom were much older than her. Being the youngest of the family, you know, I always said I had five sets of parents because they all kind of always looked out for me.

From there, Leticia told officers the story of her sister Sylvia, and that, the tragedy that ended her first marriage. My sister's first husband, he died in a car accident and she was expecting their second child and she had been driving. So it was very traumatic to go through that. I was 16 at the time. Years later, Sylvia moved back to Covina to be closer to her family and was introduced to Bruce by a mutual friend.

The pair immediately clicked. Bruce seemed like a very good match for Sylvia. Not only was he a brilliant rocket scientist, but he also treated Sylvia's children as his own and was eager to become a father himself. In 2006, the pair married and moved in together. The first time that Bruce was about a month after he moved in. One of her said hello, met his family. They were very, very nice.

He seemed to be a very loving and supportive father, and she was obviously a loving and caring mother. Everything seemed fine from the outside, but only a few years after they settled in, Bruce had an accident that changed everything. He got a pretty serious knee injury, had to have surgery. and it kind of curtailed all the activities that he liked to do. He started putting on weight. Sylvia said they just didn't get along, and it was like Bruce had changed and just kind of more like a hermit.

He wasn't the fun guy that she had met and dated, and she moved out in March. The divorce ended up being finalized on December 17th. December 17, 2008, just a week before the massacre, while Leticia answered the lieutenant's questions, more family members and neighbors arrived to support her wounded daughter. Among them were Amanda and Sal, the six and 19-year-old children of Leticia's sister, Sylvia, both had miraculously escaped the inferno and were now at the same hospital. They had just learned their mother's body was found in the rubble and came to reunite with Leticia, Katrina, and what was left of their family.

But with a killer still on the loose, Dunin needed their testimonies. After everyone had a moment to compose themselves, he pulled Leticia, Sal, and the neighbor who spotted the getaway car aside for questioning. Their accounts felt almost surreal to the lieutenant. Less than an hour before Santa Claus's arrival, everything seemed cheerful at the household of 79-year-old Joseph Ortega. As customary for his favorite holiday, he and his wife were receiving their 24 children and grandchildren

to celebrate Christmas together as one big family. My grandma liked Christmas so much because he was actually able to bring the family together in one house. We just left our Christmas life on the year round. But who Joseph considered part of his family wasn't limited to his relatives, as one of the oldest residents of the neighborhood, Papa Joe, as he was affectionately nicknamed, and his wife Alice also invited everyone in their community to join the festivities. Amongst them was Teresa Hines, a friendly neighbor unrelated to the Ortegas. They loved everybody coming over, and they just enjoyed every aspect of it.

Typical Christmas Eve at the Ortegas. One of the family traditions was to play poker before midnight. As the game was coming to an end, and the clock was about to strike 12, a familiar sound suddenly interrupted them. And there's a doorbell. One of my cousins opens the door, and we see Santa with a couple of presents. It was not a surprise that Santa came to the door for anyone. It was nothing that would have made them get up from playing cards.

At about 11.30 at night, my daughter started saying that Santa was outside. You know, in the past, we had Santa come around the neighbor and bring toys. So I got up from the living room and grabbed my video camera in the dining room and the other room. Santa carried a red bag of presents on his back and a huge wrapped gift on a trolley behind him. Sal watched from afar as the man in red walked in to greet his eight-year-old cousin Katrina, who excitedly ran toward him, but instead of giving her a hug or a kiss on the cheek, Santa did the unthinkable. In one swift move, he pulled out two pistols from his pocket and shot the little girl point blank

before turning around, guns blazing. We started hearing balloons popping. I thought they were balloons. And I realized in a split second that they were not. He came in with weapons in his back and basically tried to take every single one of our lives. Everybody by this time is screaming and shouting and I don't have anything in my head but leave.

I broke through a window. I punched it with my hand. I shattered it. I jumped through it to get out of the house. It's really the number one thing I regret in my life. It's just that if I would have turned the other way, done something. My husband said, grab the kids. My daughter had received the gunshot wound to her face,

and thankfully we were able to escape, along with some of my nieces and nephews. And so those that were in the house that did not escape were either killed by the guns that he had or by the explosion. That night, I lost nine of my family members. I lost both my parents, my two brothers, my two sisters. So my two sister lost and my nephew was 17. Amidst the chaos outside, Laticia called 911 and did everything she could to get her injured daughter the medical help she desperately needed.

After the house exploded, Teresa and other neighbors let the panicked guest, who managed to escape, inside their home. There, everybody was fearfully looking for their loved ones, unaware they were the only survivors. By that time, I was already inside my neighbor's house, two houses down. I didn't see anybody, really. I was frantically calling my mom over and over and over and over and over and over again. I called my sister. She wasn't answering. As the son came down at the hospital, this grim Christmas day was coming to an end for Dunin and his officers,

but he had one more place to check. Earlier, he requested a warrant to search Bruce's house, following the discovery of his body and finally got approval. Though he was afraid the person who killed him might be out there, he still headed to the house to check Letticia's claim. He didn't find anything interesting inside, but noticed a shed in the backyard on his way out. After forcing open the door,

the lieutenant couldn't believe what he found inside. It was a treasure trove of information, the boxes from the guns, ammunition, black powder, bomb-making material. There was no doubt about it. Bruce was the killer. Dune was still waiting for the coroner's final results on not only the nine family members killed, but also Bruce's body. However, by piecing together Sal and Letitia stories and looking at the remains of the house,

the lieutenant now had enough information to draw out a rough timeline of the events. He dressed in his Santa suit, and he probably left his house about 10.45 or so, and drove to the Covina area. He knew that Sylvia's whole family would be there, and they would be there late. And he knew that the neighbor had always dressed as Santa and come over to deliver presence to the kids. He parked in the neighbor's driveway. Dunin presented his findings to his chief, who then organized a press conference. They explained how, after entering, Bruce shot Little Katrina first before turning his weapons

against everyone sitting at the poker table until he seemingly ran out of ammo. But many questions still troubled the public. What was inside the big gift box he brought over and what caused the house to burn down? Questions to which Dunin finally had answers to. The package he had appears to be a homemade pressurized device. It was a homemade flame thorough filled with jet fuel to burn the house down in a really vicious and horrible way. Bruce Pardo is a very intelligent guy, and he put a lot of thought into this plan. The one thing that he did not take into account was that there was going to be an open flame inside that house. The entire living room exploded while Bruce was inside with the bodies of the Ortegas,

but he survived and wasn't good enough shape to don new clothes and escape with his car. Concerning his injuries, the initial results of the autopsy were also shared with the public. The coroner's conclusions seemed to come straight out of a horror film. He suffered third-degree burns on both arms. It also appears that the Santa Claus suit that he was wearing did melt onto his body. Only one thing didn't sit right with the lieutenant. The evidence at Brad's house still pointed toward murder. The coroner even found over $17,000 strapped onto Bruce's body,

Hoping he could get more clues, he tasked his department with identifying every vehicle owned by Bruce, and, within the hour, was met with another alarming discovery. Police have spotted a rental vehicle under Bruce's name. It was parked in a residential area and stonked with gas tanks and a laptop. Expecting another booby trap, the lieutenant ordered a grid search of the area. After a quick canvas of the neighborhood, detectives learned that the RAV-4 was parked about 500 feet from Scott Nord's house. Scott Nord is Sylvia Ortega's divorce attorney. After the bomb squad established the car wasn't rigged,

detective searched it and found maps, clothes, food, and water. This must have been the killer getaway car. Its proximity to Scott Nord's house led Dunin to believe that Bruce's initial plan must have been to follow up the massacre at the Ortega's with another attack, this time on his ex-wife's divorce attorney. Following the breadcrumbs, the lieutenant paid a visit to the lawyer. According to Scott Nord, a secret from Bruce's past, proved to be the lynchpin in the dissolution of his marriage to Sylvia.

Nord told police that following Bruce's knee injury, Sylvia discovered he had a secret son while filling out his tax return. Nord spoke to his ex-girlfriend, who said that Bruce and she had the child together three years before he met Sylvia. One day, when that child named Matthew was 13 months old, she left him with Bruce to get groceries. When she came back, Bruce was still where she left him, having a beer in front of the TV.

But Matthew was nowhere to be found. And they went out looking for him and found him in the pool. He survived, but almost in a vegetative state. Unfortunately, it was a lifelong injury to his brain because he didn't get the oxygen, so he ended up being stuck to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Right after the incident, Bruce left the mother of his child and never looked back, abandoning both of them. The only thing linking him to the now wheelchair-bound Matthew

was the child support he had been forced to pay by social services. There was no attachment there. That kid got hurt, and he left. You can imagine that Sylvia was really scared at this point. She's got three children, and here's this man that she's married, who's essentially led a child, nearly drowned, and then takes no responsibility for what happened afterward. You know, there's this old adage that you can't live alive forever.

Living alive really caught up with Bruce. Dunin finally knew the whole truth, and when the coroner's final report came in, he also learned who killed Bruce after the massacre, following his escape from the burning house, Bruce, now fused with his Santa suit and in immense pain, gave up his plan to kill Scott Nort. Instead, he headed to Brad's house. Police concluded that he must have dropped his first pistol while entering the living room

and shot into the walls, either in frustration or because he was unable to reach his own head with his heavily burned arms. But eventually, Bruce was successful and died in his brother's home. There was one shot into the seat. We don't believe that it was ever his plan to kill himself until he was badly burned. With all the survivors in recovery, the circumstances of Bruce's death exposed and every secret revealed, Dunin closed the case within days. But, every once in a while, the lieutenant revisits the scene of the massacre, reflecting on what was narrowly avoided. Although nine people died and three almost followed, the outcome could have been much worse if Bruce's plan had unfolded exactly as he intended.

Not only did he want his ex-wife's family dead, but he was also ready to kill his own mother in the process. Pardo knew his mother had been invited to the Christmas Eve party, and he intended to kill her because he felt that she had sided with his ex-wife and their divorce. Fortunate for her, she wasn't feeling well that night and stayed home. If everything works out for the suspect, we're looking somewhere in the area of 30 people. There's no question. This is the most compelling story that I've ever been involved in. It was pure damn evil.

Following the tragedy, Bruce's evil influence loomed over the survivors for a long time. but the Ortega's wouldn't let themselves be defeated so easily, starting with Sylvia's son, Sal, who, thanks to his mother's teachings, successfully tackled his grief and carried on with his life. My mom taught me that no matter what happens, if you have faith and you just persevere and stay strong, you can always come out in the end. He tried to destroy our family, but what he didn't know was just our faith, and faith just can't be destroyed. In the days following the attack, Sal's little sister, six-year-old Amanda, was adopted by Leticia and became Katrina's sister. You actually took in one of your nieces, right?

Yes. And so not only were you dealing with your own trauma, you're dealing with your niece, your kids witnessing this. Leticia, who had always been the baby of the family until this point, now had a choice to make. Either she let herself drown in the sorrow and grief she suffered, or she pulled her head out of the water and found a way to heal herself and her family. She concluded that by seeing life in a positive light, while acknowledging and accepting what happened, she'd be setting a good example for the other survivors when the time would come for them to deal with their own trauma. Kids are so resilient. So me being an example of security and love, I needed to provide that for them.

I needed to be the example and show them that, yes, we're sad, we're hurt, but we're going to be okay. This change in mindset reminded everyone involved that living in fear and sorrow wasn't an option for the Ortegas. The only way I could stop that and have some form of control is to not allow that to still live within us in my family, in my nieces and nephews, in my children. But in addition to this incredible display of resilience, someone else came out on top. When on February 14, 2018, Nicholas Cruz opened fire on his classmates in Parkland, Florida, and took the lives of 17 of them. Katrina, now 17 years old, couldn't help but be reminded of the massacre her. her own family had gone through. During a school walkout, Katrina Yuzov Polsky read the names of the 17 victims killed

in Parkland, Florida one month ago. Nearly 10 years ago, she survived a Christmas Eve massacre when she was only eight. Yusuf Polsky was shot in the face. The teenager couldn't help but notice that one thing linked the two events, gun violence. So, she organized a walkout with her classmates to raise awareness and fight back against the terror it caused. I just knew I had to keep fighting and I knew I would live my life to the fullest for each one of my family members and everybody affected by gun violence. But her fight goes further than her own public work as a gun violence advocate.

Even at home, Katrina followed the example set by her mother and refused to let herself be brought down, especially when Christmas Eve, coinciding with the anniversary of the massacre, came around each year. She hopes to help others fighting the same battle and credits her mother's faith with shaping her perspective. Especially with Christmas time, it's been something of light now. It's something my family continues to celebrate instead of look down upon. Whether it's Leticia, Sal, Katrina, or any other survivor of the massacre, the Ortegas carry their pain forward, channeling it into determination to honor their loved ones and make the world a better place, a world the family members they lost, would be proud of. You're left here on this earth for a reason.

You're left here for a purpose, and your job is to keep fighting. Knowing what we all went through and where we're at today, my mom would be extremely proud.