Santa Gunman Was in Bitter Divorce, Lost Job

The device went off as a bomb squad worked to disarm it Thursday, but no one was hurt.

Bruce Jeffrey Pardo is seen in an undated photo provided Thursday, Dec. 25, 2008, by the Covina,...

Bruce Jeffrey Pardo is seen in an undated photo provided Thursday, Dec. 25, 2008, by the Covina, Calif. Police Department. Covina Police have identified the 45-year-old Prado as a "person of interest" after a man in a Santa suit opened fire at a party in a suburban Los Angeles home that subsequently caught fire, leaving three people dead.

(Covina Police Department/AP Photo)

Police said Pardo had no criminal record or history of violence, and neighbors and others knew him as a friendly man who walked his dog and was a volunteer usher at his parish church.

Authorities released 911 calls filled with frantic appeals for help: "My mom's house is on fire!" said a caller phoning from a neighbor's house. "He's still shooting at them!"

The fire was so intense that no bodies have been identified because of charring, but police Lt. Tim Doonan said all were Pardo's former relatives. He declined to say whether his ex-wife and her parents were among them, but said they were unaccounted for. The victims were believed to range in age from 17 to 80.

Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center spokeswoman Adelaida De La Cerda said the 8-year-old girl who was shot in the face was released from the hospital Friday. Her mother had been at the hospital and was "extremely traumatized," De La Cerda said.

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Her cousin, a 16-year-old girl brought in for observation, had superficial injuries and was released Thursday. The teenager's mother was Bruce Pardo's ex-wife, De La Cerda said. Also injured was a woman who broke her ankle when jumping from a second-story window.

David Salgado, a neighbor, said he saw the 8-year-old victim being escorted to an ambulance by four SWAT officers as fire devoured the house. He identified the owners of the home as Sylvia Pardo's parents, Joseph and Alicia Ortega.

"It was really ugly," Salgado said.

When the fire was extinguished early Thursday, officers found three charred bodies in the living room area. Investigators found five more bodies amid the ashes later in the day. Coroner's Lt. Larry Dietz said a ninth body was found Friday morning.

Police found two handguns at the home of Pardo's brother, and two more in the Covina home. All were empty.

A search of Pardo's own home in Montrose, a suburb northeast of Los Angeles, turned up racing fuel, five empty boxes for high-powered semiautomatic handguns and two high-powered shotguns.

The police chief said Pardo had no military experience, and in a resume he claimed to have a bachelor's and master's degree in electrical engineering.