COVINA - A woman claiming to be the former girlfriend and long-time friend of a man who opened fire at his ex-wife’s Christmas party and then burned the house down said his mother lost her home in the recent Southern California wildfires.
Carol Sanchez, of Glendora, said she knew Bruce Jeffrey Pardo when he graduated from Sun Valley’s Polytechnic High School.
She said he was an outstanding student who graduated a year early, then went on the California State University at Northridge, where he continued to excel as a student.
“I would never picture in my mind that he would do something like this,” she said. “He was a very good guy. He would give you the shirt off his back and I just don’t know what happened.”
People who knew Pardo said he had just gone through a bitter divorce and settled with his ex-wife for $10,000.
His mother lost her home in the November Sayre fire that destroyed almost 500 mobile homes at Oakridge mobile home park in Sylmar, Sanchez said.
A woman claiming to be an official from Oakridge confirmed Pardo’s mother lost her home in the Sayre fire.
From April 2005 to July of this year, Pardo worked as a software engineer in the electronics systems division of ITT Defense and Electronic Services in Van Nuys, said David Albritton, the company’s vice president of communication. He said he could not comment on why Pardo left the company, but said Pardo was a Van Nuys division.
Pardo’s attorney, Stanley Silver, said Pardo lost his job in July but did not know why.
“We’re saddened on behalf of the family,” Albritton said Friday.
In the Sylmar neighborhood where Pardo ended his life, few had anything to say about the man who was occasionally seen visiting his brother, Brad Pardo, who lived at Joseph Court and Excelsior Street.
“I feel sorry for Brad,” said Anthony Muro, who lived across the street from Pardo and his two German shepards.
Muro and others said the neighborhood is quiet and Brad Pardo was friendly, but didn’t have much to offer about either him or his brother.
Residents discovered police and yellow investigation tape on the street early Christmas morning but didn’t learn about the murder spree and suicide until seeing television news broadcasts that afternoon and evening.
“I was up until 4 a.m. on Christmas and never heard anything or saw flashing lights,” said Robert Castle, who lives up the street from Pardo.
The neighborhood has had its share of trauma, Muro noted, recalling the hillside fires, including last month’s Sayre Fire, which forced everyone to evacuate. In the early 1990s, there was a police standoff on Joseph Court that ended with a suicide.
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