Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas...Massacre?

December 24, 2008

It started out like every Christmas Eve that happened years prior…

Alicia Ortega and her Husband Joseph “Papa Joe” Ortega invited their adult children, their grandchildren, and other extended families to their home for the festivities.

Alicia and Papa Joe Ortega / Image: LATimes.com

After dinner ended, the adults decided to play a game of Texas Hold’em while the children went to the back of the house and played video games. Around 11:30 pm, as the night was starting to wind down, there was a knock at the front door. 8-year-old Katrina Yuzefpolsky opened the door, only to be greeted by her uncle, Bruce Pardo, dressed up as Santa Claus holding gifts in his hands. Katrina was understandably excited; it was Christmas Eve, and Santa had just shown up at the door with gifts, but her excitement was cut short when she was shot in the face and fell to the floor.

Bruce Pardo / Image: Wikipedia

Hiding in the gifts, were a homemade flamethrower on a trolley, and two 9mm semi-automatic handguns. Bruce was here to cause havoc. Alicia and Papa Joe were Bruce’s Ex-Mother and Ex-Father in law, from a marriage that lasted just a little over a year. The divorce had been settled the prior week, and Bruce owed his Ex-wife, Sylvia Ortega Pardo, $10,000 USD in the settlement. She also got to keep the dog and the engagement ring. It’s speculated this is what caused his rage, as he argued to the courts Sylvia was living with her parents, not paying rent, partied in Vegas, had a luxury car, and just overall spent money on frivolous items; he didn’t believe she deserved the money or the ring.

After shooting his niece, he began to shower the room filled with guests, with bullets from his 9mm.

James Ortega and his brother Charles were the next to be shot, and as Charles was attacked, he shouted “It’s Bruce!” followed by “Run! Run!” before falling to the floor. Papa Joe, Alicia, and their daughters Leticia, Sylvia, Alicia Ortiz, and their daughter-in-law Teresa attempted to hide under the tables. Despite being shot, both James and Charles tried fighting the guns away from Bruce.

Irma Chapa Ortega, a cousin to the adult Ortega children, who had been visiting from Torreon, Mexico, said James and Charles struggled to get up even after they were wounded.

“Even bloodied, they got up, they stood up,” she said. “They tried to grab him, to stop him. But they couldn’t.”

— Irma Chapa Ortega

The Ortega Family / Image: Los Angeles Daily News

Bruce then shot those who were hiding under the dining table, execution-style, with two more handguns he had in his possession.

Many of the adults who figured out what was happening were able to run to the part of the house where the children were, grabbed them, and escaped through the back of the house. As the guests were scrambling out of the house, Bruce unwrapped the package containing the homemade flamethrower and used it to spray racing fuel gasoline to set the home ablaze.

With the number of people in the house and the wall of flames coming from the house, there were multiple 911 calls coming in to report the massacre that had just taken place. The only one of the adult Ortega children to survive was Leticia, the mother of the wounded 8-year-old girl, who called 911 and told the dispatcher,

“I heard the shots. Everyone started panicking and running, and we all dove under the dining room table.”

— Leticia Ortega Yuzefpolsky

Leticia Ortega Yuzefpolsky / Image: Huffpost.com

The fire caused by the flamethrower caused an explosion with flames soaring up to approximately 40 to 50 feet, and took 80 firefighters an hour-and-a-half to extinguish. The majority of the children, with the exception of Katrina and 17-year-old Michael Ortiz, were able to escape unharmed. The investigators believe this was likely due to the fact the children were all at the back of the home away from the initial gunfire and quick-moving parents who were able to pull them out before the fire erupted. There were three people who were wounded who were able to survive the attack and make a full recovery; 8-year-old Katrina to which the bullet struck along the side of her jaw, a 16-year old girl who was shot in the back while running away from the wall of bullets, and a 20-year-old who had been upstairs when the commotion happened and broke her ankle jumping out of the 2nd story window.

Image: InsideSoCal.com

Due to the intensity of the fire, the identification of the victims was done with dental and medical records. Nine people in total would die, including Alicia & Joe Ortega, their two sons James and Charles, two of their daughters Alicia and Sylvia, Alicia’s son Michael (who was upstairs playing on a computer during the attack, and is believed to be killed in the explosion), and the daughter in law's Cheri and Teresa (Charles’ and James’ wives).

Image: LATimes.com

Bruce was also injured during the attack. When the house exploded, he suffered from second and third-degree burns on his arms. The burns were so bad, pieces of his polyester Santa suit melted into his skin. He ripped his suit off, put on his street clothes, and drove his rental car to his brother's house in Sylmar, which is about 30-40 miles away from the Ortega home. At the home, he would commit suicide by putting a gun to his mouth. Fortunately, his brother wasn’t home at the time of Bruce’s death.

The body of Bruce Pardo, removed from his brother’s home in Sylmar / Image: Oxygen.com

Bruce originally had a getaway plan, as an airline ticket from Los Angeles to Illinois (with a layover in Minnesota) was found. Bruce had called an old high school friend a few days before and said that he was planning to visit but investigators were unsure if he actually planned to visit or if the flight was to throw off investigators.

But because he was suffering from the burns, and was unable to rip off parts of the Santa suit, it’s believed he decided not to go through with the plan. Police found $17,000 in cash cling-wrapped to his legs inside of a girdle, and his rental car had been parked a block from his brother's house. The car had been rigged with remnants of his Santa suit that would detonate with black powder if removed. At his brother’s home, they found four handguns that were empty and at least 200 rounds of ammunition. A bomb squad fired an incendiary device into his car, burning and destroying it. Back at his Montrose, California home, police had recovered five empty boxes for semiautomatic handguns, a Benelli M2 Tactical shotgun, and a container for high-octane fuel tank gasoline. They also found what was described as a "virtual bomb factory" in his home.

Image: In Touch Weekly

12 years later, Leticia and Katrina Yuzefpolsky, work to maintain the tight-knit family’s traditions and happier memories. The remaining family meets for dinner, exchanges gifts, and share memories they have of the family they lost. Instead of attending church on Christmas eve, they visit the cemetery where their family is buried. One nephew, who lost both his parents in the massacre, became the guardian of his three younger siblings. Leticia and her husband took in her sister’s youngest daughter. She worked to save Christmas for the surviving children, telling them that wasn’t the real Santa. The kids were later sent to a camp that helps with grief and trauma.

Los Angeles Daily News

“Everywhere you turn there are memories of what we used to have, and then memories of that night. You can’t escape it,” Leticia says. “Christmas will always be there, and we continue to celebrate it.” Although the active investigation wrapped up almost ten years ago, the detectives who assisted in the investigation continue to keep in touch with the surviving family, especially around Christmas.