ETA: Found.

Grey 1999 Toyota RAV 4
California license plate 5RY0562

Rented by Bruce Jeffrey Pardo from a Pasadena agency on Dec. 19. He’s the guy who dressed up as Santa and murdered nine people on Christmas Eve. In the days between the rental and the murders, he could have driven it anywhere. He had plans to flee; a plane ticket and $17,000 were found on his body. Despite earlier reports that he meant to go to Canada, the plane ticket was for Moline, Illinois, with a stopover in Minnesota, so the car could be in the midwest. Or it could still be waiting somewhere near LA.

For God’s sake, if you spot it, do NOT touch it. Call the cops. Despite third-degree burns on his hands and arms, Pardo booby-trapped his other rental car to explode when it was found. And the explosion would have been vicious: Pardo wired the suit so when it was lifted it “would pull a trip wire or a switch, ignite a flare inside the car that would then ignite black powder and he had several hundred rounds of handgun ammunition inside the car.” I’d bet that this one is booby-trapped, too.

Bruce Jeffrey Pardo dressed up like Santa, went to the home of his ex-wife Sylvia and her parents, and murdered nine people, as well as shooting two girls who survived the assault. Another woman was injured when she jumped from a second-story window. The massacre left 15 children without one or both parents.

He also sprayed the house with racing fuel; it went up like a bomb, leaving him too badly burned to continue with his planned flight with the cash. Instead, he went to his brother’s house and shot himself.

Pardo’s mother is understandably devastated; she’d already lost her home last month in the Sylmar fire, and now this. She is planning to make sure anything left of her son’s estate will go to her former daughter-in-law’s children by a previous marriage. And one of the surviving members of Sylvia’s family has already reassured her that she is still loved and welcomed — an astonishing act of love and forgiveness.

Pardo may have felt guilty over the accident that left his own son a paraplegic. While Pardo was supposed to be watching his son, the boy crawled outside and fell into the pool. His injuries left him permanently brain-damaged.

Of course, Pardo may *not* have felt guilty. He may simply have repudiated anything that was imperfect. And maybe the toddler didn’t crawl outside. Maybe Pardo threw him into the pool. Nobody will ever know, now.

Pardo abandoned the child, broke up with the girlfriend, and refused to support the boy after the brain damage was discovered. His ex-girlfriend, faced with enormous medical bills, sued him and won — Pardo’s homeowner’s policy paid the money, which did not nearly cover the medical bills or the boy’s ongoing care. OTOH, he went on claiming the child as a dependent on his taxes.

Pardo never told his wife that he had a child, much less the story of the near-drowning, or that he was still using the boy as a tax write-off. After Sylvia discovered the secret, the marriage was doomed.

What is certain is that Pardo planned to start over somewhere with at least $17,000. He could just have fled with the cash. Instead, he chose to annihilate his ex-in-laws, who by all accounts seem to have been an unusually close and loving family.

Pardo was not stupid. He was a successful electrical engineer; his resume claimed a BS and MS and nine years of experience at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He was making $122K at ITT before he lost his job (in somewhat cloudy circumstances) last July. It was unlikely to have been a simple layoff, since he was denied unemployment benefits. Pardo may have been unravelling, but he kept up the perfect facade — went on being nice to his neighbors and ushering at Mass.

Right up until an eight-year-old girl answered his knock on the door. She joyfully welcomed Santa Claus.

Bruce Jeffrey Pardo shot her in the face.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the day the Church remembers the boys slaughtered by Herod in an attempt to destroy the newborn messiah (Matthew 2:13-18). It seems an appropriate time to remember those killed or orphaned or traumatized by Bruce Jeffrey Pardo and by other family violence.

Collect for the Feast of the Holy Innocents

We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.