A Christmas Tragedy: The Tale of Bruce Pardo and The Covina Massacre
On Christmas Eve 2008, a house in Covina, California became the scene of horrific violence when 45-year-old Bruce Pardo murdered his ex-wife and eight of her relatives in a senseless act
Background
For many, Christmas Eve is a time of celebratory anticipation, a time for joy, warmth, and gathering with family and loved ones. But for one family in the Los Angeles suburb of Covina, California, Christmas Eve in 2008 became a hellish nightmare as a deranged man dressed in a Santa suit viciously attacked his ex-wife and her family during a holiday party. When the gunsmoke cleared, nine people lay dead with several others wounded. This cold-blooded crime came to be known as the Covina Massacre.
Bruce Pardo
Bruce Jeffrey Pardo was born on March 23rd, 1963, in Los Angeles, California. His father was an engineer, and Bruce demonstrated his intelligence from an early age. After graduating from John H. Francis Polytechnic High School, Bruce went on to pursue an engineering degree, following in his father’s footsteps.
He graduated from California State University, Northridge, with a degree in computer science and quickly landed a job as a software engineer at California’s esteemed Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In addition to his intelligence, Bruce was very sociable and outgoing. A charismatic young man, Bruce was known for his wit, charm, and humor. At his college graduation, Bruce walked across the stage carrying an inflatable doll simply because he thought it would be funny and make people laugh.
Those who knew him in his younger years remembered his extroverted personality and his razor-sharp mind. Bruce was skilled enough to hack into JPL’s systems to snoop on his coworker’s salaries. By all accounts, Bruce Pardo was a promising young man well on his way to a happy and successful life, but that promise was not to be.
Failed Relationships
Sometime in the 1980s, Pardo met a woman named Delia. The two were later engaged and were planning their wedding. Despite Pardo’s successful career working at JPL, he was perfectly content to allow his fiancée to drain her savings to pay for the wedding. In fact, Delia financed the entire wedding herself, with no help from Pardo.
The wedding was set for June 1989. When the day finally came, Delia went to the altar alone. Pardo did not show up for the ceremony, and nobody was able to contact or locate him. A few weeks later, Pardo reappeared.
He had taken Delia’s last $3000 in savings and used it to fund a solo vacation to Palm Beach. Naturally, that was the end of Pardo’s relationship with Delia, who now wanted nothing to do with him.
Pardo later met a woman named Elena Lucano in the early 2000s, and the two would have an on-again, off-again relationship. Pardo and Elena had a son together, and for a while, their relationship seemed to be more stable than it had previously been.
Then, when their child was only a toddler, tragedy struck. While Pardo was home and watching television, their young son fell into the pool and drowned. Paramedics responded, and the child was rushed to the hospital, where he remained for several days.
Remarkably, the boy survived the incident. Upon returning home from the hospital, Pardo seemed to fawn over his son and show genuine concern for his well-being. Then, the family received devastating news: as a result of the oxygen deprivation to his brain, their son had suffered extensive and irreversible brain damage, rendering him unable to care for himself or lead a normal life.
After hearing this, Pardo became an absent father. He abandoned his son and partner, leaving Elena to care for a severely disabled child on her own. Elena pushed for child support, but Pardo continually avoided paying her.
Marriage to Sylvia Ortega
In 2004, Pardo met a woman named Sylvia Ortega. Sylvia had previously been married twice; her first husband had passed away in a car accident, and her second marriage had ended in divorce. From these previous marriages, Sylvia had three children, including a young daughter.
In 2006, Pardo and Ortega were married. Shortly after the marriage, the constant fighting began. The arguments were almost always rooted in money-related issues. Pardo wanted to keep his finances completely separate from Sylvia’s, and he wanted to maintain a private bank account that only he could access.
Sylvia pushed back against Pardo’s demands for separate accounts. Amidst their ongoing financial arguments, Sylvia uncovered a shocking secret. She learned that Pardo had a child from a previous relationship that he’d so far kept hidden from her.
She also learned that the child had suffered brain damage after an accident, and that Pardo had been dodging his child support while continuing to claim the child as a dependent on his taxes to earn the tax benefits. She learned this through Pardo’s mother, who had grown increasingly frustrated by her son’s irresponsible behavior.
Separation and Divorce
After discovering Pardo’s deception and blatant disregard for his own child, Sylvia decided she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with him. In March of 2008, Sylvia and Pardo separated. Sylvia asked if she could stay for a couple more months until her daughter finished the school year. Pardo agreed, but then one day, while she was out of the house, he threw out all her belongings.
Pardo was ordered to pay spousal support, but he either dodged the payments or wrote checks that later bounced. Then, on December 18th, a judge officially finalized the divorce. Pardo was allowed to keep the home, but he was ordered to pay Sylvia an additional $10,000 on top of the spousal support payments.
Sylvia was finally officially free of Pardo, and she was preparing to gather with her family for the holidays and celebrate her newfound freedom with her close friends. But before she would get the chance, the lives of Sylvia and her family would be ripped apart.
The Covina Massacre
On December 24th, 2008, Sylvia Ortega and her family gathered for their annual Christmas Eve festivities at her parents’ home in the Los Angeles suburb of Covina. The Ortega family was a lively and loving bunch, with neighbors describing them as the sweetest people who treated everyone they knew like family. Around 25 people gathered that night to celebrate Christmas together, but their celebration would quickly turn into a nightmare.