On Christmas Eve, a little girl opened the door for Santa. Seconds later, her entire family was fighting to survive.
Christmas Eve is supposed to be one of the easiest nights to remember for good reasons.
A familiar house.
Family members arriving throughout the evening.
Children moving from room to room.
Food covering the tables.
Cards being shuffled.
Christmas decorations glowing outside.
Relatives who may not have seen one another for months finally sitting together again.
For the Ortega family of Covina, California, Christmas Eve had become exactly that kind of tradition.
The home of Joseph and Alicia Ortega sat at the end of a quiet residential cul-de-sac.
It was not an isolated house.
It was not hidden somewhere in the desert.
It was part of an ordinary Southern California neighborhood.
And on December 24, 2008, it was full of family.
Joseph Ortega, the patriarch everyone knew as Papa Joe, was there.
His wife of more than half a century, Alicia, was there.
Their adult children were there.
Spouses were there.
Grandchildren were there.
Some of the adults had spent the late part of the evening playing Texas Hold 'Em after Christmas dinner.
Younger relatives were hanging out toward the rear of the house, watching television or playing video games.
Upstairs, 17-year-old Michael Ortiz was using a computer.
The party was beginning to wind down.
People were preparing to say goodnight.
Nothing about the scene suggested that the Ortega family was only minutes away from one of the deadliest family massacres in Los Angeles County history.
Then came a knock at the front door.
It was close to 11:30 p.m.
An eight-year-old girl heard it.
She went toward the door.
And when she saw who was standing outside, she reacted exactly the way a child might react on Christmas Eve.
"Santa Claus! Santa Claus!"
The man standing on the porch was wearing a custom-made Santa costume.
Red suit.
Boot covers.
Belt.
Gloves.
Glasses.
A beard.
To a child, at first glance, he looked like the person children are conditioned to welcome into their homes every Christmas.
But the man behind the beard was 45-year-old Bruce Jeffrey Pardo.
And under the costume, he was carrying multiple semiautomatic handguns.
Beside him was what appeared to be a large Christmas present.
It was not a present.
It concealed equipment associated with the attack he had spent months preparing.
The eight-year-old girl opened the door.
Pardo shot her in the face.
And Christmas Eve became a massacre.
The First Seconds
There was almost no warning.
No argument at the door.
No confrontation in the driveway.
No demand that his former wife come outside.
Pardo entered firing.
Inside, family members who only seconds earlier had been relaxing after dinner suddenly heard gunshots.
Some ran.
Some dropped to the floor.
Some tried to protect children.
Two of Sylvia's brothers, James and Charles Ortega, were wounded early in the attack.
Family accounts later said they still attempted to get up and confront Pardo.
They were injured.
They were bleeding.
And they apparently tried to stop him anyway.
But Pardo kept shooting.
The older members of the family and several of their adult children tried to find cover.
Joseph and Alicia Ortega moved beneath or around the dining room table with family members including daughters Sylvia and Alicia.
Teresa Ortega was also there.
But furniture provides very little protection against a determined gunman firing inside a house at close range.
Someone screamed for people to run.
And suddenly the family split into two groups.
Those who could escape.
And those who could not.
Toward the back of the house, adults grabbed children and moved them away from the gunfire.
The fact that many of the younger children had been gathered farther from the front entrance may have saved their lives.
Some were taken toward the rear.
Others crossed into neighboring property.
The family was no longer thinking about Christmas.
No one was thinking about presents.
No one was thinking about poker.
Their entire world had been reduced to seconds.
Find a door.
Find a window.
Get the children outside.
Keep moving.
Do not let him see you.
Survive.
The little girl who had opened the front door had been struck along the side of her face.
Remarkably, she was still alive.
Her mother, Leticia, saw her wounded daughter trying to get away.
Leticia broke from the hiding place and went after her.
A 911 call was made.
The first emergency call from the Covina home was logged at approximately 11:27 p.m.
The dispatcher needed information.
What was happening?
Was the shooter still there?
How many people were wounded?
Did the caller know who he was?
The answer to the last question came quickly.
This was not a mystery gunman.
The surviving relatives knew him.
"His name is Bruce Pardo."
The name immediately gave police something extraordinarily important.
Identity.
While officers were still racing toward the house, the family already knew who was behind the Santa beard.
Pardo was Sylvia's recently divorced husband.
And their marriage had legally ended only days earlier.
The House Begins to Burn
If Pardo had simply intended to shoot people and flee, what happened next would already have been horrific.
But the guns were only one part of his plan.
The large object he had brought with him disguised as a Christmas package contained a pressurized fuel system.
Investigators later determined that Pardo had brought high-octane racing fuel and equipment intended to spread it rapidly through the home.
After firing at family members, he began distributing fuel inside the house.
Police believed he intended to ignite it deliberately.
Instead, investigators later concluded that flames already burning in fireplaces inside the home ignited the fuel vapors.
There was an explosion.
And the house began burning intensely.
The blast changed the attack again.
Until that point, survivors were trying to escape gunfire.
Now they were trying to escape fire.
Smoke began spreading.
Flames consumed rooms.
People who had hidden now had to move.
The house that had protected generations of family memories was becoming a furnace.
Pardo himself was caught in the fire he had created.
He suffered severe burns to his arms, hands, neck and legs.
Parts of the Santa costume melted against his body.
His carefully planned disguise became another source of injury.
But he still managed to leave.
Outside, the neighborhood was beginning to understand that something catastrophic was happening.
Sirens were coming.
Family members were scattered.
The wounded needed help.
And the Ortega home was engulfed in flames.
A neighbor later reported seeing a blue vehicle drive away without headlights.
In the front yard, pieces of Pardo's disguise had been left behind, including Santa accessories.
When firefighters arrived, their immediate challenge was enormous.
The house was burning so fiercely that rescue and recovery were extremely difficult.
Police knew there had been shooting.
They knew the suspect had fled.
They did not yet know exactly how many people remained inside.
They did not know how many were dead.
And they did not know whether Bruce Pardo was heading toward another target.
That final question became increasingly important.
Because investigators would eventually discover that Covina may not have been the only stop Pardo had planned that night.
Nine Members of One Family
As the fire was brought under control and investigators entered what remained of the house, the scale of the killing became clearer.
Nine members of the Ortega family died.
Sylvia Pardo was 43.
Her father, Joseph Ortega, was 80.
Her mother, Alicia Ortega, was 70.
Her brother James Ortega was 52.
James' wife, Teresa, was 51.
Her brother Charles Ortega was 50.
Charles' wife, Cheri, was 45.
Her sister Alicia Ortiz was 46.
And Alicia's son Michael Ortiz was 17.
The coroner later identified all nine. Some had suffered gunshot wounds, others thermal injuries and smoke inhalation; because of the severe condition of the remains, officials said it was difficult to designate a single primary cause of death for each victim. Michael, according to family and law-enforcement accounts, appeared to have died in the fire or explosion rather than from gunfire.
Three other people were seriously hurt.
The eight-year-old girl survived the gunshot wound to her face.
A 16-year-old girl was shot in the back and survived.