His employment had ended.
And people close to the investigation believed Pardo resented the way the divorce had unfolded.
Whatever combination existed in his mind, he had already decided violence was an acceptable response.
And by December 18, much of what he needed was ready.
The Escape Plan
The attack was not designed as a suicide mission from the beginning.
That is another crucial detail.
Evidence indicated Pardo had planned to survive.
He had cash.
A large amount.
About $17,000.
Some of it was physically attached to his body beneath his clothing.
He had travel plans.
He bought a round-trip ticket to Moline, Illinois, near the Iowa home of an old friend.
He told the friend he would visit around Christmas.
Investigators were never entirely certain whether he genuinely intended to take that flight or whether it was meant as misdirection or a backup plan.
He also rented two vehicles.
One was a blue Dodge.
The other was a silver Toyota.
The Toyota was packed with supplies, including maps, food, water, clothing and computers.
On Christmas Eve, investigators determined, Pardo parked that Toyota near the Glendale home of Sylvia's divorce attorney.
Police later theorized that the attorney and his family may have been additional intended targets.
Investigators also said they believed Pardo intended to kill his own mother, with whom he had experienced a falling out after she sided with Sylvia during the divorce.
His mother had been invited to the Ortega Christmas party.
She did not attend because she was ill.
That decision may have saved her life.
The emerging picture was not simply:
Kill Sylvia.
It was larger.
Police believed Pardo's grievance had spread outward to people he saw as aligned against him.
The Ortega family.
Possibly his mother.
Possibly the attorney.
The exact full scope of his intended plan can never be known because Pardo did not survive to explain it.
But the physical preparations showed that the Covina attack was one part of a broader escape strategy.
Then the fire changed everything.
Christmas Eve
On December 24, Pardo behaved normally enough that people around him still did not recognize what was coming.
At around 6 p.m., he spoke with the Iowa friend he had told he intended to visit.
The conversation did not reveal a massacre was hours away.
Later that evening, a neighbor saw Pardo leaving.
Pardo said he was going to a Christmas party.
Technically, he was telling the truth.
He simply did not say what he intended to do when he arrived.
The neighbor noticed something unusual.
Pardo left his own vehicles at home.
He climbed into the rented blue Dodge.
That vehicle would take him to Covina.
At around the same time, Pardo was expected elsewhere.
He had been scheduled to serve as an usher during midnight Mass at his church.
He never appeared.
Instead, shortly before midnight, the blue Dodge approached the Ortega home.
The family was inside.
His ex-wife was there.
Her parents were there.
Her siblings were there.
Children were there.
Pardo put on the Santa costume.
Underneath it were dark clothes.
He carried multiple guns.
He had cash hidden against his body.
And with him was the disguised fuel equipment.
The planning was now finished.
All that remained was execution.
He walked to the door.
Knocked.
An eight-year-old girl answered.
"Santa Claus."
Then gunfire.
A Family Tries to Escape
The opening shot wounded the child.
Then Pardo moved inside.
The house was not prepared for an armed attack.
There were no tactical positions.
No one had time to understand where every child was.
Adults simply reacted.
Get down.
Run.
Hide.
Move the children.
James and Charles were hit.
They attempted to keep fighting.
Others rushed toward the rear.
The older Ortegas and several adult daughters took cover around the dining room.
Leticia was among those trying to survive.
Then she saw her wounded daughter.
Maternal instinct overtook everything else.
She moved.
She followed.
She got outside.
She called police.
Her voice on the 911 recording captured something no later reconstruction can recreate.
The case had not yet become history.
No one knew nine people would die.
No one knew Pardo would kill himself.
No one knew about the second rental vehicle.
No one knew about the months of weapons purchases.
There was just a woman telling a dispatcher that her daughter had been shot.
And identifying the man doing it.
Bruce Pardo.
Some relatives grabbed children.
Others ran toward the back.
The younger people who had been playing or watching television away from the front entrance had a head start.
They were farther from Pardo.
That small difference in geography mattered.
A few yards inside a house can decide who reaches an exit.
People climbed into neighboring yards.
Some escaped over a wall.
One young woman was injured after jumping to safety.
The scene outside was becoming chaotic.
Wounded survivors.
Children.
Neighbors.
Calls to 911.
And then fire.
Pardo's Second Weapon
The guns could kill individuals.
The fire could destroy the entire house.
Pardo began releasing racing fuel inside.
The system he had brought allowed him to spread fuel much faster than someone carrying an ordinary container.
Police believed he intended to ignite it himself.
Instead, the fuel vapor appears to have encountered existing flames inside the home.
The result was violent.
An explosion.
Fire.
And Pardo himself was caught in it.
The Santa suit, designed partly to conceal him and his weapons, began melting.
His arms were burned.
His hands.
The back of his neck.
His legs.
Second- and third-degree burns.
His escape plan had not accounted for that.
That matters because almost everything he did afterward appears to have been shaped by those injuries.
Before entering the Ortega home, he had money.
Vehicles.
A plane ticket.
Supplies.
Possible additional targets.
A route out.
After the explosion, he was badly burned and carrying the physical evidence of the attack on his own body.
Walking through an airport wearing severe burns would attract immediate attention.
Driving long distances while his clothing was melted against his skin would be extremely difficult.
His plan was collapsing.
But he was still alive.
And he was still armed.
Forty Miles
Pardo left Covina.
Behind him, the Ortega home burned.
Ahead of him, police did not yet know where he was going.
He drove roughly forty miles toward Sylmar.
His younger brother Brad lived there.
That is where Pardo went.
Why his brother's home?
Perhaps he believed it offered temporary safety.
Perhaps it was simply somewhere familiar.
Perhaps by then he had already decided he would not escape.
We cannot know for certain.
Pardo left no complete final account of his thinking.