4 Die in Redondo Beach : Police Seek Motive in Murder-Suicide

Police were seeking a motive Saturday in the shooting deaths of four people at a Redondo Beach home and recording studio, about six hours after a wounded woman called the 911 emergency line.

At least two of the victims were rock musicians.

The 26-year-old woman, identified by the coroner’s office as Gloria Padilla, was the lead singer in the local band, “Rage,” neighbors said. She had lived in the house, in the 1900 block of Speyer Lane, for at least two years, they said. Coroner’s spokesman Phillip Spada said the woman also used the last name Vigil.

The owner of the one-story wooden structure in a working-class section was identified by police as Phillip Randall Bleuer, 25. Bleuer rented the basement studio to bands and also wrote songs, neighbors said. Bleuer had previously played lead guitar in bands, they said.

Police said they believe the killings were a murder-suicide, but details were not released pending a coroner’s autopsy.

Besides Bleuer and Padilla, the victims were identified as Eugene Ibanez, 33, and Ricky Dean Byrd, 28, of Manhattan Beach.

Redondo Beach Police Lt. Tom Doty gave this account of the killings:

Padilla dialed 911 about 1:15 p.m. Friday and told a dispatcher she had been shot in the head. She then dropped the telephone, keeping the line open. An angry man’s voice could be heard in the background.

The phone was not replaced on the hook until about 7 p.m., when police who had barricaded the house fired tear gas, and a SWAT team went inside.

Officers arrived at the house about four minutes after the woman’s call. They saw a heavyset man in a blue shirt at the front window, who then turned and went farther inside the house.

Police made repeated announcements asking occupants to leave the house but got no response.

During the time the phone line was open, police could hear a TV set tuned to a police movie. The volume rose and fell, and the channel was occasionally switched to news shows.

About 35 officers from Redondo Beach, El Segundo, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach were sent to the scene.

When SWAT team members entered, they found Padilla’s body next to a bedroom phone. Byrd’s body was in a hallway, with a .25-caliber automatic handgun nearby. Bleuer’s body was in the studio, which is soundproofed. Ibanez’s body was on the stairway. He had left his keys in his pickup truck in the driveway.

Doty said “a few grams” of cocaine and $840 in cash were found in the living room on the main level.