Shotgun Blast May Have Killed Corona Officer; Public’s Help Requested

An off-duty Corona policewoman riding with her husband, her son and a friend in the family van on the Riverside Freeway may have been killed by a single shotgun blast instead of a pistol, as originally believed, Corona police said Sunday.

Lt. Robert J. Martin, heading the investigation into Friday night’s bizarre shooting of Officer Patricia Dwyer, 45, an eight-year veteran of the Corona Police Department, said police now believe that a piece of a projectile taken from a second victim injured in the attack, Wendy Varga, “came from a shotgun and not a handgun.” Varga was sitting behind Mrs. Dwyer in the van.

No suspect has been identified, Martin said.

Despite police roadblocks Saturday night at three freeway off-ramps, few leads were turned up and no witnesses found, police said.

“We were lucky enough to find people who had taken the same route about the same time a day earlier, but we did not receive any new information,” Martin said.

Two investigators were requesting information from the state Department of Motor Vehicles in Sacramento, using a partial license number taken from the assailant’s car.

Police are hopeful that DMV records will identify a suspect but, Martin said, “it’s a very lengthy process.”

The funeral for Mrs. Dwyer, Corona’s first woman police officer, is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona. A police procession will follow to Crestlawn Cemetery in Riverside.

Police said that only one round was fired at the Dwyer van by a motorist who had made obscene gestures as the Dwyers traveled east on the 91 Freeway near Corona’s West Grand Boulevard off-ramp. The incident occurred about 11:10 p.m.

Before the shooting, the Dwyers, of Woodcrest, a small Riverside County community 12 miles east of Corona, were taking an injured son from Orange County to a Corona hospital.

Mrs. Dwyer’s husband, Michael, had blinked his high beams as the attacker’s car slowed in the fast lane. The assailant made obscene gestures, then followed the van for a short distance, police said.

Michael Dwyer told police that the assailant got off the freeway at Main Street in Corona and, as the van continued eastward, fired one shot.

Martin said the blast penetrated the passenger’s door and passed through Mrs. Dwyer’s upper body and hit Varga, 21, a family friend.

Varga was reported in stable condition Sunday at Corona Community Hospital.

Police are scheduled to hold a news conference at 11 a.m. today to encourage the public’s help in finding the gunman or his car.

When told about the scheduled news conference, Michael Dwyer said: “That’s good. That’s what it’s going to take to catch him.”

Police are searching for a man described as about 35 years old with a mustache and glasses.

Police issued a revised description of his car: a white or light tan late-model, full-size, domestic four-door sedan with blue-on-white California license plates.

Police said they have a partial license number. The first two digits are unknown; they are followed by “BS0,” which is followed by two other letters or numerals, police said.

The Dwyers were returning from the Speedway Motorcycle Races at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, where their son, Mark Dwyer, 24, was injured in a race. They were taking their son to be examined at County General Hospital in Riverside.

The son was reported in satisfactory condition Sunday.

The couple have two other children, both girls, ages 17 and 20.

The family suggests that expressions of sympathy take the form of contributions to the Corona Police Officers’ Assn. Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 518, Corona 91720.