Victim Was Reportedly Consoling His Slayer

A 45-year-old San Clemente man, fatally shot Sunday afternoon by a Fullerton friend who then shot herself to death, had been trying to console the woman and talk her out of suicide, police said Monday.

Police identified the victim as Gary Allen Wilcox, a San Clemente resident who with his wife were longtime friends of the woman, Barbara Rymer, 47, of 2701 Terraza Place.

The shooting occurred about 2:30 p.m. outside Rymer’s home in the spacious, tree-lined Sunny Hills neighborhood of northern Fullerton. James Groom, who lives across the street, found Wilcox lying on the sidewalk with a gunshot wound in the chest and phoned for medical help. Police said they weren’t sure at what location Wilcox had been shot, but they said they believe Rymer shot him.

Groom said that while calling for paramedics, he saw Rymer leave the house and fire three more bullets into Wilcox, killing him.

After Rymer returned to the house, Groom said, he heard another shot. Police later stormed the house and found the woman dead of a gunshot wound in the chest.

Fullerton Police Capt. Don Bankhead said Wilcox’s wife told police that Rymer had been despondent and had spoken of suicide since the August death of her husband, Thomas.

Bankhead said that the Wilcoxes had visited Rymer on Saturday to “counsel” her and that Wilcox had returned alone Sunday morning.

Police have found no motive for the shooting. No notes were found in the Rymer home, and the only weapon found was the revolver lying by Rymer’s side.

Friends and neighbors described Rymer as a soft-spoken homemaker with a distinctive drawl enduring from her native Tennessee. The couple had no children.

Groom, who said he and his wife had a “neighborly” relationship with the Rymers, recognized Wilcox as having delivered the eulogy at Thomas Rymer’s funeral. Groom said Wilcox was a Minneapolis businessman who apparently decided to spend the winter in San Clemente.

Bankhead confirmed that Wilcox had a Minnesota driver’s license and said that the Wilcoxes and Rymers had known each other while both couples lived in that state.

Groom expressed doubt that Rymer had been suicidal with grief over her husband’s death.

Thomas Rymer, president of a Fontana-based roofing business, died Aug. 9 at age 51 of cirrhosis of the liver caused by heavy drinking, according to his death certificate.

Groom said two or three times he had to take Thomas Rymer to the hospital for illnesses relating to his drinking.

“I would doubt that it is true,” he said of Rymer’s despondency over her husband’s death. “My wife had talked to her within recent weeks, and she did not appear that way. His illness had been longstanding, so the death did not come as a total surprise. She had talked about going back to Tennessee to visit her sister. I just don’t know what could have caused this to happen.”

But a Brea funeral director said Rymer may have anticipated Sunday’s tragic events. John Gettys of Memory Garden Mortuary, which arranged Thomas Rymer’s funeral, said that only last week, Rymer had made arrangements for her own funeral.

Gettys said Rymer called him two weeks ago, sounding “very positive and friendly with an elevated voice” to ask about making arrangements. Gettys said that he and Rymer met privately and talked for at least 30 minutes.

Gettys said that because he knows the amount of grief that can descend on a family member who has suffered the death of a loved one, he asked Rymer about her health and then asked directly whether she was contemplating suicide.

“She said, ‘Oh no’ in that soft Southern accent and said she was fine and that she just didn’t want to burden anybody else with this,” he said.

He said he was assured by her comments that she did not intend to commit suicide.

But he added: “Looking back now, I can see that maybe there was something going on there that just couldn’t be detected.”