Rampage in N. California Leaves 5 Dead

Authorities launched a statewide hunt for a hot-tempered, jealous winery worker with a love for guns Friday after a violent rampage that left his wife and four other people dead in the Sonoma County wine country.

Law officers said Ramon Salcido, 27, apparently fled with his three small daughters after the killings.

Despite roadblocks and a search aided by helicopters, Salcido was still at large Friday night. Authorities said they were worried that his daughters, believed ages 2, 3 and 4, could be harmed.

Sonoma County Sheriff’s officers said Salcido left behind this toll of victims: his wife, Angelia, 24, shot at their home in this small community; Angelia’s mother, Marian Louise Richards, 47, bludgeoned and slashed at her home in Cotati, several miles away; Richards’ younger daughters, Ruth, 12, and Maria, 8, bludgeoned or hacked elsewhere in the house, and Tracy Toovey, an assistant wine maker at the Grand Cru Vineyards in Glen Ellen, where Salcido was employed.

Toovey was found sprawled half out of his sports car on a winery access road. Sonoma County Sheriff-Coroner Dick Michaelsen said he was killed by “multiple gunshots.”

The two young girls, Salcido’s sisters-in-law, had been sodomized and otherwise sexually attacked, Michaelsen said at a late afternoon news conference. He said one of the children had nearly been decapitated.

Neighbor Roy Curtis said Richards taught her two young daughters at home, rather than sending them to the nearby elementary school.

“She didn’t like what was going on in society,” Curtis said. “She didn’t like the drugs and what was being taught.”

He said, she also did not let them play outside much, and thus they were home when the attacker struck.

“It was one of the most horrible, vicious crimes we have seen, and we are gravely concerned about (Salcido’s) daughters . . .,” Michaelsen said.

The grim discoveries were made after ranch worker Kenneth Butti, 33, called the 911 emergency number early Friday morning to report that he had been shot in the right shoulder by Salcido outside a house a mile or so from the winery.

Butti was treated at a hospital and released.

Officials said Salcido, who was described by his Boyes Hot Springs neighbors as jealous, short-tempered and rarely without a gun, had been served Tuesday with papers ordering him to pay a former wife in Fresno $511 a month to support a young daughter by that marriage.

Also, he was ordered to repay Fresno County more than $5,800 in public assistance apparently paid to the ex-wife, Debra Ann, after he failed to provide support for their child.

Bill Repetto, a next-door neighbor, said Salcido normally was friendly and waved to him, but on Thursday afternoon, Salcido simply glowered and “the look on his face was like rage.”

Repetto said although Salcido generally seemed to be “a pretty gentle human being,” he drove the winery truck back and forth to the Salcido home several times on Tuesday as though checking up on his blonde, attractive wife, Angelia.

“He was a very jealous guy,” said another neighbor, Brian Settles.

But Curtis, the neighbor of Salcido’s in-laws in Cotati, said Salcido’s jealousy was groundless.

“Angelia wasn’t that kind of a girl,” he said. “She was too busy all the time with those three little kids.”

Richard Clark, one of Salcido’s neighbors in Boyes Hot Springs, said the winery forklift driver was a heavy drinker with an explosive temper and a large collection of guns. He said Salcido had threatened loudly to kill his in-laws.

“I knew he was going to Cotati to kill her (Angelia’s) parents,” Clark said. “He told me he hated . . . her parents. I knew he was violent. I heard him threatening to kill her (his wife), to blow off her head.”

Salcido’s father-in-law, Robert L. Richards, was not at home at the time and was located by authorities later.

A statewide alert was issued for Salcido, who was believed to have fled in a battered, faded maroon or brown 1979 Ford. The car was found abandoned Friday night in San Rafael, investigators said, but there was no sign of Salcido or the children. Police said he may now be driving a 1960 Plymouth with a burn spot on the hood.

Michaelsen called the hunted man “extremely dangerous” and said he could be armed with several weapons. Law enforcement agencies in Fresno, Los Angeles and Stockton were alerted to watch for him, as were the U.S. Border Patrol and airport security personnel in San Francisco and Oakland. Salcido was described as weighing 180 pounds and is 5 feet, 9 inches tall.

“The thing that’s most frightening,” Michaelsen said as police helicopters swept back and forth across the vineyards, “is he’s out there with his three kids. The safety of those children is critical.”

Michaelsen told reporters outside the house where Richards and her two daughters were killed that it was “a horrible crime scene,” with a great deal of blood on walls and floors. One body was found in a bedroom, another in the kitchen and the third in a hallway, the sheriff said.

Michaelsen reconstructed the violent Friday morning events as follows:

Salcido apparently went first to a vineyard owned by Bob Kunde and shot Butti as he was coming out of a house. Butti ran back inside and telephoned for help.

Although the sheriff did not say so, others said it appeared as if Toovey was ambushed as he drove to work.

From the winery area, Michaelsen said, Salcido apparently drove to his own home, where his wife’s body was found a short time later.

“There was blood everywhere,” Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Doherty said.

He said the wife’s body was found in a hallway.

It was then that deputies alerted Cotati police, who found the grisly scene at the Richards’ home.

At the news conference, Michaelsen said a school bus driver saw a car matching that of Salcido’s LTD speeding along California 12 about 8:30 a.m. There were three children in the car, the bus driver told deputies.

Michaelsen said the killings apparently were all over by 10 a.m.

Michaelsen said several neighbors told investigators that Salcido usually carried a gun “and didn’t feel safe without it.”

Salcido married Angelia Richards in 1984, according to Sonoma County records.

Clark added, “He threatened to blow his wife’s head off if he ever caught her in an affair.”

WINE COUNTRY KILLINGS

A winery worker, apparently upset over a child support battle, went on a crime spree across the wine country Friday.

1--Ranch worker wounded.

2--Grand Cru Vineyards worker killed.

3--Woman killed.

4--One adult and two children killed.