Apparent Murder-Suicide Try Leaves 1 Dead, 1 Hurt

A Newport Beach woman shot and killed a man and then turned a gun on herself in an apparent murder-suicide attempt Wednesday, police said.

The shooting occurred about 1:55 p.m. inside a townhouse at 2 Latitude Court in Newport Beach. Officers found the man dead and the woman injured from gunshot wounds, said Newport Beach Police spokesman Bob Oakley.

A brief police press release did not identify either and had only sparse details about the shooting.

A police officer at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center, however, confirmed that the woman involved in the shooting was Pamela P. Ayers, 45, of the Latitude Court townhouse. The hospital listed her in critical condition.

While police and coroner’s officials did not release the name of the dead man, police cordoned off a 1988 Saab at the townhouse, which Department of Motor Vehicles records show is registered to Gerald Goldfarb, 49. He was described by a colleague as a Los Angeles attorney and host of a cable television show.

Goldfarb’s car was parked near a 1980 Mercedes registered to Ayers.

Though details of the shooting were sketchy and no motive had been established, a neighbor of Ayers said he heard shots, ran outside, and saw the woman who lived next door with a shotgun in her hand.

“I asked if everything was OK and she said, ‘Everything’s fine,’ ” said Leslie Cushing, 26, who did not know his neighbor by name. “I asked again and she said, ‘Please leave.’ She had a cut on her chin.

“I came back home and there were three more shots,” Cushing said. He then heard “cries for help,” and told neighbors to call police.

Cushing also had seen her with a shotgun earlier in the day.

“I was in the driveway in the morning and I saw her,” he said. “Just before she walked through the gate, she turned and I could see the end of a shotgun.”

Property records show Ayers has owned the townhouse since 1974 but neighbors said she had only moved into the home recently. DMV records listed her address on Vista Madera in Newport Beach in 1983, with no updated information. Few of the residents in the middle-class neighborhood on Latitude Court knew Ayers by name.

Witnesses said she had been scouring the neighborhood earlier in the day, carrying a plastic bowl filled with dog food and looking for someone to take her dog.

“She was over two hours before the shooting saying she wanted to give us the dog,” Cushing said. “She said she wasn’t sure if she was moving yet and then she went home.”

Her dog was found wandering the complex as police filled the area after the shooting.

Goldfarb, the attorney from the Wilshire District whose car was found in front of the townhouse, did not report for work Wednesday.

“I do know that if he’s not going to come into the office, he usually tells my receptionist, and he didn’t do that or call in for messages. That’s not consistent with his normal pattern,” said Robert Hertzberg, a fellow attorney who rents office space to Goldfarb and occasionally works with him.

He said he did not know why Goldfarb’s car was in Newport Beach and did not recognize Ayers’ name.

Times staff writer Kevin O’Leary contributed to this story.