‘He Had a Real Look of Vengeance on His Face’ : Postal Clerks Describe Their Time of Terror

Two postal workers were already dead outside and John Merlin Taylor was marching into the Escondido postal station and up an aisle, wounding a third employee and firing shots into the walls and ceiling.

“I saw John coming through the door,” recalled Michael Collins, a 17-year veteran of the U. S. Postal Service, describing the next few seconds of terror Thursday morning.

“He had a look on his face, like, ‘Everybody’s going to die.’ He had a real look of vengeance on his face. He pointed through the door and started firing.

“I was frozen. I thought it was a joke. John was the last person I thought this would happen with.”

‘Model Employee’

Dressed in his postal uniform and described as a “model employee in a model station,” Taylor aimed the .22-caliber, semiautomatic Sturm Ruger pistol at Collins.

“He pulled the trigger,” said Collins, recalling how Taylor stood a few feet away and leveled the barrel at him. “He pulled the trigger, but it didn’t fire. I don’t know why.”

As Taylor fumbled for more ammunition, Collins had to choose quickly between disarming him and running. He ran.

“He was reloading when I ran through the door,” Collins said. “I yelled at everybody else to ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’ ”

According to Escondido police, the 52-year-old Taylor killed three people: his wife at home, Elizabeth, and two close friends and fellow workers sitting on a bench outside the suburban station, Ron Williams and Richard J. Berni.

Wounds Clerk in Arm

He also wounded Paul DeRisi, a postal window clerk who took a bullet in the left arm. Another postal employee, Phyllis DeVito, suffered serious facial cuts and bruises when she fell head-first down a flight of stairs while scrambling to leave the building and escape the gunfire.

Finally, Taylor turned the handgun on himself and fired a bullet into the right side of his head.

Police said that, sometime before 7:35 a.m., Taylor shot his wife to death, left his home and parked his gold, 1974 Plymouth Duster in the postal building parking lot. It was about the time he arrived at the post office most workdays.

Each morning, he would meet co-workers Williams and Berni at a small park bench outside the office, where they would drink coffee and smoke cigarettes. They met there because smoking was not allowed inside, and they would talk about sports, families and their jobs.

Williams had been shot once, struck slightly behind the forehead, his body slumped over to the right of the table top. Berni was shot in the front part of his body, and fell backward.

No Sign of Struggle

There was no sign of a struggle. A coffee cup rested on a chair, maybe spilled a little. A newspaper, which apparently had been read once, was folded back neatly.

Inside the station, the dozen employees heard the gunfire, but thought it was either fireworks, a car backfiring or metal trays clattering.

DeRisi, a window clerk at the front counter, stepped back inside to check on whether another worker had arrived when he spotted Taylor.

“John Taylor walked through the side door,” said DeRisi, 30, who has worked five years for the postal service.

“He had his arm up like he was waving. I said, ‘Good morning,’ and then I heard a pop. I noticed he had a gun in his hand and the second shot went through my arm.”

Taylor was less than 50 feet from DeRisi when he fired. DeRisi staggered but didn’t fall.

“I didn’t realize I was shot,” he said. “I grabbed my arm, and I felt the blood. I took off for the front door, and another bullet passed by me, on the floor.

“I ran next door to a restaurant and told them to call the police. I sat down outside and said to myself, ‘Why John Taylor? Why is he doing this?’ ”

Others were also scrambling to get out, and station manager Bob Henley walked outside his office to see what was wrong. He saw DeRisi bleeding from the arm, running for the door. And then Henley looked right into the face of John Taylor. And Taylor spoke to him.

“He said, ‘I’m not going to shoot you,’ ” Henley recalled.

But he said Taylor fired the gun to the side, the bullet whizzing past him. “I went back in and closed my office door,” Henley said. “I called 911.”

Chamber Was Empty

In the hallway, Taylor spun around, spotted Collins, and attempted to shoot him too. The trigger slammed, but the chamber was empty. Collins fled. Taylor dropped the box of shells and two ammunition magazines he was carrying in his other hand.

Reginald Keith, a postal custodian, saw Taylor begin to reload, and then he watched him march down the hallway to the water foundation on the other side of the building. By now, according to police, 15 to 20 shots had been fired, many of them striking the walls and ceiling.

“It was startling,” Keith said. “Some of the ammunition was spilled on the floor. I think it was a clip that went on the floor. Then he walked right by me. He had the gun pointed right at the floor. He kind of looked at me, but his eyes were kind of dazed.”

Postal clerk William Karlson, who had been standing in an aisle between 10-foot-high mail bundles, said Taylor walked right by the aisle without seeing him.

“He looked so cold, so determined,” Karlson said. “I thought he was still looking for someone to shoot. I just tried to keep calm. I don’t know if he would have shot me or not.”

Shot Himself at Fountain

At the water fountain, he shot himself.

Another employee, Roger Hutchins, was screaming at workers to evacuate the building, possibly saving lives in the process, Karlson said. Hutchins shadowed Taylor’s movements, and at one point talked to the gunman, Karlson said.

“He told him to put the gun down,” Karlson said. “From what Roger told me, John said, ‘OK, I won’t shoot you,’ and walked away. Then he put the gun to his head.”

After Taylor shot himself, Hutchins kicked the gun away and checked Taylor for a pulse. According to Chief Jimno, there was the barest beat.

Even before police arrived, 27-year-old postal worker David Canales was pulling into the parking lot. He was late for work, and he could hear the gunfire.

Canales said he was confused. He normally sat outside with the three smokers--Taylor, Williams and Berni. He would join in on the conversation, and would have been there Thursday morning too had he not been late.

“I would have been dead too,” he said.

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Tom Gorman, Anthony Millican and Lori Grange.