Postal Employee Kills Wife, 2 Co-Workers : ‘Mellow and Friendly’ Letter Carrier Listed as Brain Dead After He Turns Weapon on Himself

A 52-year-old career postal carrier described as a model employee as “mellow and friendly as could be” shot his wife to death Thursday morning and then drove about half a mile to work, where he shot and killed two co-workers and wounded a third before he shot himself in the head, police said.

The gunman, identified by police as John Merlin Taylor, was on life-support systems at Palomar Medical Center and described by authorities as “brain dead.” The weapon for his rampage was a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol that police said he reloaded at least once as some co-workers ran for safety and others stood frozen in fear.

Box of 100 Bullets

Police said Taylor took a box of 100 bullets with him to the city’s Orange Glen postal station, but apparently fired only 15 to 20 rounds before shooting himself.

Neither police nor postal employees could offer an explanation for the rampage. “We do not have a motive,” said Escondido Police Chief Vincent Jimno. “We don’t have anything to hang our hat on.”

Taylor, a model employee who was described as affable and mellow by those who had worked beside him, was dressed in his postal uniform when he showed up at 7:35 a.m. But he was holding a handgun at his side.

“He didn’t have any emotion. He was stern faced,” said co-worker William Karlson, one of about 10 employees inside the building when the shooting erupted.

Already, Taylor had shot his wife, Liz, according to Escondido police who found the woman’s body in bed at the couple’s home. The woman had been shot twice in the head, and police said they recovered two bullet casings that matched those at the Post Office.

When Taylor arrived at the Post Office, he approached co-workers Richard Berni, 38, of San Marcos, and Ronald H. Williams, 56, of Escondido--men who had probably assumed that Taylor, as was his habit, was getting to work early so he could join them on the loading dock picnic table for their morning coffee and a smoke before clocking in at 8 a.m. for his rounds.

This time he shot them both to death, and then entered the side door of the building, shooting at some, not at others. He shot co-worker Paul DeRisi, 30, in the upper arm, reloaded, and sprayed still more bullets inside the building, but passed by others without harming them.

“I walked back to check on someone and John Taylor walked through the side door,” DeRisi said. “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 (left) arm.”

DeRisi said he did not realize he had been shot until he felt the blood on his arm. “I took off for the front door and another bullet passed by me,” he said. “I ran next door to a restaurant and told them to call the police.

“Then I sat down outside and said to myself, ‘Why John Taylor? Why is he doing this?’ ”

Bob Henley, the postal station manager, said he had just finished talking with DeRisi about poster displays in the lobby, and when he looked out of the office, he saw DeRisi walking toward him, holding his bloodied shoulder.

“He said, ‘Don’t go out there! He’s got a gun!’ ” Henley said. “I went out my door and he (Taylor) pointed the gun toward me. But he said, ‘I’m not going to shoot you.’ He shot away from me. I went back inside my office, closed the door and called 911.”

Custodian Reginald Keith said he mistook the sounds of gunfire for plastic mail trays hitting the floor, and turned around to see Taylor standing next to a drinking fountain.

“A (ammunition) clip fell to the floor, and it looked like he dropped some ammo on the floor, too,” Keith said. “He looked up and kind of looked at me, but he looked kind of dazed. Then he walked right by me--about five feet away.”

Karlson said Taylor then walked past him as well, but did not threaten him. “He walked right by me toward the other end of the building. He didn’t say a word. The gun was in his hand,” Karlson said. “Right about then, someone yelled out, ‘Clear the building! This is for real!’ Then Taylor raised the gun shoulder high, like you’d do at a target range, getting ready for your next shot.”

Karlson said he lost sight of Taylor. Seconds later, Taylor put the gun to his right temple. Taylor collapsed in a far corner of the building, spilling unspent ammunition from a box he had carried with him.

The post office had opened to the public for business at 7 a.m. but apparently no customers were in the building.

Employees who escaped the shooting gathered outdoors and were met by co-workers still arriving for work; more than 60 workers would have been on duty at 8 a.m., just 25 minutes after the shooting. Instead, they gathered in small groups. Some hugged, others cried.

Arlene Williams, wife of one of the victims, said she heard of the shooting from her daughter-in-law, who heard about it on the radio.

“I waited to hear from him and I didn’t,” she said. “I tried to call the post office but I couldn’t get through. Then I thought I’d better head over there and find out for myself.

“When I got there, nobody would look at me or tell me anything and I began to get suspicious,” she said. Authorities finally broke the news to her. “I’m just grateful,” she said, “that they hadn’t suffered.”

Williams said her husband looked to Taylor as a role model. “My husband always admired him. He didn’t have anything against John. I don’t think John had anything against him, either.”

Stunned co-workers described Taylor as an upbeat, cheerful and efficient employee and perhaps the most likeable of the employees at the small post office.

While friends said Taylor--a 27-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service--was not a complainer, he made a comment to co-workers Wednesday night indicating growing frustration with a job that he was within three years of retiring from.

“Wednesday night, when he went home, he made some comment about how there’s not enough mail here,” said one co-worker who asked not to be identified. “But he was being sarcastic, because there was a ton of mail in there.”

“None of this figures,” he said. “He knew those people--he’d sit out with them each morning and chat with them. He could have shot me just as easily.”

Others dismissed any notion that Taylor had suffered burn-out on the job. “He never voiced a complaint,” Karlson said. “The rest of us, we’d bitch, but this guy was too nice to bitch about anything.”

Gary Williams, who oversees Escondido’s two post offices, said that Taylor was recently selected for a quarterly performance award--but declined the honor and asked that it be given to someone else because he had won it several times previously.

Said San Diego Postmaster Margaret Sellers, who arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting: “This is a model station, and he was a model employee.”

Postal authorities quickly sent three counselors to the scene and immediately began sessions with some of the traumatized workers.

Co-worker Johnny Sims said that on Tuesday there was discussion among postal carriers--including Taylor--about the Aug. 20, 1986, incident in which Patrick Sherrill, a part-time letter carrier, walked into the Edmond, Okla., Post Office and shot and killed 14 co-workers before killing himself.

“We were talking about something and got around to saying, ‘What if something happened to one of the employees that would have gotten him mad and (caused him) to go berserk?’ ” Sims said. “We were just joking around. John was a happy-go-lucky guy always. You could never make him mad.”

Some fellow letter carriers said Taylor was grumbling recently that his 22-year-old stepson was not working and had moved in with him and his wife. Indeed, there was concern for the whereabouts of the stepson, Liz Taylor’s son by her first marriage. The young man apparently heard of the shooting on his car radio and drove to the scene, not sure whether his father was involved, said Police Lt. Earl Callander.

Neighbors of the Taylors were equally disbelieving Thursday morning as the commotion at the local post office spilled over into their quiet, older neighborhood and police cordoned off the couple’s one-story, brown stucco home.

Inside, police found a clean and well-kept house, Jimno said. No notes were found, nor any other weapons or ammunition--although police were waiting for a formal search warrant before searching the house in detail.

There were no signs of a struggle, Jimno said.

Brian Meyers, 16, who lives next door to the Taylors, said the couple seemed to have a happy marriage, punctuated by rare arguments. Said another neighbor, Barbara Pinto:

“They were very friendly, a nice couple. They had a lot of friends. They went out dancing and they had people over. I don’t know why this would happen.”

Pinto said Liz Taylor, who worked behind the jewelry counter at the Montgomery Ward Focus store in Escondido, “was the talker, and he (Taylor) was the listener. She could talk to anybody. I know they loved each other very much. He called her ‘Poopsie.’ ”

Times staff writers Robert Welkos, Lori Grange and Anthony Millican contributed to this story.