Terror in Lido Trailer Park : Crime: After desperate attempt to flee, woman is gunned down as neighbors look on. Her assailant, identified as her ex-husband, then takes his own life.

A man chased a woman through a mobile home park Monday and shot her in the head several times in view of neighbors before he killed himself, police said.

As terrified residents of Lido Mobile Home Park looked on, Lee Jerry Kastle, 43, of Newport Beach, fatally shot at close range a woman identified by witnesses as his ex-wife, Patricia, a former Olympic skier from Austria and granddaughter of the founder of a noted ski-making firm.

Residents of the mobile home park heard a gunshot about 1:15 p.m. and saw Kastle firing at the woman, who was running through the lot screaming, “Save me! Save me!” Newport Beach Police Lt. Tim Newman said.

Park resident Neil McKay tried to help the woman by letting her into his trailer. But Kastle “followed her inside my place and pushed me down on the ground and said, ‘If you don’t get out of my way I’ll kill you too,’ ” McKay said.

The woman fled out the back door with Kastle in pursuit, McKay said.

When Kastle caught up with his victim, he pulled her back toward his trailer. And when she fell to the ground, he dragged her by her hair, witnesses said. At the front door of his trailer, Kastle fired several bullets into her head, police said.

“It was a horrible scene. I can’t believe it really happened,” said Joy Caffey, a neighbor who witnessed the shooting.

Another witness, Mike Jelletich, said: “It was a terrible sight. . . . The sad thing is I was just hoping she wasn’t going to run to my house. . . . The guy was crazy.”

By the time police arrived, Kastle had barricaded himself inside the trailer,

Newman said. In a brief telephone conversation, Kastle told police he was armed with several weapons and refused to come out. After the phone call, police heard several gunshots within the trailer.

The park was evacuated and a SWAT team was called, Newman said. Several hours later, police stormed the trailer and found Kastle dead, Newman said.

Kip Pitou, vice-president for Kastle Skis, USA in Salt Lake City, said Patricia Kastle grew up in the Austrian town of Hohenems, about 100 miles west of Innsbruck. She was the granddaughter of Anton Kastle, the founder of Kastle Skis, a world-famous company known for manufacturing top quality skis, he said.

Kastle Skis is now owned by Sport AG, an Austrian company, Pitou said.

Several acquaintances of the couple said Lee Kastle had taken his wife’s name after the marriage. “He was enamored with the idea of her being from a world-famous skiing family,” an acquaintance of the dead man said Monday.

Pitou and other ski industry executives who knew Patricia Kastle said she was a member of the Austrian World Championship team before joining the 1984 Swiss Olympic Team that competed in Sarajevo.

“She was loved and respected by world champion skiers,” said John Kreel, whose Newport Beach agency used pictures of her in its advertisements for Kastle Skis, USA. “The finest teams in the world are the Swiss and Austrian teams. For her to make it was quite an achievement.”

Friends said the couple met about four years ago while Lee Kastle was on a European ski vacation. “They met in a ski area bar after a race,” Pitou said. The couple were married shortly after, he said.

After retiring from competitive skiing, Patricia Kastle opened a dress shop in Lido Village called La Patou Boutique, friends said.

Pitou said Patricia Kastle called him a week ago to report that she had been divorced for a month. “She had planned on coming up (to Utah) in March to go skiing,” he said. “She told me that she was selling the store, getting out of the Southern California scene and away from him.”

Pitou said she had planned on setting up her boutique in a new location. “She was concerned about his whole reaction,” Pitou said. “She was scared that he would react violently.”

Several acquaintances described Kastle as a jealous husband. “He was always neurotic and insecure,” Pitou said. “He would always seem to think that she was fooling around with someone else and he wouldn’t let her out of his sight. . . . It was really unusual.” One neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said Kastle had even made comments about killing his wife and himself.

“I tried to console him,” the neighbor said. “He was in a lot of pain. I just feel so bad that he did this. . . . I just didn’t think that he would go that far.”

Janice E. Adcock, a friend of Patricia Kastle’s who had worked at La Patou Boutique, said the husband often called the boutique and threatened the lives of the women, some of whom quit because of his threats, she said.

“He really hated that she had friends. He would always say they liked her and not him,” Adcock said.

Former lovers are believed responsible for two other slayings of Orange County women since the first of the year.

A day after a spurned lover threatened Narges Bolouri, 34, of Laguna Niguel, she was killed Friday when a man slammed into her car, poured gasoline in the vehicle and lit it on fire. Tammy Davis, a 19 year-old Huntington Beach woman, was shot and killed Jan. 5, allegedly by her ex-boyfriend who then attempted suicide by setting himself on fire.

Times staff writer Danica Kirka contributed to this report.

Lido Peninsula Trailer Park Shooting 1. Lee Jerry Kastle has confrontation with a woman believed to be his ex-wife outside his mobile home. 2. The woman runs down the street and into a neighbor’s mobile home. Kastle enters trailer and the woman flees through a back door. 3. Kastle catches the woman and drags her back to his mobile home. 4. Kastle shoots woman several times in the head, then barricades and kills himself inside. Source: Police and witnesses