Man in Murder-Suicide in O.C. Called ‘Very Jealous’

A man who shot his girlfriend repeatedly and then shot himself to death in the car-pool lane of the San Diego Freeway, with her 3-year-old son in the car, had been insanely jealous and possessive of her, the woman’s brother said Sunday.

The boy, found shaken and blood-spattered but otherwise unhurt, could tell police only that his mother and her boyfriend had been arguing before gunshots rang out, authorities said.

After the shooting, and with the boy still in the back seat, the 1976 AMC Pacer continued to speed down the southbound car-pool lane of the freeway, its left front wheel dragging against a median guardrail until the tire caught fire and the car finally halted north of the Springdale Street exit just after 10 p.m. Saturday.

George Charles Woodford III fired several shots into the head and body of 33-year-old Audrey Denise Davis of Long Beach, and then the 28-year-old Long Beach man put a single bullet into his own head before slumping over the steering wheel, police said.

“The boy said they started to argue over something one of them said to the other,” Westminster Police Lt. Andrew Hall said.

But what sparked the argument and led to the shooting may never be known, said Hall, because “to the best of my knowledge, our only witness is the little fellow himself.”

But Vincent Jackson, 30, Davis’ brother, said Woodford “was very jealous of her in all respects and very possessive of her.”

Jackson said his sister and Woodford met while she was buying a car. The couple dated a few times, and he moved into her home about four months ago. Jackson said he also moved in with the couple about three weeks ago.

“When I moved over here, I noticed his personality was a little strange. . . . He wanted her so bad,” Jackson said.

He said Woodford “was very argumentative and possessive and wanted to be the man of the house. He would look at my sister and say, ‘That’s mine.’ It was like a fatal attraction.”

Woodford bought Davis an engagement ring, which she wouldn’t accept, Jackson said. The brother said he suspects that Davis told Woodford “that she was going to leave him--she was going to get out.”

Woodford owned a car detailing business, and Davis worked as a chief medical assistant at a Kaiser hospital, Jackson said.

“She was a very nice person. . . . She had a very kind heart,” her brother said.

Davis’ son, described as about 2 1/2 feet tall, very bright and very verbal for a 3-year-old--was being held Sunday at Orangewood Children’s Home, the county’s emergency shelter in Orange. Officials there said that he was in good condition but that he would not be turned over to relatives who have inquired about him pending further investigation this week. His name was being withheld.

Although the youngster referred to Woodford as “Daddy,” both police and social service officials indicated Sunday that Woodford was not the boy’s father.

“Some relatives have called Orangewood, and there’s some indication we may have located the boy’s father,” said shelter director Robert Theemling. However, he said, county social service officials won’t release the child until “some follow-up checks are made.”

“I know that he’s going to be with us until (Monday) at least,” Theemling said.

In the meantime, police and social service officials remained concerned about the boy’s psychological well-being after witnessing the grisly murder-suicide from the back seat of his mother’s car.

Theemling said a team of mental health experts had spoken to the child “to evaluate the level of trauma of what he has experienced.”

It was the boy who was first spotted by California Highway Patrol officers responding to a report of a car fire in the car-pool lane in Westminster.

“They could see the little boy bouncing around inside the vehicle . . . standing in the back seat looking out the windows,” said Westminster Police Sgt. Jack Davidson. “They could see that he was OK.”

But when the tire flames were extinguished and officers could move closer, they saw the bodies of both adults lying on the front seat, a .25-caliber handgun near them.

“(The boy) wasn’t crying, but he was a little nervous at first,” said Davidson, who arrived at the scene shortly after the 10:08 p.m. shooting. “He was able to talk to the officers and tell (them) his name and that it was his mother.”

Davidson said the boy, clad in a blue-and-white-striped T-shirt, shorts and light-colored tennis shoes, told officers that his “mommy” and “daddy” had been “hurt.” Spots of blood found on his clothes were not his own, he said.

The youngster was anxious, but, Davidson said, he warmed up to the police officers immediately: “He grabbed ahold of all of us. . . . He went right with (the officers) without any problem.”

At the station, the boy was handed a stuffed purple dragon, which he held tightly throughout his ordeal. Knowing that the child’s clothes would be needed as evidence, one young officer raced to a nearby house to grab a set of his nephew’s clothing for the boy to wear.

“He didn’t cry; he wasn’t scared,” Davidson said. “He knew that we were trying to help him.”

Long after he was turned over to county social workers, officers milling around the Westminster police station spoke of little else but the boy--described as “cute as a bug’s ear”--who had touched their hearts.

“I got the butterflies in my stomach on the way to the scene because I knew a child was involved,” Davidson said. “Any time children are involved, all of us get touched by it.”

Jackson said Woodford was from Kentucky. He said Davis has a another son by a third man.