Students Tell of Dead Suspect’s Obsession With Ex-Girlfriend : Slayings: They immediately believed him responsible when they heard that she had been shot and her mother and sister killed in West Covina.

As soon as students at West Covina High School heard of the shootings at the Teschner home, they knew it had to be Matt Walker.

As a senior last year, Walker would spend his class time sketching gory death scenes that at times involved dismembered women. He covered his body with tattoos, including a shrouded skeleton bearing a scythe on his left arm and the words, “100% Crazy” on the inside of his lower lip.

Last spring, when he fell for Tracy Teschner--an attractive, happy-go-lucky sophomore who had just turned 16--he vowed that she would always be his.

“He was totally obsessive,” said a former classmate who graduated with Walker last summer. “He just had to have her.”

On Tuesday, apparently jealous that Tracy was dating another young man, Walker allegedly went on a shooting rampage that left his former girlfriend critically wounded and her mother and sister dead.

The next day, cornered by police as he returned to the 1985 Mercedes-Benz he is believed to have stolen from the family’s spacious West Covina home, the 18-year-old unemployed construction worker stuck a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

“It was like, if he couldn’t have her anymore, nobody could,” said a 16-year-old junior at West Covina High, who like many students declined to give her name for fear of retribution from Walker’s friends. “He just went crazy.”

West Covina police have not established a motive for the murders. But they noted that Walker was scheduled to begin a four-day jail sentence today for having assaulted Tracy in January.

Court records show that he confronted Tracy and a male friend as they headed to a car outside her home, punched her neck and threatened to kill her if she ever kissed the young man again.

“Matt Walker was a very tormented kid,” said Police Cmdr. John Distelrath. “The frustration he felt over this young lady having a new boyfriend, he apparently had no way of dealing with.”

His last known address was in the San Bernardino County community of Apple Valley, but family members who answered the phone declined to comment. In a court document filed in February, Walker listed no assets other than $12 in cash.

Police are still unsure whether the murders were premeditated or the product of a spontaneous rage.

When Erwin Teschner arrived home shortly before 5 p.m. Tuesday--concerned that his wife, Evelina, had failed to meet him for a doctor’s appointment that afternoon--he found her body sprawled on the living room floor. Their two daughters, Tracy and 18-year-old Tanya, were lying in their bedrooms with gunshot wounds to the head. Late Thursday, Tracy remained on life-support systems.

After a 24-hour manhunt that included notifying federal agents along the Canadian border, the black Mercedes was spotted in Venice by a parking enforcement officer who had jotted down the license plate number after hearing of the shootings Tuesday night.

Police staked out the neighborhood for nearly five hours until Walker emerged from between two buildings and took a seat behind the wheel shortly before 9 p.m. Patrol cars quickly blocked his exit.

Still sitting in the car, Walker turned the gun on himself. He was pronounced dead at Daniel Freeman Marina Medical Center.

“At least Mr. Teschner won’t have to relive the whole damn thing in a courtroom,” Distelrath said. “That’s the only good thing about it.”

At West Covina High, Walker was remembered as an angry young man who often seemed to be in his own world.

“That dude was like a nerd,” said junior Mark Romo, 17. “I don’t know why she ever went with him.”