With a Call, the End of a Driven Young Man

Mary Konz got the phone call from the man at General Dynamics and made a note of it on a pad. It was 3:30 p.m. and her 25-year-old son, Michael, had been shot at work.

Konz and her husband, Robert, made plans to fly from their home in Phoenix to San Diego as soon as possible. She also phoned a friend to try to locate another of the couple’s sons.

The man from General Dynamics called again half an hour later. Their youngest of three sons was now dead.

Konz called a mortuary in Phoenix to find out what to do. They told her the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office would be calling. In a matter of hours, after receiving the worst news possible and thinking of all that had to be done, it suddenly seemed as though there was nothing more to do.

“There’s no reason to come to San Diego if they can just bring Michael home,” Konz said.

Mary Konz spoke as if her son were still alive. As if Michael was flying home for a long weekend or over a holiday, as he always did. Michael was in Phoenix so much, it was almost as if he was still a student at Arizona State University in nearby Tempe.

For four years on that campus, Michael Konz seemed driven, plowing through his classes with ease and a determination that made a bright career almost assured. He pledged Delta Sigma Phi. He ran the sports section of the campus newspaper. He studied with intensity.

Excelling as an economics major, he graduated with a grade point average a tenth of a point below magna cum laude , which disappointed him only mildly.

It had been that way through Brophy College Preparatory School and St. Theresa Grade School. Excellent student. High grades.

Then came the day when General Dynamics recruiters came to Tempe and liked what they saw in Michael. They flew him back to San Diego and he started at the company in May, 1988.

As a human-relations counselor, Konz represented management in labor disputes with union employees. Just as an attorney would, he prepared briefs and argued the company’s case before arbitrators.

This tied into Konz’s goals, for he was busily studying to be an attorney, and going to the University of San Diego at night. His parents said he was about halfway through law school.

He and his father used to watch football games together. When the referee made a bad call, Robert, a retired pharmacist, would explode. Not Michael.

“He was so objective all the time,” Robert Konz said. “He would say, ‘Dad, they’re only human beings doing the best they can, and everything evens out in life anyway.’ That’s the kind of person he was. I have never met anyone with as positive an attitude.”

One of Konz’s co-workers at General Dynamics agreed.

“He wasn’t completely company and wasn’t completely worker,” said a 33-year employee of the company who would give only his first name, Geno. “He always thought about things. If there was something he didn’t have an answer for, he would take it under advisement and give you an answer in a couple of days. He didn’t put on an act like some kind of Mr. Big Shot.”

Geno, 62, often walked to Konz’s office to ask for interpretations on company policy.

He described Konz as a “good-looking young guy neatly dressed with a coat and tie and horn-rimmed glasses.”

One month after he started at General Dynamics, Konz moved into the Reynard Arms Apartments, 3 miles from work. Neighbors heard his stereo, the music at a high volume, as he studied for law exams.

Betty Kohl, a neighbor at the 60-unit complex with a large swimming pool, bought a Mercury Capri convertible, and Konz, who wanted one himself, said he was jealous. Konz drove a 1988 Nissan Sentra.

Konz was dying to see the car, but somehow he and Kohl kept missing each other. The two made solid plans to take a drive this weekend.

“Oh, my God,” said Kohl, who also worked at General Dynamics. “I just can’t believe it. I’d see him at work and around here all the time.”

Konz did not have a steady girlfriend. He told his parents he wanted to be completely finished with school before he ever thought about getting married. He moved into a $450-a-month, one-bedroom apartment by himself--no roommates--because of his studies.

“He was very disciplined,” his father said. “He worked a full-time schedule at General Dynamics with so much mental work and then did law school on top of that. He liked to be first in everything. When he lost in something, it was a means of urging him on to do better.”

While Michael bored in on law, his two brothers went in far different directions. Greg, 37, is a Jesuit priest in San Francisco. His mother got word to him about his brother’s death at a religious retreat in Reno. Bruce is 31 and works at a Scottsdale restaurant. Mary Konz waited hours to tell him, searching for exactly the right words to say.

In the meantime, Mary’s sister in Los Angeles called to relay the news she got over television.

Slowly, Michael Konz’s parents pieced together the events that had not been relayed by the man who called from General Dynamics.

A disgruntled employee who had been dismissed got upset during a grievance hearing Friday and had opened fire on his supervisor, James English, and Konz, who was representing the company.

Robert Konz could not believe that someone with a gun could roam around inside that building. In all the times he had been to San Diego, security had been so tight that he was never permitted to see his son’s office.

“I’m very angry right now,” he said. “How do you hold up after something like this?”

The medical examiner’s office in San Diego called late Friday afternoon to say that Michael Konz will be returned to Phoenix on Monday.

His parents have today and Sunday to live through until then.

“I guess the medical examiner’s office doesn’t work on weekends,” Mary Konz said.

Times staff writer John H. Lee contributed to this report.