An Obsession With the World’s End : Reaction: To cope with stress, Reynaldo Gonzalez’s interest in religious fundamentalism deepened, a relative says. Neighbors remember him as a popular friend.

For most of his 33 years, Reynaldo Andrade Gonzalez was a popular neighbor on palm-lined Stevenson Street.

A warm, devoted father of three. The neighborhood fix-it man. A reliable employee.

Gonzalez was hardly the stereotype of a crazed hijacker.

“He was always the kind of person to help people,” said neighbor Barbara Loa, whose young daughter was once saved by Gonzalez when she fell into a back yard swimming pool and nearly drowned.

In recent months, however, Gonzalez’s world seemed to fall apart.

Plagued by debts, what some neighbors characterized as an off-and-on drug problem, and lack of work, he turned with increasing fervor toward fundamentalist Christianity. He began attending the First Assembly of God church in Colton, his sister Cynthia said, after all the pressures made him think of murdering his family.

“One morning he got up and he was stressed out over everything,” she said. “He had a strong urge to get his wife and kids and to kill them all.”

As he read the Bible more, Gonzalez began to speak frequently to relatives about the looming end of the world.

Relatives said the Armageddon obsession apparently drove him to take his family to Mexico this week, beginning an odyssey that ended when he commandeered a Greyhound bus with eight passengers aboard in Phoenix and drove it back home.

On Thursday afternoon, almost 12 hours after he was killed by police in the driveway of his modest home, neighbors, friends and relatives still stood sobbing in the street, holding a wake of sorts as they tried to figure out what went wrong.

“He wasn’t the type to go out and do something wrong,” said longtime friend Armando Reyes, 30. “Anyone could have talked him out of this. What I want to know was why didn’t they bring a police negotiator out here to talk with him.”

“I’d like to thank him for what he did if he were alive right now,” added Christina Juarez, 9, whose life he saved at poolside six years ago by administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Gonzalez grew up on the working-class, mainly Latino Colton street where he returned for one final time Wednesday, chased by police cars and helicopters.

The third of five children, Gonzalez was an average student, attending Colton public schools before serving four years in the Army, according to neighbors and school officials.

While he was a teen-ager, both his parents died. He helped provide for his family, friends say.

“When he was in the service, he always sent money home for his brothers and sisters,” said neighbor Adriana Romero, 27. “He always made sure the kids had money. He was like a father for those kids.”

After the Army he drove a school bus and, in 1986, took a job with Roesch Lines, a San Bernardino-based charter bus company.

“Ray was a very good worker,” said general manager John Barbour. “We just never had any problems with Ray, that’s why this flabbergasted me so much.”

For a year, Gonzalez worked full time, driving groups to baseball games and concerts. After leaving briefly for another job, he returned to Roesch as a part-time driver, earning $9.50 an hour.

Barbour said Gonzalez could have had a full-time job again if he had asked, but he apparently did not want to spend too much time away from his wife, two daughters and son.

“As a charter bus driver you may be gone from home for two weeks,” Barbour said. “He didn’t want to drive full-time because it took him away from home too much.”

With charter jobs particularly scarce during the winter, Barbour said, Gonzalez last drove a bus in early November. A gardening business he tried to launch floundered.

It was about the time that he began attending First Assembly, according to Pastor Jack Coleburn.

“Four months ago, he came forward and asked God to forgive him of his sins and to enter into his life,” said Coleburn. “In our terminology he was born again, and from that point on as near as I could tell, he endeavored and attempted to do that which was right.”

Gonzalez attended a service and Bible class each Wednesday and two services on Sundays, relatives said. Among the passages he would read at home, they said, were those dealing with the end of the world.

“He was talking about Armageddon, when everyone dies,” said brother-in-law Alfred Morales. “He was reading the Bible and he was quoting the Bible.”

Coleburn said Thursday that the idea of a worldwide conflagration that could occur anytime is “an acceptable teaching in all denominations.” But he had no explanation for why Gonzalez was convinced the world was about to end and was closing in on him.

“Who can say what occurs under extreme mental depression,” Coleburn said. “Lord, we don’t know.”

However, some neighbors, including Irene De La Rosa, 26, said it could have been drugs.

De La Rosa, who has lived across the street from Gonzalez for seven years, said that from time to time Gonzalez would use amphetamines.

“I think he wanted to get out (of drugs) but couldn’t find a way,” she said. “He tried church, but it wasn’t working. It was like he saw the bad parts of the Bible and not the good parts. I believe he had the devil in him. You get paranoid after doing speed.”

Times staff writer Dean E. Murphy in Colton also contributed to this story.

A Deadly Journey

Reynaldo Andrade Gonzalez, 33, was shot and killed by police Thursday in front of his Colton home after taking eight bus passengers on a high-speed, 320-mile ride across two states. No passengers were hurt in the five-hour ordeal, but two police officers were injured. A. The hijacking: Downtown Phoenix.

Gonzalez, who was unarmed, commandeered a Greyhound bus bound for St. Louis while it was stopped in the terminal. The driver was away from the bus. B. The chase: On Interstate 10 through Arizona and California.

The hijacker raced across the desert at speeds exceeding 70 miles an hour with helicopters and patrol cars in pursuit. Near Palm Springs he crossed several lanes to ram a CHP car. Spikes designed to puncture tires failed to impede the bus. C. The end: Colton

About 4:45 a.m. Thursday, Gonzalez drove off the freeway and stopped the bus in front of his home on Stevenson Street in Colton, 50 miles east of Los Angeles. The hijacker left the bus and was killed by a police officer.

SOURCE: Associated Press, Los Angeles Times