Beating in Front of Home Kills Pilot

When Myron (Mike) Haag, 54, politely asked two men Saturday night to move their rowdy party away from his Escondido front yard, they responded with crude language and violence. Their blows smashed the back of his skull, leaving the airline pilot brain-dead.

Haag’s wife, Pat, and other relatives spent Saturday night praying for a miracle, but they gradually realized that Haag had no chance of reviving. He died Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

Today, Pat Haag, 51, is trying to comprehend the deadly attack that occurred 15 yards from the front door of the home where she and her husband raised their three children and lived for the past 20 years.

“There’s no respect for human life in Escondido,” she said. “In five seconds, the lives of five people have been affected forever.”

Haag, a former Marine who served 13 months in Vietnam, was not a confrontational man, his family says. But when rowdy party-goers strayed from their popular outdoor parking and drinking spot--nicknamed “the Tee Pee”--Haag would go outside and ask them to move their revelry from his front yard.

Pat Haag and her daughters--Kristen, 20, and Michelle, 24--would often beg Haag not to leave the house. They feared that Haag, whose nearest neighbor is about one football field away, would meet with trouble one night.

“We always begged him not to go. It seemed common sense--it’s out in the country, you have no idea what you are coming up against, but it’s usually people who’ve been drinking. That can be a deadly combination for one guy going out by himself,” said Jeff Biddle, who is married to Michelle.

“We’d say, ‘Dad, let it blow over,’ ” said Biddle, 26.

But Haag, who played softball for his church, would never cave in to his family’s pleas. For years, he carried on his tradition of telling the revelers to move on when rowdiness from the local drinking spot disrupted the quiet of the night.

Haag was a family man who often spent days away from home as an American Airlines pilot. So when he wasn’t flying, he enjoyed spending time with his children. He built a batting cage for his son, Michael, a 16-year-old junior at San Pasqual High School. He jogged, often running with his wife, and usually entered several races each year. He also worked out and played racquetball.

At 10:33 p.m. Saturday, he and Pat heard noise in the yard. When Haag went outside, his wife stayed by the front door of their home in the 2400 block of San Pasqual Valley Road.

As Haag encountered the two men near his yard, he asked them to leave. When the men began cursing her husband, Pat Haag shouted out that she had called the police. After knocking Haag to the ground, the men fled, jumping into a white pickup driven by a third man.

Pat Haag rushed to the phone and called the police--her shout had been a bluff because she hadn’t had time to call authorities. Then she ran to her husband, who was lying in a pool of blood 15 yards from their door. His skull was crushed at the back of his head.

Police, who are still investigating the incident, do know yet know if Haag’s attackers used their hands or struck him with an object.

On Sunday, Haag’s family decided to donate his organs and have him removed him from the respirator that was keeping him alive, said son-in-law Biddle. The family said its goodbys at Palomar Medical Center on Sunday afternoon, but members said they believe Haag had truly died Saturday night.

“We suspect these guys (his attackers) were drinking heavily or on drugs--it just seemed like a crazy person went loose,” Biddle said. “It is unfathomable that someone in his right mind would do this.”