Man Kills Woman, Himself as Both Arrive at Work

A Simi Valley man shot and killed his former lover at their workplace in El Rio on Friday morning and then turned the gun on himself, investigators said.

The murder-suicide occurred about 6 a.m. after Raymond Duran, 32, and Kimberley Haddock, 29, arrived separately at Frontier Building Supply Co., 3288 Vineyard Ave., where both worked. Haddock, who lived in Panorama City, was apparently about to open a locked gate in the parking lot when she was shot three times by a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, Sheriff’s Lt. Joseph Harwell said.

Duran then fired a single shot to the right side of his head.

Residents who live behind Frontier reported hearing several shots fired in rapid succession while a woman screamed. They said there was a pause, followed by another shot, Harwell said.

Duran was pronounced dead at the scene at 6:20 a.m. and Haddock was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, Harwell said.

“There was obviously a disagreement that would spark something like this,” the investigator said. “We can only surmise that it had something to do with (her) trying to get her marriage back together and rejecting him.”

Haddock and Duran left their respective homes Friday as usual at 5 a.m., and their families had no sense of a prearranged meeting, Harwell said.

Haddock had worked at Frontier for six months as office supervisor, Harwell said, and she had recently ended a brief affair with Duran, who was the company’s yard supervisor. Haddock was trying to put her marriage back together, Harwell said, and was still living with her husband, whose name was not released. The couple had no children.

Duran, who had no previous history of violence or mental instability, lived in Simi Valley with his parents, whose names also were not released, Harwell said.

The affair was known to most Frontier employees, Harwell said, some of whom had witnessed a recent confrontation between Haddock’s husband and Duran, during which the husband told Duran to “stay away from my wife,” the lieutenant said.

The deaths rocked Frontier’s 20 or so employees, who came to work to find Duran’s covered body lying next to Haddock’s white pickup truck. “This happening right there on the grounds was very disturbing for them,” Harwell said.

Frontier officials decided to close the retail business for the day “to give everyone a chance to recoup a little bit,” according to a woman who answered the phone but declined to identify herself. Frontier officials declined to comment. The firm sells construction supplies such as bricks and cement.

A group of Frontier workers who wanted to get away from phone calls were huddled at the Seafood Parlor and Saloon restaurant next door at about 2 p.m., where Haddock had been a regular lunch patron.

The morning manager at Food Fair Market next door to Frontier had known Duran as a regular customer, and was surprised to hear what he had done, according to night manager Curtis Bybee, 23.

“She just said he was a nice guy,” Bybee said. “She just said he wasn’t the type of guy to do that. He seemed kind of mellow.”

Times correspondent Kay Saillant contributed to this story.