Family Describes Abuse by Father Who Killed Son

When Luis Antonio Pantoja hacked to death his 13-year-old son with a machete Thursday and tried to do the same to his daughter, it was the culmination of years of abuse and violent threats, his family and police said Friday.

Pantoja killed his favorite son, Luis Jr.--the one who would sneak out to bring his father food on the street corners where the elder Pantoja hung out when he was homeless--as the boy tried to intercede between his crazed father and his sister, 17-year-old Elizabeth, authorities said.

The father and son died Thursday at the Van Nuys apartment where Elizabeth lived with her husband and her 2-month-old son. The young family had moved there to escape her violent father.

“Luis held his father back so that Elizabeth could escape,” said a sobbing Amelia Pantoja, 42, the father’s estranged wife. “As she ran away, she heard my son Luis screaming, ‘Elizabeth! Elizabeth!’ ”

As her brother screamed, Elizabeth ran, clutching her baby, Jose, in bloody arms. She had deep wounds in her arms and back from the machete, but managed to make it to a neighbor’s apartment.

The elder Pantoja apparently died of smoke inhalation from a fire he set after a standoff with police.

“I’ve lived with this man for 21 years. The first two years were just pure love but after that he started hitting me,” Amelia Pantoja said. “He was a very jealous man. It just got worse and worse. He used to threaten to kill me and the kids.”

Elizabeth was being treated for her wounds Friday at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Woodland Hills. Her apartment, in the 14100 block of Victory Boulevard, was boarded up. On Friday afternoon, it still reeked of the fire Luis Sr. had set before he died.

The story of the Pantoja family is a hideous tale of abuse too long tolerated and of a justice system incapable of preventing the tragedy.

Amelia Pantoja described their marriage, after those first good years, as an ever-degenerating nightmare. After a few years of working as a house painter, her husband became chronically unemployed--and increasingly violent.

She never turned him in, she said, because he was a diabetic, and she worried that he might die or become ill in prison.

Last year, she said, “after a weekend of hell” in October, she finally sought help, and won a restraining order against him.

“We had always had trouble, but last fall it got a lot worse,” Amelia said. “I don’t know what happened to him.”

Under the court order, Pantoja was ordered to move out of the family residence and stay at least 100 feet from Amelia and six of their eight children, ages 8 to 21.

In court documents, Amelia said, “my daughter Elizabeth, age 16, is afraid that her father will harm me and the other children. She is in constant fear, has stopped eating and has trouble sleeping. She is eight months pregnant and has been advised that (her father’s) behavior is causing her stress and is detrimental to her health and the health of her unborn child.”

But Pantoja stalked Elizabeth at Harold McAlister High School in Reseda, violating the order repeatedly.

“The father seemed very, very emotionally unstable,” said Stella Grant, a teacher at McAlister. “I felt that when he came here that the family was in danger.”

On Feb. 8, Pantoja was charged with violating the order, exhibiting a deadly weapon and willful cruelty to a child.

He pleaded no contest to violating the order, and the city attorney’s office dropped the other counts as part of a plea-bargain arrangement.

Pantoja served only two days in prison. After that, he was released on probation.

“Any time you look at a case in hindsight, it’s always tempting to second-guess yourself or the system,” said Deputy City Atty. Richard Schmidt. “When someone has no prior criminal history, the sentence . . . was relatively standard.”

Luis Jr., along with two of his brothers and a sister, attended Hazeltine Elementary School, where students and faculty have raised about $300 to help the family defray funeral expenses.

Cheryl Mueller, the school’s assistant principal, said teachers spent much of the day on Friday telling students what had happened, and consoling them with the help of the campus psychologist.

“The children were quite upset about Luis, and the faculty was also,” Mueller said.

She said Luis, a sixth-grader, was “a very bright boy. He had a wonderful sense of humor.”

According to Amelia Pantoja, Luis adored his father, remaining close to him even after other family members pushed him away.

“Luis was devoted to his father,” she said. “He loved his father.”

After Pantoja was ordered to stay away from their home, Luis Jr. would still meet his father, bringing him sandwiches at the nearby Van Nuys Recreation Center.

“Luis always wanted us to see the best in his father,” Amelia Pantoja said.

But it was that childlike devotion that led to Luis Jr.’s death.

On Thursday, Pantoja phoned his son at the family home. Amelia was not there, and did not find out about the call until early evening.

“He told my son that he wanted to meet all the kids at the Van Nuys Recreation Center,” Amelia said.

Pantoja then went to Elizabeth’s apartment on Victory Boulevard and according to neighbors, began to threaten her. The young mother had just returned home with her baby when he arrived, Amelia Pantoja said. Elizabeth’s husband was still at work.

Hearing a struggle, neighbors called the police.

In the meantime, Pantoja called his wife’s home again.

“I’ve killed Elizabeth and Luis,” he told another daughter.

Later, however, “Elizabeth then called me and said, ‘Mom, I’m all right,’ ” Amelia Pantoja said.

But Luis Pantoja called a third time, getting his wife on the line, and insisted that he had indeed killed Elizabeth and Luis.

“It was the way he said it. I knew he did something,” Amelia said.

A police SWAT team surrounded the apartment at 7 p.m. Luis Sr., in his only communication with officers, refused to surrender and said, “You’ll have to kill me,” according to Police Sgt. Jim Mateer.

“We must have called him 20 times,” Detective Phil Morritt said. “He just kept hanging up . . . eventually he wouldn’t even pick up the phone anymore.”

The police asked Amelia to help, but she said she “just couldn’t deal with him anymore.”

“They wanted me to help, to try to talk to my husband to get him to give up,” Amelia said. “I told them that I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.”

About 9 p.m., police saw smoke coming from the apartment, and, fearing that Pantoja had started a fire, decided to force their way in.

They lobbed a stun grenade through a window, an explosive that emits a loud flash and bang, but is not meant to cause damage.

Police rushed into the apartment.

The carnage they found shocked even the hardened officers, said Morritt.

Both father and son were dead. Luis Sr. had chopped his son’s body to pieces. Then he slashed his own wrists and legs, but apparently died of smoke inhalation.

“He hacked his own son to death,” Morritt said. “There was blood everywhere.”

“I’ve been working homicide for five years,” the detective said. “And this is the most gruesome one I’ve seen.”

Times correspondent Thom Mrozek contributed to this story.