Suspect in Slayings Remains at Large : Rampage: Dana Point mail deliveries are suspended and guards are stationed at post office in wake of the killings. Officers are stymied in search for O.C. man.

While a gunman suspected of killing two people in a bloody series of attacks eluded police for a second day, armed guards on Friday patrolled the post office where one slaying occurred and authorities fielded a flurry of tips from worried residents.

Orange County law enforcement officials were confounded by the disappearance of 38-year-old Mark Richard Hilbun, who was fired from his job at the Dana Point post office in December in part because he was stalking a female co-worker.

“The bottom line is we have absolutely no idea in the world where this guy is,” said Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Dick Olson. “There is no organized search in any particular area. Where would we look?”

Police suspect that Hilbun fatally stabbed his mother, Frances Hilbun, 63, and her dog, Golden, in Corona del Mar on Thursday morning, then drove to the Dana Point post office and opened fire inside an employee area, killing one worker and slightly injuring another.

Several minutes later, he allegedly shot a man a few blocks away during a botched robbery. Hours later, about 3 p.m., he allegedly shot and critically wounded a female motorist in Newport Beach because she was following him. The woman apparently wanted to talk to him because she thought he had stolen some magnetic car signs from her shop.

Prosecutors filed five felony counts against Hilbun on Friday in Municipal Court in Laguna Niguel, charging him with two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

The U.S. Postal Service has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to him.

In the wake of the Dana Point shooting and a similar attack hours earlier at a Dearborn, Mich., post office, Postmaster General Marvin Runyon acknowledged Friday that workers are under stress, and he promised better working conditions.

“Our management style is too authoritarian, something most of us already know,” he said in Michigan. “We’re changing the culture of our organization. Culture change won’t happen overnight, however. We have made progress and will continue to make progress.”

Runyon also flew to Orange County on Friday and planned to meet with victims and postal workers, but he declined to meet with the media because of concerns for his safety.

“We are dealing with an irrational individual who’s already killed two people. Who could be a better target than the postmaster general?” said Postal Inspector David Smith. “We’ve got a killer on the loose and we’re hunting like hell for him.”

The mail carrier whom Hilbun had been stalking remained in protective custody Friday, and her family went into hiding outside the area. But her father, Dohrman Springer, stayed behind and expressed a deep anger for the man who for months had harassed his 29-year-old daughter, Kim Springer, leaving her threatening notes and phone messages.

“I’m scared for her,” Dohrman Springer said as he picked up a newspaper and looked at a picture of Hilbun. “All I want to do is to see this son of a bitch dead.”

Hints of the impending explosion were detected by Kim Springer at least five days before, when she began contacting authorities in an effort to keep Hilbun at bay.

Springer first filed a report with the Sheriff’s Department last Saturday after receiving a harassing letter from Hilbun that violated the terms of his probation in an earlier harassment case. But police saw no indication that Hilbun posed a threat to her life.

“There were no indications to us of any death threats,” said Lt. Bob Rivas, a spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department, which dispatched a deputy to the Dana Point post office.

On the deputy’s advice, she then notified the police in Laguna Beach, where she lived, and also took steps to get a court order barring him from approaching her. Two days passed, however, before she made the next call to authorities.

Laguna Beach Police Chief Neil J. Purcell Jr. said that Springer contacted his department on Monday evening to say that Hilbun had been lurking around her house. She also told the dispatcher that she would be getting a restraining order, and that she had filed a report with the Sheriff’s Department.

But, Purcell said, she apparently failed to tell his officers that Hilbun was on probation, and by contacting her, he had violated it. Instead of taking further steps, Purcell said, his department simply sent officers out to patrol the area where she lived. They found nothing.

“All I can say in our defense is that we had never heard of this (Hilbun) individual until (Monday),” Purcell said. Her call “was like a lot of requests we get for patrol checks. From what I can tell, it was handled properly.”

Purcell said the situation was further clouded because Springer had not yet secured an enforceable restraining order against Hilbun in an effort to keep him away from her. The application she had completed Monday was never filed, because she couldn’t afford the $182 filing fee until payday, which happened to be the day that Hilbun, gun in hand, went looking for her at the Dana Point post office.

Hilbun has been hospitalized twice in recent months for psychiatric problems, and some law enforcement officials and acquaintances speculated that Hilbun may already be dead, the victim of suicide. “People have talked about that. It’s always considered in cases like this where you have a felony suspect,” Olson said.

But in southern Orange County, caution was the watchword of the day for many who feared that the gunman might still be lurking in the area.

More than two dozen public and private security officers patrolled the Dana Point post office. Other area post offices took similar measures.

Some south Orange County schools took added security measures, keeping students inside most of the day and adding extra monitors to watch the children. Postal officials and police said they were flooded with reports of possible sightings of Hilbun and his truck, some from as far as Victorville.

Even law enforcement officials found themselves swept up in the race to spot the man wanted in connection with Thursday’s rampage.

Laguna Beach Police Chief Purcell said he was on his way home Thursday night when he saw a man in the alley behind the home of Kim Springer. He matched the description of the suspect.

“I identified myself, drew my gun and ordered him to prone-out,” Purcell said. “He just said, ‘OK, don’t shoot.’ ” Purcell kept the gun on him until other officers arrived moments later. After studying a photo of Hilbun, Purcell realized that it wasn’t him.

“This guy was a clone of the suspect. He was so close to it that even when he saw the picture, he said, ‘My lord, yes,’ ” Purcell said. “He looked just like the suspect. There’s no two ways about it.”

But there was debate over just what the suspect looked like. On Thursday, police distributed a photo of the six-foot, 160-pound Hilbun, showing him with dark hair and a mustache. But several people who knew him said Friday that the clean-shaven Hilbun, with graying hair, bears only scant resemblance to the man in the photograph carried widely by the local media.

“There have been reports that his hair is white, that he’s shaved his beard, that the mustache is on, the mustache is off,” Postal Inspector David Smith said. “But we believe it is possible that he may have changed his looks.”

Another uncertainty is Hilbun’s vehicle. At the time of the shootings, Hilbun reportedly was driving a bluish-gray, 1990 Toyota pickup truck with a kayak strapped on top. But police suspect that he may have switched the license plates, and the kayak was found Thursday, dumped at a Dana Point home. Three possible California license plate numbers he is using are 4EO6099 or 2BTF706 or 4S97813.

One caller contacted the Laguna Beach Police Department on Friday when he saw a Jeep with a kayak on top.

“It seems like a lot of people are looking out for this truck,” a police dispatcher said. “When they call, they are really hyper and excited because they think they are doing a good thing, which they are.” Unfortunately, as evening approached, none of the tips had panned out, police said.

Olson of the Sheriff’s Department said that investigators have no reason to believe that he is still in Orange County and that they are baffled as to how Hilbun has managed to elude a swarm of police for the last two days--with no sign of even his vehicle.

“I wish we knew. Several police agencies were out in different areas, and the media coverage was enormous,” Olson said. “You tell me why we haven’t found that truck yet.”

In Dana Point, the Postal Service canceled deliveries indefinitely. Residents had to walk past armed guards to pick up their mail at the post office.

“It’s a lot easier to concentrate our forces to guard this one facility than to try to cover all the mail delivery routes. The safety of our employees is paramount,” Smith said. “It will be like this until we catch (the suspect) or until we are satisfied that he no longer poses a threat.”

Postal worker Peter Gates, who was slightly injured in the post office shooting, returned to work Friday. Officials said he was grazed by a bullet when he rushed toward Hilbun during the attack. He was treated and released the same day at the Samaritan Medical Center-San Clemente.

Killed at the post office was postal employee Charles T. Barbagallo, 42, of San Clemente, who co-workers said was a friend of the gunman and often socialized with him. He was shot between the eyes, witnesses said.

The most seriously injured survivor in the attacks--the woman allegedly shot by Hilbun on Cliff Drive in Newport Beach--remained in critical but stable condition Friday in an Orange County hospital.

Security was so tight at the hospital around the woman that police refused to release her name for fear of her safety, and interim Newport Beach Police Chief Jim Jacobs said he had to wait 20 minutes to get clearance to visit her.

“We have no specific reason to believe she’s in danger, but as long as the suspect is outstanding we want to make sure she is properly protected,” Jacobs said.

Postal officials, meanwhile, said the shootings in Orange County and Michigan should speed safety reforms that are being instituted in the wake of a 1991 shooting.

“We are going to put in more rigid controls on our screening process for potential new hires,” said Joseph Careveo, the general accounting officer for the Postal Service, who visited the Dana Point office Friday. “These situations create a lot of fear that is temporary. But we want to deal with the cumulative effect of these incidents.”

Postal Inspector Pamela Prince in Dana Point said that with new screening procedures, “we certainly would have found more” about Hilbun.

Hilbun was hospitalized twice in recent months for a manic-depressive condition, officials say, and he was arrested--but never convicted--last fall for allegedly making obscene and threatening phone calls to Springer. She agreed to drop the charges after Hilbun began receiving psychological treatment and agreed to stay away from her.

Newly released military records showed Friday that during a four-year stint in the Air Force, Hilbun received law enforcement and security training. He was given an honorable discharge from the service in 1980, records show.

U.S. postal inspectors said they noticed a marked increased Friday in the number of threats reported against postal employees--both from co-workers and outsiders.

While investigators normally receive reports of two threats a day in Southern California, the number swelled to about a dozen on Friday at area post offices, and officials blamed the rise on Thursday’s assault.

“Anytime there is a well-publicized incident, the number of threats noticeably increases,” said Michael Ahern, assistant inspector in charge of the Los Angeles division. “The number has increased dramatically (on Friday). We’re getting threats on all kind of things--over love, or impatience over mail. . . . It’s crazy situations like that.”

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Leslie Berkman, Marla Cone, Kevin Johnson, Greg Hernandez, Matt Lait, Dan Weikel and Jodi Wilgoren and correspondent Frank Messina.

* POST OFFICE SECURITY

Workers wonder if more precautions could have been taken to prevent killings. A26