Police Retrace Accused Killer’s Whereabouts

A loud Hawaiian shirt on his back and Grateful Dead stickers on his truck, the hunted ex-mailman went on the lam after allegedly killing two and shooting five others. But as the net finally closed around Mark Richard Hilbun on Saturday, one mystery remained: Where had he been?

Authorities now believe he may have never left Orange County even as his picture was plastered all over television and newspapers, and a huge police dragnet began Thursday. Instead, investigators said, Hilbun altered his appearance and disguised his truck with stolen license plates, abandoning his kayak and camper shell along the way.

“There is a lot that we don’t know about where he’s been, so we’re still trying to figure that out,” said Sgt. Andy Gonis, a spokesman for the Newport Beach Police Department.

A team of investigators spent six hours Saturday combing through a Garden Grove motel room where they believe the accused killer registered Friday. A motel receipt in his pocket led them there as they tried to fully account for Hilbun’s whereabouts before his arrest.

Before the violent two-day odyssey ended, Hilbun had left a mad trail from Dana Point to Huntington Beach--lounging around a stranger’s home in the hours after a fatal shooting spree, slicing up phone and clock cords and, finally, sipping cocktails in a sports saloon.

Several blocks of time still could not be accounted for.

By the time he was captured, his hair had been cut--and possibly dyed silver--his mustache was shaved off and he had disguised his pickup truck to elude arrest.

The bloodshed began sometime Thursday morning, according to police. But trouble had been brewing. Monday evening Kim Springer, a postal carrier Hilbun had allegedly stalked, reported to Laguna Beach police that Hilbun had been lurking around her home. Officers patrolled the area but did not find Hilbun.

Sometime before the post office shootings Thursday morning, police said, Hilbun stabbed to death his mother, Frances Hilbun, 63. Her nightgown-clad body was found in the bed of her Corona del Mar apartment, her cocker spaniel, Golden, fatally wounded in the kitchen.

At 7 a.m. and then at about 9 a.m., two residents say, they saw Mark Hilbun outside her Marigold Drive residence, where his camper carrying a blue kayak was parked.

By 9:30 a.m., Hilbun was spotted in a Dana Point neighborhood. Landscape construction worker Scott Waltz and an unidentified neighbor in the 33000 block of Reef Bay Place both say they saw a pickup truck with a blue kayak drive slowly by Waltz’s house, then park at the end of the street.

Waltz saw the truck heading for a home at the end of a cul-de-sac where the owners have Jet Skis, so he gave it no more thought, and left for work.

About 15 minutes later, at 9:45 a.m. Thursday, authorities say, Hilbun entered the Dana Point post office and opened fire in an employee area, killing Charles T. Barbagallo, 42, and wounding Peter Gates, 44. After allegedly firing into the postmaster’s office and missing, he drove away.

Four or five blocks away just moments later, Hilbun reportedly shot retiree John Kersey in his garage during a failed robbery, then again drove away in his truck.

It is not known what time Hilbun returned to the Reef Bay Place cul-de-sac, nor how long he stayed. But it’s believed he broke into Waltz’s house and apparently made himself at home for a while and was gone by 2 p.m.

A front window had been broken, and the shattered glass had been neatly swept out of sight. The window was removed and tucked behind a nearby lamp, then the screen was returned to its place. The cord to a digital alarm clock was severed, and a six-inch stretch of telephone cord was cut out.

The intruder also helped himself to the Frigidaire. He drank from a bottle of wine that he left on the fireplace mantle. He abandoned a partially empty beer can downstairs, and another in the garage. Closets and drawers had been opened. Loose change was all over the house. A trail of blood led from the broken window through the house and to the garage.

There was blood around the bathroom, where Hilbun used the sink and a hand towel. He wiped blood off on several things: a hand towel, a couple of T-shirts and the pajamas belonging to Waltz’s son.

“He apparently wandered around here,” Waltz said.

Waltz came home from work at 2 p.m. and couldn’t open his garage door. The electric opener had been turned off by motor switch. In the garage, Hilbun left the blue kayak lying diagonally across the floor. He took only two steak knives and left the front door open, according to investigators.

An hour later, Patricia Talanco-Salot, 48, spotted Hilbun with what she thought were magnetic signs taken from her Costa Mesa company. When she followed the truck to Cliff Drive and Signal Road, Hilbun allegedly climbed out of his truck and shot her several times before driving off.

Police believe that a short time later and just a few blocks away, Hilbun parked his truck at 310 El Modena Ave. in Newport Beach and ditched his camper shell.

Max Feuerberg lives there and parks his late father’s 1982 Nomad travel trailer in a vacant lot out back, off an alley. Police say Hilbun stole the plate, which was found later Saturday in his truck. A kayak oar and Salot’s magnetic signs were found hidden behind some bushes by the camper shell.

It was not immediately known where Hilbun spent the next 12 hours.

Sometime between 3 and 11 p.m. Friday, Hilbun checked in to a room at the Best Western Royal Plaza International Inn, at 7912 Garden Grove Blvd., near the intersection of Beach Boulevard, according to sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson.

The motel is less than a mile from the home where Kim Springer, the woman he had allegedly stalked, was raised.

Hilbun apparently stayed in Room 111--it was searched by officers all Saturday--where a blue flowery spread covers the double bed beneath a frameless mirror. It is near the front office of the two-story white stucco lodge. His room cost $37.40 for the night.

Motel guests a few doors down said they thought they had seen Hilbun a few days earlier walking around the parking lot, but that could not be confirmed by police.

Among the unaccounted gaps of time is what Hilbun was doing before he surfaced moments after midnight Friday outside a Wells Fargo Bank on Slater Avenue near Brookhurst Street and 150 feet from the Fountain Valley Police Department.

Elizabeth Shea, 28, and Jim Brown, 44, were at the drive-up automated teller at 10060 Slater Ave. when Hilbun allegedly approached them. As Shea remained in the car, Brown got out, and Hilbun walked up behind him, according to investigators.

Brown gave the gunman his wallet with $104 in it, then returned to the car. The gunman then fired two or more shots into the car, wounding both occupants.

Because the sports bar is near Slater on Beach Boulevard, it would appear Hilbun drove down Slater directly to the Centerfield Sports Bar & Grill.

At 12:15 a.m. Saturday, sporting a bright red Hawaiian shirt printed with blue fish, Hilbun ordered a pair of vodka and 7-Up cocktails, then wandered to the back corner of the bar. Pretty soon a patron rushed to bar manager Frank McNaughton and pointed out Hilbun standing near a pool table. Another patron summoned police, who arrived at the bar about 12:30 a.m. Hilbun was arrested without a struggle.

Handcuffed but still wearing the Hawaiian shirt, Hilbun was led at 8:40 a.m. from the sheriff’s offices to the Orange County Jail, where he was to undergo psychiatric evaluation.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Matt Lait, David Reyes, Lily Dizon, Jodi Wilgoren and correspondents Bob Elston and Willson Cummer.