Fatal Rampage Suspect Caught : Manhunt: Fired mail carrier--accused of two slayings--is found by police in a Huntington Beach bar shortly after he allegedly shot two people at an ATM.

Fired postal worker Mark Richard Hilbun, suspected of killing two people and wounding five others in a two-day rampage of violence, was arrested peacefully early Saturday morning when police found him watching television in a sports bar.

Half an hour before he was arrested at 12:30 a.m., Hilbun shot and wounded a man and a woman at an automated teller machine in Fountain Valley about 150 feet from the city’s police station, officials said.

Authorities believe the couple were the sixth and seventh people attacked by Hilbun in a two-day rampage that began when he allegedly stabbed his 63-year-old mother to death Thursday morning and shot a letter carrier to death at the Dana Point post office a short time later.

Hilbun’s rampage triggered a chilling fear in some of Orange County’s most exclusive communities. Throughout the area, news of Saturday’s arrest brought a collective sigh of relief.

At the Dana Point post office, where workers were busy processing a backlog of Mother’s Day mail, there was spontaneous applause before dawn, when news of the arrest came. Hilbun, a diagnosed manic-depressive, was fired from his job as a letter carrier at the Dana Point post office in December, in part because he was stalking a female co-worker.

The subject of a massive police search, Hilbun spent his last hours of freedom in a manner so bold that one police officer suggested, “It’s almost like he wanted to be caught.”

Just after midnight Saturday, police said, Hilbun drove from the Fountain Valley shooting at the ATM to the sports bar--about two miles away--in the same gray pickup truck that he used to escape from the post office shooting.

The bar was crowded with about 150 people who had just watched the basketball and hockey playoff games when one of the patrons recognized Hilbun from photographs shown on television and called police.

“I was involved in a conversation . . . when a guy who is a regular came up and was real agitated, real upset,” said Frank McNaughton, a co-owner of the Centerfield Sports Bar. “He repeated over and over, ‘The postal killer is here!’ ”

The customer pointed to one of two pool tables in a back corner where Hilbun was standing. In contrast to the picture of the suspect issued by police, McNaughton said, Hilbun “was clean-shaven . . . and his hair was a lot shorter and looked 10 to 15 pounds lighter.”

But Demy Mourani, 26, the customer who saw Hilbun, said the suspect “had a distinguished nose. . . . It was like the picture on TV.” Still, Mourani said he was initially worried that he might turn in the wrong man. “If I was to put the finger on somebody else who was innocent, I would feel really bad,” he said.

Hilbun, who turns 39 today, was said to be calm and unemotional at his arrest--the same description witnesses attributed to the gunman who strolled casually away from the post office murder scene Thursday. “Cool as a cucumber,” one bar patron said.

When police arrived, Hilbun was seated on a bar stool drinking a mix of vodka and 7-Up and wearing white cotton pants, a Hawaiian shirt and beach sandals. Three Huntington Beach police officers stepped up to him about 12:30 a.m., tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to step outside.

The capture at the bar on Beach Boulevard, about 20 miles up the coast from Dana Point, went smoothly. Officers did not draw their weapons.

“At first, the suspect gave an alias and said his name was Plant,” said Huntington Beach Police Lt. Charles Poe. “The officers said, ‘Well, tell us your real name.’ And he quickly admitted who he was.

“After he gave his name he just hung his head,” Poe said.

Officers searched Hilbun and found a “non-firearm type of weapon,” but Poe declined to identify it.

Even though he continued to circulate in public just miles from the crime scenes, Hilbun managed to frustrate an intense police dragnet for more than 38 hours. Police said, however, that he took some steps to prevent his capture.

For instance, he switched the license plates on his truck, replacing them with ones from Idaho, and he removed a camper shell, which was found Saturday in a vacant lot in Newport Beach. He also cut his shaggy silver hair, and he was no longer wearing a T-shirt with the word psycho printed across the front, which had shocked witnesses at the post office shooting.

Instead, Hilbun was wearing a maroon and blue Hawaiian-style shirt that one officer called a “here-I-am kind of shirt.”

The massive hunt for Hilbun involved 23 police agencies. Sheriff’s Capt. Andy Romero said police “think he is a cunning person that has his wits about him. . . . He did things to elude attention.”

Newport Beach Police Lt. Paul Henisey said his department received 50 calls before 6 p.m. Friday from the public reporting various information and sightings of Hilbun. Newport Beach devoted its entire force, including 23 detectives, to the search.

“It’s amazing he wasn’t caught earlier,” Poe said. “I think he was just lucky.”

A $25,000 reward was issued by the U.S. Postal Service on Friday for Hilbun’s arrest. Prosecutors also charged the suspect with five felony counts--two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder. He could face the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors said additional charges were expected to be filed for the Fountain Valley shootings.

Hilbun was taken to the Sheriff’s Department about 4:30 a.m. Saturday and interviewed for several hours by homicide detectives from various police agencies. Investigators declined to discuss the findings. However, they said he was “friendly and cooperative.”

Hilbun was being held late Saturday without bail at the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana. His attorney, David C. Biggs, declined comment.

Police obtained warrants to search a room at a Garden Grove motel where Hilbun is believed to have checked in after 3 p.m. Friday. Police impounded his truck, which was found parked near the bar.

Saturday morning’s armed robbery was the fifth crime attributed to Hilbun in less than two days, three in daylight.

According to police, Hilbun stabbed his mother, Frances Hilbun, and her cocker spaniel, Golden, to death at her home in Corona del Mar, then drove to the Dana Point post office, where he killed letter carrier Charles T. Barbagallo with a single shot between the eyes. Another postal worker, Peter Gates, was wounded.

Police believe the Dana Point shooting--which came just hours after another postal employee in Dearborn, Mich., killed a co-worker--was connected to Hilbun’s stalking of a female postal employee in Dana Point. Just a week ago, Hilbun had sent the woman a note saying: “I love you. I’m going to kill us both and take us both to hell.”

Minutes after the post office shooting, Hilbun allegedly wounded a man in the arm during an apparent botched robbery.

A few hours later--about 3 p.m.--police believe Hilbun shot and wounded Patricia Talanco-Salot, 48, in Newport Beach because she was following him. The victim, who remained in critical but stable condition at Hoag Hospital, apparently wanted to talk to him because she thought he had stolen some magnetic car signs from her shop.

The two victims in the Fountain Valley shooting were identified Saturday as Jim Brown, 44, and Elizabeth Shea, 28. Both injuries were described as minor.

The rampage terrified residents of several communities.

“It’s nice to be able to stop all the running around,” Poe of the Huntington Beach Police Department said. “He was terrorizing the whole beach community.”

Children at several schools were kept in a campus “lock-down” Thursday and Friday while volunteers were posted to watch for anything suspicious.

Residents also said they carefully locked doors and windows, and businesses reported losing the tourists usually attracted to the relaxed beach community with spectacular ocean views.

Kathy Gates, the wife of a postal worker who was wounded by Hilbun in the shooting Thursday morning, said: “We felt relieved.”

She said she and her husband, Peter, had worried that Hilbun might return. “You never know with him,” she said. “That was a thought.”

The couple had sent their three youngest children from their Vista home to stay with relatives. “(Now) we can gather up our kids and bring them all home,” she said.

An aunt of the deceased postal worker said she was also relieved. “I said, ‘Thank God. Now maybe everybody can rest and not be afraid he will come back,’ ” said Camarda Cancetta, from her home in Goshen, N.Y.

With the arrest of Hilbun, mail delivery resumed as usual Saturday in Dana Point for the first time since Thursday’s shootings, said Arthur O. Martinez, Postal Service district manager in Santa Ana.

Of the 70 or so employees who came to work, about 25 had volunteered to help out from other offices, from Newport Beach to San Clemente. The volunteers from other offices will receive compensation for their work, Martinez said.

“We actually turned away volunteers,” he said.

Crisis intervention teams and psychologists are still available for employees in Dana Point, as well as any local office, Martinez said. He said security guards will remain until employees feel comfortable.

“Employees will have the security and counseling services as needed, indefinitely,” he said.

Resumption of normal postal operations in Dana Point also came as a relief to residents. The parking lot was full of people throughout the morning Saturday, wondering if they would still need to pick up their mail. Employees were posted in the parking lot, letting people know the mail would be delivered to homes as usual.

On the sidewalk, one female postal employee stood with a makeshift sign reading, “Residential Mail Delivery Today.”

Some motorists passing by honked in approval. One woman even yelled out, “Happy Mother’s Day.”

“I’m so glad to see everybody back alive,” said Si Grim, a Dana Point resident who came by the post office to pick up her mail. “You just feel in limbo. Now all of a sudden you’re relieved.”

Kim Springer, who was stalked by Hilbun, was in protective custody Saturday when postal officials told her of the arrest. “Kim Springer now has a great sense of relief,” Postal Inspector Pamela Prince said.

Springer’s boyfriend, Steve Eberhardt, said he also talked with Springer by phone Saturday.

“All she said was, ‘He’s caught,’ ” Eberhardt said. “I said, ‘Great.’ We said, ‘I love you,’ and that’s it. Just, ‘They caught him . . . Huntington Beach . . . love you. Bye, see you soon.’

“We’re both happy, that’s all,” Eberhardt said.

The rest of Springer’s family remained in Riverside County on Saturday, where they had fled for safety.

Hoping to address fears and concerns about the events, U.S. Postal Service officials met early Saturday morning with employees at the Dana Point post office. U.S. Postmaster Gen. Marvin Runyon and Chief Postal Inspector Ken Hunter intended to answer questions about working conditions raised by the shooting as well as to explain the recent events.

Hunter said the employees’ concerns focused on what could have been done to prevent the shooting. “They expressed frustration with the postal organization,” Hunter said. “They expressed some frustrations with the unions.

“Some are frustrated that she (Springer) didn’t get enough help from the Postal Service.”

Runyon told reporters that the incident will be thoroughly reviewed to determine how the Postal Service could improve its working conditions. But he defended the department’s actions in the Dana Point case.

“The suspect, Mr. Hilbun . . . had been fired,” Runyon said. “We recognized he did not belong in our work force and he was removed.”

Runyon noted that the Postal Service has established a 24-hour crisis hot-line number for employees and it conducted a survey of workers that said “our management style is too authoritarian: something most of us knew.” He promised a restructured department with “employee empowerment” as one of the key goals.

But Runyon said reforms will not necessarily prevent violence in the future.

“Company after company has learned that locked doors, security systems and counseling professionals have not eliminated the senseless violence we saw this week,” he said. “There is too much violence in our society.

“The question remains: How do we deal with employees who are identified as potentially violent, but who have taken no actions on which management or the authorities can act?”

Hunter made a strong plea for federal stalking legislation. He also defended the Postal Service’s hiring procedures, although he said the procedures for checking police records and former employers could be improved.

“There is a possibility for violence at any place where the public can go,” he said. “There’s no way to guarantee that someone can’t come in when the public is there.”

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Nancy Wride, Leslie Berkman, David Reyes, Matt Lait, Greg Hernandez, Eric Lichtblau, Lily Dizon, Thuan Le and correspondents Willson Cummer and Anna Cekola.

* TENSE DAYS: Suspect’s arrest ends two days of fear for edgy residents. A24

* FAMILY’S ORDEAL: Kim Springer’s relatives are elated stalker is in jail. A24

Violent Trail

Chronology of events involving murder suspect Mark Richard Hilbun:

THURSDAY: KILLING BEGINS

Corona del Mar: Hilbun’s mother, Frances Hilbun, 63, is stabbed to death at an apartment on Marigold Drive. The woman’s cocker spaniel, Golden, is also killed. Police believe this is the beginning of the 39-year-old suspect’s rampage.

Dana Point post office, 9:45 a.m.: Hilbun enters the post office, where he opens fire in an employee area, killing Charles T. Barbagallo, 42, and wounding Peter Gates, 44, police say. Witnesses say he shouts “Kim! Kim!” in reference to Kim Springer, a postal worker with whom he is “infatuated.”

Second Dana Point shooting, 10 a.m.: About four blocks from the post office, Hilbun allegedly shoots John Kersey, 65, a retired probation officer, in a failed robbery attempt. Kersey suffers scrapes, bruises and a gunshot wound to his left arm.

Dana Point break-in, 2 p.m.: Dana Point resident Scott Waltz returns home from work to find his house has been broken into. Hilbun is suspected of breaking into the house, drinking wine and beer, and abandoning a kayak that was on top of his blue-gray Toyota pickup truck.

Newport Beach, 3 p.m.: Patricia Talanco-Salot, 48, follows a pickup because the driver had stolen her company’s magnetic truck signs. The driver, who police say was Hilbun, stops, gets out of his truck on Cliff Drive and fires at Talanco-Salot, critically wounding her. She remains in stable condition. The camper shell from Hilbun’s pickup is later found in an alley near El Modena Avenue, not far from where Talanco-Salot is shot.

FRIDAY: ELUDING CAPTURE

Garden Grove, sometime after 3 p.m.: Hilbun checks into the Best Western Royal Plaza International Inn on Garden Grove Boulevard. Police subsequently search Room 111.

SATURDAY: END GAME

Fountain Valley, around midnight: Police say Hilbun approaches Elizabeth Shea, 28, and Jim Brown, 44, at a drive-up automated teller machine at Wells Fargo Bank on Slater Avenue. He allegedly robs them of $104 and then opens fire, wounding both.

Huntington Beach, 12:15 a.m.: Hilbun orders two cocktails at Centerfield Sports Bar & Grill on Beach Boulevard, then wanders to the back corner of the bar. Police are summoned after two patrons recognize Hilbun from TV reports. Police arrest Hilbun without a struggle.

Santa Ana, 8:40 a.m.: A handcuffed Hilbun, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, is taken from the Sheriff’s Department to the Orange County Jail to be booked. He smiles to reporters and television crews as he is being led away.

Source: Times reports, eyewitnesses, police

Researched by MATT LAIT / Los Angeles Times