2 Slain in Fountain Valley Shop : Violence: The owner of an embroidery business and an employee are shot dead. Brother-in-law of one of the women is sought.

Two women, including the owner of a small embroidery business, were shot to death Thursday and police mounted a search for the owner’s brother-in-law, who was said to be obsessed with guns and had repeatedly threatened to harm family members.

Fountain Valley police said Douglas F. Stanley, 57, of Westminster opened fire with a handgun inside Design-It, a custom embroidery business owned by his sister-in-law, Joyce Stanley, and his brother, Charles Stanley.

Police would not identify the victims, saying only that the dead women worked at the business, located in a suite of an industrial center at 11577 Slater Ave. between Newhope Street and the Santa Ana River.

Employees and neighbors, however, said that one of the dead women was Design-It owner Joyce Stanley, 52, and the other was Terry Vasquez, 41, of Santa Ana, one of her employees.

Thursday’s shootings marked the third straight day of gun-related violence in Orange County. Two Anaheim brothers, ages 4 and 7, were wounded in a shootout between rival gangs on Tuesday, and a 13-year-old girl at Westminster Mall was shot in the back twice the following evening.

Police believe the Fountain Valley suspect, who owns several firearms and had been living with his brother and sister-in-law, escaped in a 1992 silver Buick Le Sabre with California license plate 2ZTR347, owned by Joyce Stanley. They said they thought he might have fled to Mexico, where he often travels.

Douglas’ brother, Charles, called police at 11:42 a.m. after he drove up to his business and found a woman staggering outside the front entrance, apparently shot.

Doug Berry, owner of a neighboring business, Trade Press, said he talked with Charles Stanley as police arrived on the scene. When Berry asked him what happened, he responded: “My brother went nuts and shot . . . “ Berry said Charles Stanley never finished the sentence.

“The suspect has a history of making threats against family members, and today he decided to carry out those threats,” said Police Sgt. Darryl Nance.

Nance said Douglas Stanley was a “survivalist type” who has no criminal record. Police found two rifles at the scene, but they believe a handgun was used to shoot the women several times in their upper torsos.

“Our first question was motive, and one of the family members told us that (Douglas Stanley) had personal problems. He was hostile and angry with other family members and had been making threats of bodily harm to a number of them,” Nance said.

“He is obviously dangerous, armed and angry,” Nance added.

One employee, Scott Pham, 26, who was at lunch when the shootings occurred, said Stanley had talked about getting “lots of guns” and once brought a handgun to the business and poked it in Pham’s ribs as a joke.

Pham said Stanley recently showed him a .38-caliber revolver he kept under the seat of his car and bragged about trying to get a license to buy and sell firearms wholesale so he could get them cheaper.

“He’d been talking about (guns) all the time,” Pham said. “He said if he wanted to shoot somebody he could and nobody would catch him.”

Pham said that one day he showed Stanley a newspaper story about a shooting, and Stanley remarked: “When I do it, I’ll do the job right.” He said he didn’t take Douglas Stanley’s stories about guns seriously, but “if you got him mad, watch out.”

Neighbors of the Stanleys’ home at 15542 Dalewood Lane in Westminster said that Douglas Stanley was argumentative, moody and a braggart, but they said they never saw him with weapons.

Four employees were in the back area of the business, which embroiders patches for uniforms, when the two women, working in the front office, were shot.

The workers said they did not witness the shooting and were unaware of it until police arrived.

“We didn’t hear anything and we didn’t know anything either,” said Cindy Tran, one of the four employees who was working in the back. She said police let them out through a separate entrance.

Pham said that Charles and Joyce Stanley were planning to hold a meeting with their employees that afternoon to discuss details of shutting down the business next month and moving their business out of state.

The Stanleys were planning to move to Arkansas because of the relatively high costs of operating a small business in California. A “For Sale” sign was posted in the lawn of their home.

Doug Stanley, who is single, had heart bypass surgery a little more than a year ago and moved here from Wyoming around then to be with his family. He was at the embroidery business almost every morning, Pham said, doing various chores, such as helping with the machines or with the patches.

“He worked at the business, but he could never do anything right,” said Donna Ashley, owner of a business next door to Design-It.

According to Pham, the two Stanley brothers frequently argued, although he never saw arguments between Douglas Stanley and his sister-in-law. The brothers’ mother also lived at the house.

“Him and Chuck kept arguing all the time. But I don’t know if that was the motive,” Pham said.

Douglas Stanley was described by police as 5-foot-11 and 165 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

Police, who were called to the site at 11:42 a.m., evacuated nearby businesses. By 12:30, uniformed officers and a special police weapons unit had taken up positions in the parking lot at the front door of the business, training their guns on the entrance.

The action, below an embankment along Slater Avenue, drew little attention from passersby until a SWAT team sharpshooter, accompanied by another officer, took up a position at the top of the embankment in clear view of traffic crossing the Santa Ana River on Slater. Lying on his stomach, with his rifle trained on the front door, he drew the attention of curious motorists who slowed down and craned their necks.

Police waited until just after 1:30 p.m. before moving in because they didn’t know if the assailant was still inside or whether there were any hostages.

Lupe Arana, who owns an advertising art and design studio three doors away and who knows the Stanley brothers, said that Douglas was still at the scene when police arrived, and that he calmly walked away from the parking lot with his head down as police arrived. He was not carrying a gun, she said.

Fountain Valley police said Arana’s account was possible but unlikely, because Joyce Stanley’s car, later discovered to be missing, was probably already gone by then and they believe Douglas Stanley drove off in it.

* THE VICTIMS: Slain women were planning move to rural Arkansas. A26

* DEATH AT WORK: Killings are latest in series of workplace-related attacks. A26