Businessman Is Gunned Down Outside His Home in Santa Ana : Slaying: One of two men hiding in a car killed the owner of cabinetmaking factories, witnesses say. No motive is determined.

One of two men who hid in a car with an AK-47 assault rifle Thursday morning gunned down a businessman at his home, authorities said.

Witnesses told police that the two men waited in a maroon car for Ubaldo Avalos, 42, at least an hour and a half before one of them opened fire as he was leaving to go to his Placentia cabinetmaking factory. One man who sat in the passenger seat got out of the car about 8:55 a.m., and fired five to 10 times at Avalos with a high-powered rifle, Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton said.

Police would not describe the type of weapon used to kill Avalos, but a neighbor familiar with guns described the assailant’s rifle as an AK-47, a model outlawed in California.

One of the bullets hit Avalos in the head, others struck his upper body, police said. It was not immediately clear how many times the victim was struck. Shell casings were strewn near the body, which lay near the victim’s vehicle. It was parked in the driveway of his house in the 3000 block of South Diamond Street.

He died at the scene, police said.

Robert Schultz, 44, a neighbor across the street from the Avaloses, said he heard the shots.

“I came out with a gun but they were gone,” Schultz said. “Then I saw him half under his truck. Another neighbor and I tried CPR on him but there was nothing.”

Schultz then ran inside the Avalos home to notify the victim’s wife, Olivia, who was on the phone with a brother-in-law. He said she and her two daughters later went outside, saw the body and began sobbing.

Schultz said the victim’s wife moved into the neighborhood nearly a decade ago with her two daughters. Avalos moved in about 1988, and the couple married in March, Schultz said.

Olivia’s sister, Tina Robles, 44, of Santa Ana, drove up to the scene and began crying. Asked if she knew why anyone would want to kill Avalos, she shook her head.

“He was a very likable person,” Robles said before quickly driving away.

Police would not speculate on the motive. Court records showed that Avalos had a felony drug conviction for selling cocaine in 1983.

“It could be anything,” Helton said. “A vendetta, a relationship thing, or drugs, or it definitely could be about business. It had to be something for these people to go there and do this to him.

“Obviously, with these people waiting for him, there’s something we don’t know about,” Helton said.

Avalos, who emigrated from Mexico 10 years ago, founded the Cabinet Tree Woodwork Systems in Placentia, a cabinetmaking factory he co-owned with his wife. Avalos also had two other cabinet factories in Riverside and Corona.

Neighbors said that Avalos ran the Placentia business and had several brothers helping to manage the Riverside and Corona factories.

At the Placentia business, a closed sign still hung on the unlocked front door at 11:30 a.m., four hours after the usual starting time. The factory sits in a small industrial park at 1921 Miraloma Ave.

Inside the business, three employees--two men and a woman--gathered in the front office. The woman and one man had tears on their faces. All seemed stunned.

“We’ve been sitting here trying to figure out who could have done this, how could this be,” one man said. “He was a good man, a very good man.”

Another man wearing a company baseball cap then walked out of the back room and told the employees in Spanish to say no more and referred all inquiries to the Avalos family.

Jim Potter, who helps manage the property, said Avalos opened his business in a smaller suite in the industrial park a few years ago. When the business outgrew the suite, Avalos rented a bigger site in the complex, Potter said. Avalos was rumored to be looking recently for an even bigger place that he could buy, he said.

“It seemed like his business was growing and prospering,” Potter said. “This is kind of weird, kind of scary.”

Rod Carew, the California Angels hitting instructor who had owned the Batting School, an indoor batting facility next to the Cabinet Tree, remembered Avalos as a “nice man who would always say ‘Hi.’ ”

Avalos had rented the building next to Carew’s facility, which Carew later sold. Avalos then moved across the street.

“We didn’t talk much but I do remember him,” Carew said in a telephone interview from Yankee Stadium in New York. “I remember one of the little boys with him who came by once to get an autograph. He was a nice man.”

A resident of South Diamond Street, who described himself as close to the family, said Avalos once told him he had run out of money and was “$50,000 in the hole.” But recently, Avalos had bought his wife a used BMW, and the couple’s explanation for a new Ford Ranger was that they won it in a lottery.

Schultz said the victim’s family also owned a horse and a powerboat.

More than one neighbor said they recalled police arriving at Avalos’ house three years ago and making an arrest but they were unsure of the reason.

Avalos was arrested on Sept. 20, 1983, by a Brea detective as part of an undercover sting on a charge of selling an ounce of cocaine for $2,200, according to records on file at the Orange County Superior Court. At that time, he listed his address as 1947 E. Deere Ave. in Santa Ana.

Avalos pleaded guilty to a felony of transporting or sale of a narcotic. He was sentenced to three years’ probation. However, in 1985, Avalos failed to report to his probation officer. He wrote from Guadalajara, saying that he had traveled there out of concern for his extended family. At the time, Guadalajara and Mexico City had been struck by a deadly earthquake.

Probation department officials wrote back telling him to return to the United States, saying that Avalos had taken advantage of the catastrophe to leave the country. Although Avalos later returned, it was not clear if he was found in violation of his probation.

Times correspondent Terry Spencer contributed to this report.