Custody Loss Led to Man’s Fatal Shooting, : Authorities Say Crime: Police say his mother-in-law opened fire on the doorstep of his former home in Northridge. His two daughters were visiting his estranged wife.

While other parents shepherded their kids through an evening of Halloween trick or treating, Disney music producer Kenneth Lisi went to pick up his two young daughters after their visit with his estranged wife.

Apparently without warning or provocation, Lisi was shot to death on the doorstep of his former home in Northridge by his 73-year-old mother-in-law, police said. She fired the shots in anger over her daughter’s loss of custody of the girls in August, according to authorities.

Lisi’s wife Pamela and the girls weren’t even home at the time.

Despite an ongoing custody battle over the children that had turned exceptionally bitter, Lisi, 43, of Lancaster, never expected a violent confrontation, much less a shooting, his father said Monday.

Ernest Lisi and his wife witnessed their son’s slaying from a nearby vehicle, while they awaited for him to retrieve the girls. He said they could do nothing but watch helplessly as Lisi was shot once in the leg, and then several more times in the upper chest as he lay writhing on the ground.

“It is very tragic,” said Ernest Lisi. “I have no idea why it happened. I haven’t the slightest idea why she did what she did.”

Los Angeles police arrested Jo Lula Haynes after she was subdued and disarmed by Lisi’s distraught parents. Haynes, who police said lived in the Louise Avenue home with her daughter, was later booked on murder charges.

“She just opened fire on him,” said police homicide Detective Rick Swanston of the LAPD’s West Valley station. “He knocks on the door and asks if the kids are there, she says the kids aren’t here, my daughter isn’t here and you’re not going to see the kids again. . . . She wanted him dead.”

“In domestic matters, child custody matters, emotions become inflamed,” Swanston added. “People do violent things.”

Lisi was treated at the scene by paramedics, but died at Northridge Hospital Medical Center a short while after the 7:20 p.m. shooting.

Haynes allegedly used a .38-caliber revolver registered in her name to shoot Lisi, police said. She was ordered held without bail in Van Nuys Jail pending her arraignment, which was set for today.

Pamela Lisi could not be reached for comment. Superior Court Judge Robert M. Letteau on Monday ordered police to pick up the two girls, ages 4 and 11, and deliver them to county social workers until a suitable family member can be found to care for them. He said it would be detrimental to the children’s welfare for them to stay in their mother’s care.

On Aug. 12, Letteau awarded Kenneth Lisi sole custody of the girls, in part because the mother suffers from lupus, which he said requires “significant medication,” and because Letteau said Pamela Lisi was relying on relatives to care for the girls. Lisi filed for divorce from his wife last November, 15 years after they were married.

Lisi’s father and colleagues said he was a likable man who deserved better than to die in such a brutal fashion.

“He was just a very nice, mild-mannered guy. Very creative,” said Anthony Hatch, a spokesman for Walt Disney Imagineering, where Lisi worked as a producer of music and voice casting for use in Disney theme parks worldwide. “We are all extremely saddened, just very, very sad, very down. People are very upset about it.”

Suzanne Harris, who represented Pamela Lisi in the divorce case, acknowledged that the matter had become contentious. But she said her client--and Haynes--had never shown any indications of violence.

“She is a very nice older lady, a very gentle lady,” Harris said of Haynes, whom she had met. “A little odd-looking with some funny mannerisms, but she’s the gentlest person I ever met, as was my client.”

Harris said Kenneth Lisi often became “very angry, outwardly hostile, to the point of screaming and crying and beating his fists on the table” during divorce deliberations.

According to court documents, Pamela Lisi’s relatives alleged that Lisi had sexually abused the younger of the two daughters. But Letteau awarded Lisi sole custody after a psychologist said there was no evidence to support the child abuse allegations. Shortly afterward, Lisi and the girls moved to Lancaster.

Lisi’s father had no comment on the divorce proceedings, or why Haynes may have pulled the trigger.

“His problems are over now, and I don’t want this thing sensationalized,” he said, when interviewed at his Chatsworth home. “The police have her in custody and will do with her what they will. Right now I can’t even think about what I want to happen to her.”

Times correspondent Thom Mrozek contributed to this article.