Estranged Husband Fatally Shoots Wife, Then Himself : Crime: Woman was in her car, talking to a friend outside Cypress racetrack, when she was shot. The friend, who was chased by the gunman, and a granddaughter, 3, in the auto were not injured.

An estranged husband shot his wife to death and killed himself in the parking lot of the Los Alamitos Race Course early Tuesday morning.

Police said Jose Manuel Chavez, 40, of Bell Gardens approached a green sedan where his wife, Maria Ramona Chavez, 37, was sitting and shot her in the presence of their 3-year-old granddaughter who was in the car.

“You could hear the child screaming,” said Les Roberts, a horse trainer who witnessed the slaying as he exercised his horse at the racetrack.

Police said Chavez and their granddaughter had driven into the parking lot west of the grandstands sometime after 6 a.m. She was sitting in the car talking to a family friend who stood outside the car, Cypress Police Sgt. Ron Dickson said.

Jose Chavez drove into the parking lot about 6:30 a.m. and parked behind his wife’s car. He got out and began shooting a semiautomatic pistol at her and the man to whom she was talking, Dickson said.

The friend ran, and Chavez chased him briefly, firing five or six shots, police said.

“We heard the gunshots and I turned around and looked and saw this fellow chasing this other fellow, shooting the whole while,” Roberts said.

When the man fled down a dirt road beside the stables and escaped, Chavez paused, walked back to the car with his gun drawn, shot the woman and killed himself, Roberts said.

Roberts, who had taken cover behind a concrete wall, said he was “around 200 feet away, thinking: ‘Is this really happening?’ ”

Police did not know whether Maria Chavez died in the first round of fire or when her husband returned and fired again. She had been hit several times, they said.

The girl was not injured and was taken to Orangewood Children’s Home.

Police said the couple had been separated for “a couple of years,” but they don’t know the motive for the slaying.

They located the friend who fled, but would not release his name. Maria Chavez lived in Hawaiian Gardens, police said.

An ambulance driver also witnessed the shootings and ran to pull the girl from the car and attend to the wounded. Ambulances are stationed at the racetrack every morning between 6 and 10 in case a jockey or trainer is hurt while the horses exercise, Roberts said.