Suspect in 2 Slayings Kills Self After Spree : Deaths: Suicide of John S. Hanna follows a day of shootings. His wife and a business partner he was suing were killed. Another partner was wounded in Santa Ana.

A man suspected of killing his wife and a business partner and critically wounding another partner outside a Santa Ana office killed himself at his home Tuesday as police moved in.

John S. Hanna “returned to his residence in Upland,” said Upland Detective Mike McCarthy. “As he was being approached by officers, he shot himself and killed himself.”

The suicide followed a daylong shooting spree Monday, and a series of desperate calls Hanna made Tuesday on his car phone to a local clergyman who tried to talk him into surrendering, and to his brother, a prominent Toronto surgeon.

According to a police reconstruction of events, Hanna, 56, began the day Monday by killing his wife, Irene Hanna, 65, at the couple’s home on East La Costa Circle.

Hanna then drove to Corona for an appointment with Herbert Roy Ratch, one of his business partners in a failing company called North American Cogeneration Inc. Hanna was chief executive officer of the company, which had its corporate status revoked by the California secretary of state in July, 1991.

Ratch’s body was found just after noon in a grain storage lot in the 17000 block of Pomona Rincon Road in Chino.

“The best we can figure is that he was driven to Chino and dumped,” said San Bernardino Sheriff’s Detective Robert Acevedo.

Acevedo would not say how many times the 54-year-old Ratch had been shot, pending the results of an autopsy scheduled for today.

“Where he was shot, we don’t know; probably inside the car,” Acevedo said.

Hanna was suing Ratch and other partners in the venture in Orange County Superior Court, charging that they misrepresented the financial condition of the company when Hanna invested $100,000 to become a majority stockholder. Later, according to court documents, Hanna invested and loaned more than $150,000 to the company and the partners.

One of Hanna’s other partners at North American Cogeneration was Greg B. Lawyer, 51, who invested $150,000 in the company. Lawyer was a plaintiff with Hanna in the suit against Ratch and other partners.

A few minutes before noon on Monday, Hanna went to Lawyer’s office at another company, North Canadian Marketing on North Tustin Avenue in Santa Ana, witnesses told police.

The two spoke briefly and went to the building’s parking structure. Witnesses told Santa Ana police that they heard the sound of loud voices and then two shots.

Lawyer was found with two bullet wounds in the upper torso and taken to the hospital, where he told police to warn Ratch and another partner, Bernard F. Kolanowski, that Hanna was probably after them.

Kolanowski, 57, was contacted at his home in Carlsbad and locked his front gate, according to Carlsbad Police Lt. Greg K. Fried. But just after 2 p.m., Hanna drove up to his house, got out of his car and shot the lock off the gate, police said.

Kolanowski told police that he was due in Riverside on Tuesday in another case involving Hanna.

After calling police, Kolanowski saw Hanna walk past his window and ring his doorbell, police said. Kolanowski then hid in his garage to await police. Just before they arrived, Hanna fired another shot into the back of the house and fled, authorities said.

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Police from Carlsbad to Chino had searched for Hanna through the night.

Then at 8:45 a.m. Tuesday, Hanna called Dr. Walter O. Winger, pastor of the Brethren in Christ Church in Upland. He “was very distraught, he was crying, he wanted forgiveness,” Winger said. “He said there’s nothing to live for now, ‘I killed my wife.’ ”

But Hanna also told Winger that a business venture had cost him $360,000, and “there were a couple of other people he wanted to even the score with.”

The minister said he tried to talk Hanna out of hurting himself or anyone else, and urged him to get rid of his gun. Hanna agreed to come to Winger’s office at the church at 11 a.m.

Winger called police, who sent plainclothes officers to the church for the meeting.

“We wanted to take him there,” Winger said, before anyone else was hurt.

Hanna did not show up, but called Winger again about 11:30 a.m., saying there were still some things he had to do.

Winger heard nothing more until police and Hanna’s brother called to say that John Hanna was dead.

Winger said he first heard of Hanna, who was not a member of his congregation, several months ago. The minister received a call from his niece, who is married to Hanna’s brother, Dr. Sherif S. Hanna, chief of surgery at Sunnybrook Health Science Center in Toronto.

Sherif Hanna “asked me to call John because he was having some business problems,” Winger said. “John Hanna was going to come in and talk to me, but he never came.”

Sherif Hanna told Winger that his brother had been talking to him on the car phone as he drove up to his house. When John Hanna said he saw police, Sherif Hanna tried to call Upland police on another line to urge them not to approach the car.

At 3:30 p.m., Hanna “pulled up in front of the garage,” said Detective McCarthy. “When the officers approached him, that’s when he shot himself. . . . He said nothing. The officer watching him heard his engine rev up, but didn’t hear the shot when they approached.”

Officers found a note in Hanna’s car.

“He just said he was sorry for what occurred, and that was it,” said Upland Police Lt. Walter J. Ciszek.

Lawyer remained in critical but stable condition Tuesday night.

Kolanowski, who had spent Monday night at an undisclosed location, was contacted by Lt. Fried on Tuesday evening.

‘I told him, ‘You’re free to go home now.’ ”

Times Staff Writer Davan Maharaj contributed to this report.