Brother Stunned by Slaying of Man Dating Officer’s Wife : Investigation: Thomas A. Minn, described by Anaheim police chief as ‘very pleasant,’ will be arraigned today.

Two days before Paul R. Hangen was shot to death, he was in good spirits and “didn’t appear to have a worry in the world,” the victim’s brother said Monday.

“I saw him last Wednesday night, and nothing seemed wrong,” Tim Hangen said. “His only plans for the immediate future was to trade in his Chevy S-10 pickup for a full-sized pickup. He had asked my father if they could go look at some trucks.”

Hangen said he knew his 28-year-old brother was romantically involved with Elian Schonberger, 36, the estranged wife of a good friend, Anaheim Police Officer Thomas A. Minn. So last Friday night, when he heard that his brother’s body was discovered in his white pickup truck just over a mile from Schonberger’s home, he alerted police to the relationship.

“Tom and my brother were close friends and did a lot of things together,” Hangen said. “Tom seemed like a perfectly normal person, but the first instinct that my parents and I had was that it was him.”

Minn, 36, was arrested Saturday on suspicion of shooting Hangen with his .45-caliber service pistol. He will be arraigned today, said Riverside County Sheriff’s investigator Mark Lohman.

The 14-year veteran of the Anaheim Police Department, who is being held at the Robert Pressley Detention Center in Riverside in lieu of $250,000 bail, has refused requests to be interviewed. He has been placed on administrative leave until the case is resolved.

“We’re very concerned about all the parties involved in this case,” Anaheim Police Chief Randall Gaston said. “But at this point, we’re not jumping to any conclusions until the case is resolved.”

Gaston said Minn, a motorcycle officer assigned to the traffic division, is “a very competent officer with an exceptional work record.” As far as he knows, Minn had never been suspended or reprimanded for acting inappropriately while on the job.

“He’s very well thought of by other officers,” Gaston said. “And he’s very pleasant.”

During an interview Sunday from her Corona home, Schonberger said she and Minn had been estranged for more than a year, and that her husband seemed to accept the fact that she was dating one of his friends. But Schonberger said that, when she started packing her things, Minn began talking of suicide.

“I think he finally realized I was going to be totally gone,” she said. “I had told him that after the first of the year, he had to find himself another roommate.”

Schonberger said she planned to file for divorce and hoped to build a future with Hangen. “Paul loved me, and he wanted things to work out between him and me,” she said. “I was not the pursuer. We pursued each other.”

But Tim Hangen, 34, said his brother told him earlier this month that he was somewhat uneasy about the relationship.

“He said he didn’t think he wanted the same things as she did,” Hangen said. “He said she called him all the time and that he had been avoiding her. He said she was pushing him.”

After learning of the relationship, Hangen said he warned his younger brother to be careful and to “watch his back.”

“I was concerned that their relationship could pose problems, but he said it was no big thing and that he could handle it,” Hangen said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine something like this happening.”

The Hangens moved to California from Colorado in 1979. Paul Hangen attended Norco High School and completed a two-year welders’ program at Chaffey College in Alta Loma, in San Bernardino County. He lived with his parents in Corona and worked as a welder at Foothill Engineering in Corona.

“He was a person who just liked to have fun,” his brother said. “He played like he was a tough guy, but it was funny because he had such a soft heart. Some people thought he was arrogant, but he was very loyal to his friends and family.”

Hangen said his brother collected knives and was passionate about riding horses and attending rodeos.

“He used to go to country nightclubs,” he said.

“He had no intentions of being with anyone permanently,” Hangen said of his brother. “He just wanted to have fun.”