Bullet Robs Him of Chance to Know Mother He Just Met

For 31-year-old Paul Thomas Bray, finding the woman who gave him up for adoption as a child was one of those great moments in life. He was thinking about moving to New York to be closer to her. He wrestled with making a decision.

On Monday night, Bray’s body was found, shot in the head and dumped on a Santa Ana street.

His friends are mystified by the slaying.

A passerby found Bray’s body in the road in the 1200 block of West Brook Street about 10:05 p.m. and called police and paramedics. He was dead from a gunshot wound to the head, Lt. Bob Helton said.

Friends said Bray had recently returned from Omaha, Neb., to live temporarily in the Westminster neighborhood where he grew up. He was staying with 72-year-old Howard Logan, the grandfather of Bray’s ex-wife.

Logan said Bray had just tracked down his long-lost mother and was pondering whether to move to New York to be near her.

“He finally found his real mother. He was tickled to death,” said Logan, who learned of Bray’s death in a telephone call from police investigators early Tuesday. “He was having a time making up his mind about whether to go stay with his mom in New York or stay here.”

On Monday night, Bray went to his girlfriend’s house nearby at about 9 p.m., and he and the woman, Jamie Selby, 22, walked together to the house of another friend down the street, Selby said. Selby left for about half an hour, expecting to find Bray still there when she returned.

But he was gone.

“I was looking for him late last night. I knew something was wrong,” said an exhausted Selby, who learned of Bray’s death about 3 a.m. Tuesday and said that she had slept just one hour. “It wasn’t like him to disappear. I just didn’t know where to look.”

Logan said Bray had briefly returned home before 10 p.m. and borrowed a bicycle, saying he was going out for a while. His body was found a short time later on the Santa Ana street.

Investigators told Logan that Bray was found with money in his pocket, but the turquoise mountain bike was gone. Police are not discounting robbery as a possible motive, Helton said.

“Since the bike is gone, we’re not ruling anything out,” he said.

Helton said there was no physical evidence at the scene to indicate that Bray was shot there.

“We believe he was brought there in a car,” Helton said.

Bray, who has a 10-year-old son from his former marriage to Logan’s granddaughter, had moved to Nebraska recently to be with his adoptive parents, who retired there.

Last month, Bray’s adoptive father called Logan and asked him if Bray could stay in Logan’s home temporarily while he worked at a construction job. But Logan said Bray had not worked since he arrived and had been distracted lately with his new mission--to track down the mother who gave him up for adoption as a baby.

After Thanksgiving, he flew to New York for a week to meet her.

“I saw him about three days ago,” said Pat Mastin, 28, who has known Bray for about 10 years. “He had a lot on his mind, because he was a lot quieter than normal. I think he wanted to go back to New York.”