Under Police Siege, Man’s Killer Takes His Own Life

A man with a shotgun burst into a Buena Park medical office Tuesday morning and fatally wounded a lab technician, then barricaded himself in his ex-girlfriend’s Anaheim home for 5 1/2 hours before shooting himself to death.

The standoff at the home began Tuesday afternoon, shortly after Fernando Alacron, a handyman in his 40s, confronted his estranged girlfriend where she worked as a lab technician at Hana Medical Group on Knott Avenue in Buena Park.

Threatening the woman with his gun, Alacron opened fire instead on a bystander, who staggered to his car and tried to drive to a hospital, Buena Park Police Lt. Tony Kelly said.

With severe chest wounds, the victim drove about 50 yards before stopping upon the arrival of paramedics, who rushed him to UCI Medical Center in Orange. The man’s identity was being withheld pending notification of relatives.

The victim recently was hired as a phlebotomist, a technician who is trained to draw blood from patients, and was briefly visiting the Buena Park lab, possibly to pick up or deliver some samples.

He died Tuesday afternoon in surgery.

Authorities identified the woman as Fay Agdon. Her co-workers said she and Alacron had been living together for more than a decade but recently had broken off the relationship. Police said Alacron was unable to contact Agdon on Monday night and so sought her out at work Tuesday morning. Authorities have no information that Alacron and the shooting victim knew each other.

After the shooting, police said, Alacron jumped in a black van and drove about two miles to Agdon’s home on Harcourt Street in Anaheim. A police helicopter spotted the van in the driveway, and when officers approached the house, a family member came to the door. Police escorted her out of the house and saw Alacron inside with a shotgun.

Authorities evacuated about 30 homes in the neighborhood around Magnolia and Crescent avenues, telling those who insisted on staying to stay low to keep out of the path of stray bullets. The nearby Dad Miller Golf Course also was cleared.

Throughout the afternoon, more than 20 officers watched the house from ground and air and telephoned, but nobody answered.

At 5:30 p.m., one officer peered inside a window and saw Alacron lying on a bed, having shot himself. Although Agdon has two children who live with her, nobody else was in the house with Alacron.

Bharat Rana, 40, who works in the same complex with Agdon, said she told him the couple had separated about a week ago and that Alacron had invited her to reconcile but she refused.

“He told her, ‘Why don’t you come over to my house; I have something for you,’ ” Rana quoted Agdon as saying. “Maybe he had a plan.”

Douglas French, a chiropractor who works in the suite next door to the one in which the first shooting occurred, said he heard gunshots and screams just before noon. He had just finished treating a patient and was talking to the patient’s friend, a former Connecticut police officer. The two men were talking about domestic violence.

French said he called next-door to a doctor’s office, where children and adults were gathered for “pediatric day,” and told them to get back inside and lock the door. French told his patients to do the same, as he crawled into his office and dialed 911.

French had vaguely known both Alacron and Agdon since 1989, when he moved into the office, and he saw Alacron do odd construction jobs around the complex while it was being renovated. Agdon, he said, worked in a medical lab where blood tests are administered by lab technicians.

The victim had inquired about renting an office suite, French said, and was scheduled to meet the building’s owner, Jun Samson. But Samson was 15 minutes late.

“Had he been on time, it’s likely he would have been involved in all of this,” French said.

French rushed out to the parking lot shortly after the shooting and saw the victim driving away.

“He started driving but he got only about 50 yards,” French said. “The police stopped him and the paramedics came.”

At Agdon’s house, a crowd gathered behind police lines as the afternoon progressed, waiting for something to unfold. Some even sat on their roofs, watching the police activity. Schoolchildren who lived on the block were kept at their local schools for their safety, police said.

Authorities weren’t sure whether Alacron was holding hostages, and more than half a dozen patrol cars blocked the Harcourt Street entrance.

Just before 2 p.m., Anaheim SWAT trucks rolled into the neighborhood. Team members evacuated neighbors and circled the house.

“We want to make sure we secure the area and consider all possibilities before we take any course of action,” Det. Allen Fenner said.

By 4:30 p.m. a police dog was brought in, as officials nudged closer to the house and looked inside. Just before 5:30 p.m., investigators saw Alacron’s body.