Teen Kills 3 O.C. Men, Is Shot by Police Sniper

Colorado authorities on Wednesday were investigating why a troubled teenager befriended by three Orange County men shot them execution style and then drove nearly 400 miles to a college dormitory where he took four women hostage before being killed by a police sniper.

The three slain victims, all 1994 graduates of El Modena High School in Orange, were shot multiple times in the head and body with a handgun early Tuesday in the Bayfield, Colo., home they shared with the gunman, police said.

The victims were Joshua Turville, 20, John Anthony Lara III, 20, and Steven David Bates, 20.

Turville and Lara were described as “devoutly religious” and had attended Calvary Chapel in Santa Ana, where they helped lead Bible study classes. Bates, who had a minor brush with the law as a teen, had accompanied his friends to Colorado and appeared to have turned his life around, friends said.

“We couldn’t believe it happened when the police told us about it,” said a family friend of Lara’s. “How could this happen to someone so into his faith? It just shows that something like this can happen to anyone.”

Bayfield Marshal Jim Harrington said the bodies were discovered in a two-bedroom home filled with Bibles and religious literature. Co-workers and friends of the victims said they had moved to the southwest Colorado community of 1,400 residents about one month ago to work in construction and help start a new Calvary Chapel church.

“The big question is what is the motivation behind the execution of these three boys,” said Harrington, police chief in the community. “It’s driving me crazy trying to figure out why he killed them. There were no drugs, alcohol or weapons in the house, just a lot of religious materials and nothing that would show a propensity for violence.”

Investigators believe the shootings occurred between 12:30 and 1 a.m. Tuesday. The house is in a peaceful neighborhood, but police said nobody heard the gunshots. The bodies were discovered about noon.

Harrington identified the gunman as Joseph Edward Gallegos, 18, who had an extensive juvenile record. He was released five months ago from a juvenile detention center and placed under the supervision of a Bayfield family. He won parole Sept. 11. Authorities said Gallegos’ record began when he was 13 and included convictions for what police described as several violent crimes.

Friends said Turville had befriended Gallegos during the summer and agreed to take him in as a roommate.

Although it is still not clear what caused Gallegos to commit the killings, Harrington said investigators are looking into the possibility that “he may have snapped” when his girlfriend broke off their relationship.

After shooting his roommates, Gallegos drove 370 miles across the state to Greeley, where his former girlfriend, Heidi Hocker, 18, attends the University of Northern Colorado, authorities said.

Greeley Police Sgt. John Gates said Gallegos arrived at Hocker’s dormitory room at 9:45 a.m. and took her and her three roommates hostage. Gallegos, who was armed with a 9-millimeter handgun, shot Hocker once in the foot, Gates said. A fifth woman who was in the room escaped and notified authorities.

A police SWAT team arrived at the scene and began negotiating with the gunman. After three hours of negotiations, Gallegos agreed to release one of the women in exchange for a six-pack of Pepsi, police said.

During the standoff, Gallegos continually pointed the handgun at Hocker and terrorized the other women with death threats, Gates said. Police decided to act as the confrontation stretched into a fourth hour.

“At one point, we heard them begging for their lives. We knew that he had already killed three people in Bayfield, so we authorized a police sniper to fire a single shot,” Gates said.

He said Gallegos was hit in the neck about 1:40 p.m. “and as he went down he fired several shots from his handgun through the apartment door.”

None of the other women or officers were injured in the incident. Hocker was taken to a hospital, where she was being treated Wednesday, Gates said.

Relatives and friends said that Turville, Lara and Bates had been friends since the fourth grade. On Wednesday, grieving family members tried desperately to make sense of the tragedy and remembered two young men “who were just trying to do God’s work” and a third who was succeeding “in getting his life back together.”

Steve Turville, 62, of Orange said it was his son who convinced Bates and Lara to move with him to Colorado. The younger Turville had gone there on a skiing trip last year and met Jeb Bryant, who was starting a Calvary Chapel in Bayfield, said Steve Turville. He said that Bryant invited his son to return to Colorado to work in the ministry.

The younger Turville kept in touch with his parents through frequent telephone calls and computer e-mail. The couple said that Joshua Turville sent them a computer message Sunday, telling them he had just begun a Wednesday Bible study class.

Despite the tragedy, Mary Turville, also 62, said her son’s ministry “was at the right place at the right time.” She said her son would have forgiven Gallegos.

“God lent us him for a little more than 20 years,” Steve Turville said. “I think of Josh as someone who loved God and was an example to the father, rather than the father being an example to the son.”

Turville worked for Concordia Homes, a San Bernardino-based builder, in nearby Durango, Colo. The company was building 50 homes there, and Turville worked as an assistant superintendent, said Tony Tyler, a company spokesman.

“I met him last week, when I was there training a new employee,” Tyler said. “I met [Turville] at the job site, and he immediately struck me as a nice guy. I later found out that he was a religious kid.”

Family and friends said that Lara devoted much of his young life to the youth ministry at the Calvary Chapel in Santa Ana. Lara spent a month in Germany last summer with a teen missionary group building homes for underprivileged families, said Lourdes Cruz, girlfriend of Lara’s father, John Lara Jr. of Yorba Linda.

The youngest of four children, John Lara III had planned to save enough money so he could tour Europe and preach, she said.

Cruz said that the family was not worried by Lara’s move to Colorado. “They were only going to be a phone call away,” Cruz said.

The third victim, Steven Bates, had packed up his clothes, camping gear and fly-fishing rod to join his childhood friends in a move to Colorado because he was attracted to “that country out there,” said Richard Bates, his 57-year-old father who lives in Orange and has taught biology at Rancho Santiago College for 25 years.

Richard Bates and his 53-year-old wife, Anita Bates, own land in Cortez--about 60 miles from Bayfield.

The family had spent previous summers fishing in the nearby McPhee Reservoir, and Bates had always been attracted to the outdoor life there, his father said.

Anita Bates, a special-education teacher at West Orange Elementary, fought back tears Wednesday as she spoke about how her son had wanted to be on his own and live a quiet life. Steven Bates, a roofer, grew up in Orange and was in a program for gifted students as a child. After graduating from high school, he wanted to work for a few years before attending college. In recent conversations with his 20-year-old girlfriend, Leigha Campbell, he spoke of going back to school to possibly study science, like his father, and be a basketball coach.

Bates, the youngest of three children and the only son, had suffered from a hereditary heart disease that was discovered in the early 1980s.

“He would have been the first one in the family to be able to take medication for it,” the father said. “Now, he’ll never live to see the benefit of that. And that tears at you a little bit.”

A memorial service for Steven Bates will be at 11 a.m. Monday at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 674 S. Yorba St. in Orange, where he attended church since childhood.

“I’ll miss him,” Richard Bates said. “I’m proud of what he’s done with his life. I’m very proud that he decided to be independent. Lots of kids are afraid to do that.”

Bates had worked for a roofing company in Orange County before heading to Colorado with his two friends. He found a job almost immediately after arriving there and quickly earned a reputation as a reliable employee.

“He only worked for me for 3 1/2 weeks, so I don’t know a whole lot about him,” said Mark Isham, manager of T&L; Roofing. “He was quiet, reserved and reliable. He did his work and went home. The kid was a hard worker.”

According to court records, Bates pleaded guilty in April 1995 to possessing alcohol as a minor, was sentenced to 112 hours of community service and placed on one year’s probation.

Authorities are still looking for clues that will tell them why Gallegos decided to kill the three men who took him in.

Bryant, the church missionary, and his wife, Kris, said that Gallegos lived with them until two weeks ago, when he moved in with Bates, Lara and Turville. They were stunned upon learning that Gallegos, whom they loved and respected, had killed his roommates.

“Joe was a model kid--very kind and thoughtful--and I had great respect for him,” Kris Bryant said. “He was not at all selfish and would put his needs last. He tended to think things through, and he wasn’t impulsive.”

Although Gallegos was unhappy about the breakup of his relationship with his girlfriend, he did not seem inconsolable, Kris Bryant said.

“He seemed to be handling it well,” she said. “He was distraught at first and then he was kind of moving on with his life. He still cared for her very much but said, ‘This is upsetting to me but I don’t want it to pull me back ‘cause I’m doing good right now.’ ”

Gallegos, who had previous troubles with the law, had been sent under court order to live with the Bryants when he was released, Kris Bryant said.

When police called her trying to confirm the identity of the man holding the students hostage, she thought it was a crank call. Alarmed by the call, she called her husband, who went over to the boys’ apartment, where police found the bodies.

Turville’s loss, she said, is particularly hard to bear.

“I can’t even begin to convey how well-loved Josh was,” she said between tears. “We’re gonna have a big hole here. I don’t know what we’re gonna do without him. But we all feel like it was just his time. Nobody believes God would’ve allowed this, considering Josh’s relationship with the Lord, if it wasn’t his time. He just chose a way that we don’t understand.”

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writers Lily Dizon, David Haldane, Thao Hua and Tracy Weber.