Caller to Radio Show Kills Herself

For two nights in a row, a disturbed woman kept radio listeners spellbound as she confessed to shooting at two people and contemplating suicide.

Early Friday morning, Patricia Nelan, a homeless woman from Oxnard, followed through on her threat and turned a shotgun on herself after police approached her truck in Sylmar.

Nelan, 46, had confessed during the nationally syndicated “Tammy Bruce Show” to shooting at a Santa Barbara social worker Wednesday evening and seriously wounding an elderly Ventura woman three hours later, police said.

Michelle Hanson, 68, was in stable but serious condition Friday at Ventura County Medical Center with shotgun pellets lodged in her back and shoulder, a hospital spokeswoman said. Her family did not want to comment on the incident.

Social worker Kathleen Fortier, the other target of Nelan’s rage, was back at work Friday. A day earlier, she told her husband that she had forgiven Nelan.

“I thought that was hard to do, but she said she had already forgiven her,” her husband William Fortier said.

This is the second time that Kathleen Fortier has escaped injury during a shooting. Three years ago, she was unharmed after a gunman opened fire in an Oxnard unemployment agency. The gunman, Alan Winterbourne, killed four people before he was killed in a hail of police gunfire.

Nelan’s bizarre odyssey began Wednesday at 7:20 p.m. when she aimed her shotgun at Fortier as the social worker was leaving her job at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in Santa Barbara.

Nelan, who lived in her 1985 Toyota pickup, had frequently gone to the organization to discuss what she called a “neurological condition,” said Santa Barbara Police Sgt. Brian Abbott.

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Nelan did not suffer from MS, but Fortier had at one time given her a referral to see mental health workers, Abbott said.

As Fortier was walking to her car, she noticed Nelan and that she was holding a shotgun, Abbott said. Fortier started running just as Nelan raised the weapon, firing off a round that narrowly missed her, Abbott said.

About three hours later, Nelan arrived at Hanson’s home in the Ondulando neighborhood of Ventura. Hanson, who at one time employed Nelan, was sitting at home alone. Nelan fired a shotgun blast through Hanson’s living room window, hitting her with pellets in the back and shoulder, said Ventura Police Det. George Morris.

It was 1:20 a.m. Thursday when Nelan first called KFI-AM radio and talked to host Tammy Bruce live on the air.

“Ultimately, we had a person out there who was unstable with a shotgun,” Bruce said Friday.

Nelan complained that social workers were withholding medication she needed.

“She was very guarded and afraid,” said Bruce. “I definitely think she had some mental problems. She was someone who fell through the cracks. She was living in her automobile.”

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The audience response was overwhelming, Bruce said, with many listeners expressing their sympathy for Nelan.

“We had listeners giving their phone numbers in case they could help,” she said. “The switchboard was lit up.”

Bruce’s producer contacted Santa Barbara Police Det. Mike McGrew, who was patched into the call and talked to Nelan for more than hour--some of it on the air, authorities said.

Nelan admitted to McGrew that she shot at Fortier, saying she was frustrated with the treatment she had received for her medical problems.

Bruce and McGrew tried to convince Nelan to turn herself into police, or at least refrain from shooting at anyone else, Bruce said. The caller eventually hung up.

Police were unable to track Nelan down after the call but put out a warrant for her arrest.

The next night, Bruce appealed to Nelan to call in. The host said that the woman was an avid listener.

Nelan called back that night, apparently drunk, and said she was in Los Angeles, Bruce said.

During that call, Det. Morris was patched through to talk to Nelan. She admitted to shooting Hanson, he said.

“She kind of went back and forth about whether she wanted to kill Hanson or not,” he said. “She also said she wanted to kill herself. Tammy Bruce was real cooperative in trying to bring a peaceful resolution so that Patricia wouldn’t kill herself.”

During her talk with Morris, Nelan said she had worked as a caretaker for Hanson’s mother. She told Morris that she was upset with Hanson for the way Hanson treated her mother.

“Apparently she held a grudge over the years, and when Mrs. Hanson’s mother died this year it triggered something in her,” Morris said.

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Bruce, who doubted that Nelan was going to turn herself into police, asked her to come to the station, promising that she would be safe.

“I was prepared that when she did not accept the pleas to come to the station, that it was over.”

After Nelan hung up, a listener called to say that there was a lot of activity around a truck in Sylmar matching the description that KFI had been broadcasting.

At about that time, the Los Angeles Police Department had received a call about an assault with a deadly weapon at a Motel 6 on Encinitas Avenue. Nelan had threatened a security guard in the motel parking lot and was driving off when police arrived.

When officers approached Nelan’s truck, she shot herself, police said.

“It’s a shame that it ended the way it did,” said Morris.

Times staff writer Scott Glover contributed to this story.