Suicide Victim Suspected in 5 Killings at Home

On the surface, Ronald L. Taylor lived an uneventful suburban life in a comfortable two-story home and now seems an unlikely central figure in a grisly rampage that cost the lives of six--one of the largest murder-suicide tolls in recent Los Angeles County history.

There is little to explain why the seemingly stable aerospace worker would apparently bludgeon to death five people, including his wife, grown son and 6-year-old niece, and then leap from a freeway overpass into Sunday night traffic.

To neighbors, he seemed like Mr. Average in nearly every respect. He lived in a well-maintained home on a cul-de-sac, had a pool in the backyard and a shade tree and collection of ceramic animals on the front lawn, which a handwritten sign proclaimed to be “Grandma’s Garden.”

But authorities Monday rolled five corpses on gurneys down the concrete walkway that abuts Taylor’s peaceful front lawn.

Among the victims were his wife, Ruthie Taylor, 40; the couple’s son, Rick, 24; Ruthie Taylor’s sister, Mylissa Campbell, 29; and Campbell’s daughter, Jolissa Morales, 6, all of whom lived at the Taylors’ Caine Drive home. The fifth victim was Tomy Kang Jung, 24, of Cypress, described as a family friend.

Their bodies were removed from the house Monday afternoon as stunned neighbors stood amid a cluster of journalists.

Clearly, something terrible was amiss in Ronald Taylor’s seemingly well-ordered life.

He was in debt, having been forced into foreclosure on a home in Lakewood in 1996 and into bankruptcy in 1997. But whether that figured in his actions Sunday remained unclear. Taylor and his son, Rick, were both employed at the Boeing Co. spacecraft assembly plant in Huntington Beach, helping build the rocket ships that carry communications satellites into space.

“At this time, homicide detectives are trying to determine what the motive is,” said Deputy John McBride, a sheriff’s spokesman.

Investigators said the nightmarish sequence of events began to unfold Sunday night shortly after 7 p.m., when Taylor apparently threw himself from an overpass onto the 605 Freeway in Cerritos.

He died three hours later at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood.

But when sheriff’s deputies went to his home at 11:30 p.m. to notify his family, no one responded--even though four family vehicles were in the driveway.

“It was a little strange that nobody answered the door,” Sheriff’s Deputy William E. Martin said.

Upon entering, authorities made the gruesome discovery of the bludgeoned bodies in the two-story home.

Sheriff’s investigators said four of the bodies were found soon after detectives entered the house.

The fifth was not found until 5:20 a.m. Authorities could not immediately say exactly when the five were killed.

“The officers did a very meticulous search of the house,” Martin said. He said the fifth body was not hidden, but he could not explain why it was found almost six hours after the other corpses.

The case leaves many nagging questions, among them: How could Taylor--described by a sheriff’s spokesman as the “prime suspect” in the quintuple homicide--have been able to kill five people while none were able to escape from a home that has both front and rear doors?

Neighbors Stunned by the Slayings

The exact causes of death are still uncertain. But sheriff’s investigators said they did not find a gun, meaning the demons that apparently lived inside Ron Taylor may have led him to club five people to death.

“Trauma to the upper body is the most likely cause of death,” said Martin. “There is no indication that I am aware of that anyone tried to hide.”

The highest recent murder toll in the Los Angeles area resulted from a 1996 arson fire that killed a Glendale mother and her six children. Jorjik Avanesian, the father of the dead children and husband of their mother, is awaiting trial on seven counts of murder.

There were five victims each in three other recent Los Angeles County mass killings: arson deaths at a San Marino home in May 1995; execution-style murders in an El Monte apartment in April 1995, in which two children were among the dead; and the slayings of a catering truck crew, including two minors, found stabbed and shot to death on a Sun Valley roadside in 1991.

The most recent murders and the suicide left the Taylors’ neighbors stunned.

The family was described as quiet and social.

Two tricycles lay in the front walkway, and a little girl’s chalk-drawn hopscotch layout adorned the sidewalk in front the house on a street lined with $200,000 homes. The family cat, which was unharmed, was taken away by animal control officers.

To some, the ghastly events hardly seemed possible.

Many gathered behind the yellow plastic crime scene tape Monday, expressing shock.

Amrita Mapara, 12, lives across the street.

“They always seemed very friendly to us. They never caused any trouble,” she said. “They had a lot of parties. . . . They were very social. They had a lot of friends.”

“He was a real nice guy,” said next-door neighbor Cyril Roney, 67. “I talked to him every day. It seemed like there was nothing wrong with him.”

Couple Had Filed for Bankruptcy

Roney said he became accustomed to seeing Ruthie Taylor leave for work every morning, like clockwork, at 6:45 a.m. That was just about the time Roney was going out for coffee.

Robyn Putnam, an office manager who lives around the corner, said, “It’s a very quiet area. It’s really pretty boring. Nothing ever happens around here--not that you’d want this kind of excitement.”

If Taylor was still troubled by his financial problems, he appeared to keep it hidden from his neighbors.

Taylor and his wife filed for relief from their debts under Chapter 7 on April 9, 1997.

At that time, they listed assets totaling $214,797 and debts of $278,925. They listed their combined monthly income as $3,810, with monthly expenditures of $3,774.

They estimated the value of their Artesia house at $190,000, but reported that they owed $208,000 on it through first and second mortgages.

Taylor also owed $21,302 to the credit union at McDonnell Douglas. (Boeing, which later merged with McDonnell Douglas, said Taylor had worked for the aerospace company since 1985.)

Employees at the Boeing manufacturing facility where the Taylors worked said news of the incident had been upsetting for co-workers of the two dead men.

Brenda Luevano, who has worked at the facility for the past year, said Ronald Taylor had taken last week off from work because of stress-related problems. Though she did not know him personally, she said, “I heard he was real quiet, kept to himself.”

Concerns about cutbacks at the plant may have contributed to whatever stress Taylor was feeling, Luevano said. “They’re shutting down certain programs. He was in sheet metal and was worried about getting laid off and his son getting laid off.”

She and other employees said the plant’s management team held an informational meeting about the incident Monday afternoon.

Taylor’s wife, said in court bankruptcy documents that she had been working for the previous 13 years as manager of a chiropractor’s office in Artesia.

The chiropractor’s office was closed Monday.

After hearing of the deaths, Dr. Ken Iwaki, Ruthie Taylor’s boss, canceled all appointments.

A handwritten sign outside the office said, “There has been an emergency in our office and we are closed for the day.”

Times staff writers David Rosenzweig, Miles Corwin and Valerie Burgher and correspondent Michael Krikorian also contributed to this story.