Sequence of 5 Slayings by Boeing Worker Described

A worker at Boeing Co.’s Huntington Beach plant, believed to be responsible for the slayings of five people at his Artesia home this week, initially killed his wife, his sister-in-law and his 6-year-old niece, then murdered his son and the son’s friend when the two men arrived at the house a few hours later, a sheriff’s investigator revealed Tuesday.

The staggered sequence of the vicious attacks helps explain one of the case’s nagging mysteries: How could Ronald L. Taylor have killed five people--apparently bludgeoning them all to death--while ensuring that none were able to run outside to safety? All of the slayings are believed to have happened during daylight hours Sunday.

After the killings, authorities say, Taylor committed suicide by jumping from a nearby freeway overpass.

“At this point, it appears that instead of confronting five individuals all at one time, that he only confronted the two men” after having killed the females, said Lt. Joe Brown, who heads the investigation for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The mood was somber among friends and co-workers at the Boeing facility, where Taylor had worked for the past 13 years as a machinist producing sheet-metal parts for spacecraft.

“It’s just unbelievable,” said Joe Testone, who worked in support services near Taylor, and occasionally golfed with him. “He’s not that type of person. “He was real close to his family. We’re all in shock. It’s a tight-knit group in there.”

Both Taylor and his 24-year-old son, Rick, worked the morning shift in assembly jobs at the plant, which makes the Delta rockets that launch satellite communication systems, the Mars Pathfinder and the space station. Taylor started with Boeing in 1985, while his son began in 1995, a Boeing spokesman said.

The Ron Taylor remembered by co-workers was one who devoted weekends to barbecuing with his family, played on a company softball team and made arts and crafts for sale at swap meets.

“His family was his whole life,” said Jerry Jones, who worked with Taylor for a decade. “That’s the shocker. This would have been the last guy on Earth I’d ever thought would do this. I’ve been running this thing constantly through my mind. I still don’t believe he did it.”

Others said tensions within the machinist department where Taylor worked have been particularly high in recent weeks because of rumors that work on some space station projects would be either terminated or moved elsewhere.

Fueling uncertainties was Boeing’s announcement earlier in the year of a national reorganization that will cut about 6,000 jobs from Southern California plants.

But there was no evidence that job pressures contributed to Sunday’s tragedy, and Taylor had no known criminal record or history of mental illness.

Donald Bickel, a materials handler who had known Taylor since he began work at the plant, remembered him as a laid-back person with a quick smile.

“He was a very good person to deal with, an awfully easygoing person,” Bickel said. “Everyone spoke well of him. But no one knew much about his personal life. It sure surprised me.”

Others at the plant struggled to reconcile the brutality of the crime with the gentle man they knew.

“A lot of guys who knew him just didn’t believe it. He was real quiet. What could bring a guy to kill his family?” asked Howard Slater, a plastics sealer.

Investigators, too, seemed baffled Tuesday and were reluctant to comment on what pushed Taylor to such a desperate act.

“We haven’t settled on any kind of a motive yet,” Brown said. “Of course, we’re interested in the ‘why’ because that helps us confirm the fact that he was the one who did it.”

Taylor was in debt, having filed for bankruptcy and having been forced into foreclosure on a Lakewood home in the past two years.

‘Why’ Question May Never Be Answered

Yet, despite not having identified a motive, Brown said investigators “don’t have any reason to believe” that anyone other than Taylor was responsible for the grisly killings that sent shock waves through Taylor’s quiet neighborhood in Artesia, 19 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

“The critical issue for us is, ‘Did he do it?’ ” Brown said. “And we’re satisfied he did.”

In the case of murder-suicides, experts say, it can sometimes be months before a motive is ascertained, if ever.

“With enough things going wrong and enough stress building up, there can be an . . . emotional break that in some cases can lead to harming other people,” said Ronald K. Barrett, a criminologist at Loyola Marymount University. “Research on the science of suicide is very difficult because we are always trying to figure out after the fact what the person was feeling, what they were thinking.”

Authorities say they do not believe that Taylor used a gun, though results of autopsies scheduled for today should give a clearer idea of what weapon or weapons were used. Officials said all five corpses showed signs of trauma to their upper bodies. Investigators found no gun or ballistic evidence at Taylor’s two-story home on Caine Drive.

But police did recover “some things in the house that may turn out to be his weapons,” said Brown, who declined to be more specific.

Whatever Taylor used, police suspect that he killed his wife, Ruthie Taylor, 40, his sister-in-law, Mylissa Campbell, 29, and Campbell’s daughter, Jolissa Morales, 6, sometime during the daytime Sunday, probably in the afternoon. The bodies of the two women and the girl were found in two separate rooms at different ends of the home; the child was discovered with her mother.

Investigators have determined that Rick Taylor and his friend, Tomy Kang Jung, 24, were at the home of Jung’s mother in Cypress until shortly before 6:30 p.m Sunday. They presumably arrived at the Artesia house soon after and were quickly bludgeoned by Taylor, who then left the home and leaped to his death about 7 p.m. from an overpass of the nearby 605 Freeway, according to police.

With the exception of Jung, all of the victims lived with Taylor.

Police went to Taylor’s home at 11:30 p.m. Sunday to notify relatives of his death. When no one answered the front door, officers used keys found on Taylor to gain entry. They immediately encountered four bodies.

The fifth corpse, that of Taylor’s wife, was not discovered on a rear enclosed patio until almost six hours later, at 5:20 a.m. Investigators overlooked the back patio during their initial search of the property, Brown said, but the severity of the injuries meant Ruthie Taylor was “beyond help” by the time police arrived.

Early Tuesday, six grief-stricken friends and relatives, including Taylor’s adult daughter, arrived at the home. They filed slowly out of a maroon van and walked to the front door, but stopped short of entering, apparently held back by fear of what they might find inside.

Outside the home, people left bouquets and lighted votive candles.

At Elliott Elementary School in Artesia, where Taylor’s niece attended kindergarten, school psychologists moved on campus for crisis counseling.