Hartman Puzzle Begins to Unravel

After a night of drinking with a female friend, comic Phil Hartman’s wife returned to the couple’s home early Thursday, shot him to death as he slept, then went to a male friend’s house for several hours before returning home and taking her own life, police sources said Friday.

Brynn Hartman left behind one or possibly both of the couple’s two young children when she fled after shooting her husband twice in the head and once in the body, the sources said.

Upon arriving at the male friend’s house, a distraught and all but incoherent Brynn Hartman said she had shot her husband--a story the friend did not initially believe, the sources said. Brynn fell asleep, and at some point the friend checked her purse and found a handgun, which he confiscated, the sources said.

When Brynn Hartman awoke a few hours after the 2 a.m. shooting, she and the friend went to her home in the 5000 block of Encino Avenue, sources said. Once there, sources said, Brynn Hartman apparently obtained a second handgun and locked herself in the couple’s bedroom with her husband’s body.

The male friend, whose relationship with Brynn Hartman was unclear, called 911 at about 6:20 a.m., sources said. He was escorting 9-year-old Sean Hartman from the home when police arrived on the scene. Authorities said officers at the scene were in the process of whisking 6-year-old Birgen from the home when Brynn Hartman took her own life.

Hartman showed no signs of struggling with his wife, the sources said.

“It was an execution,” one source said.

Coroner’s spokesman Craig Harvey has said police retrieved two handguns from the home.

After the shooting Andrea and Joel Diamond, friends of the Hartmans, joined the Hartman children at the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Station and took them to nearby West Valley Park.

“They were both crying and looked kind of numb,” Joel Diamond said.

At one point, Joel Diamond said, he was sitting on a swing next to Sean and asked the boy, “Is there anything I can do for you? Take you to Disneyland, or anything?”

He said Sean replied, “That’s really nice of you, but my mommy promised me that she could do a lot of things with me, and now I don’t think she’ll ever be able to.”

Family members took custody of the Hartman children Friday.

In the wake of the murder-suicide, several friends of the family painted the 11-year marriage of Phil and Brynn Hartman as an often-troubled union. And at least two of the actor’s friends said the couple’s disputes were often sparked by Brynn’s volatile temper and fueled by her problems with drugs and alcohol.

Recounting conversations with Phil Hartman, these friends said the laid-back actor usually would deal with the arguments by rolling over and going to sleep, letting Brynn exhaust her anger alone as the night wore on.

The friends said that pattern may have repeated itself in the early hours of Thursday--this time with deadly results.

“They had a pattern of arguing at night and he would go to sleep and everything would be OK in the morning,” said Steven Small, a family law attorney and close friend who handled both of Hartman’s previous divorces.

“I think he felt safe going to sleep and he just shouldn’t have. I think she just lost control,” Small said.

According to one friend, the comedian said his wife had checked into an out-of-state treatment center for cocaine addiction as recently as a year ago.

The couple occasionally had fights during which Brynn--a 41-year-old former model from Thief River Falls, Minn.--would strike out, “slapping, throwing, kicking, screaming,” one friend said, recounting a discussion with the actor.

Friends said Brynn sometimes felt she was being ignored by her 49-year-old husband, whose career had taken off again with a starring role in the NBC situation comedy “NewsRadio,” a central role in the upcoming “Small Soldiers,” and regular voice-over work on Fox’s animated series “The Simpsons.”

“He was away a lot and she and the kids were home. It was hard, but that’s what you sign up for if you marry someone in this business,” Andrea Diamond said. “You want that glamorous person you first married but then you want to have somebody home helping, warming bottles and changing diapers.”

Even so, most friends of the couple said Friday they believed the Hartmans had endured their most difficult times and had finally reached a point of stability and happiness together. They had recently started counseling and were closer than ever, friends said, with Brynn’s addiction battles apparently in the past.

“He and Brynn had discovered hiking. We were going to make plans for them to come to our house in Santa Barbara,” said Tim Stack, who was a fellow member with Phil Hartman of the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improvisational comedy troupe.

At least one person disputed the account that Brynn Hartman had been drinking heavily on the night before the shooting.

Tony Penn, general manager and part owner of Buca di Beppo on Ventura Boulevard, said Brynn came into the family style Italian restaurant with a female friend Wednesday night.

They “had two drinks, [from] 8:30 to 10,” Penn said. “Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They were in an upbeat mood.”

Earlier in the day, the Hartmans and Omdahls--Brynn Hartman’s family--released a joint statement denying any rumors of marital discord or infidelity.

“The Hartman and Omdahl families are united in their incalculable sorrow and wish to state unequivocally their love for Brynn and Phil,” the statement read. “The unbridled speculation offered in the media are unfounded. Phil and Brynn were a loving couple, devoted to each other and their children.”

Small, Phil Hartman’s attorney friend, said he too believed the Hartmans had resolved their differences. He said he talked to a high school friend of Hartman’s who spoke with the actor Wednesday, the day before his death.

That school friend talked of troubles in his own marriage, and said Hartman used his relationship with Brynn as an example of a once-troubled relationship that had improved, according to Small.

“Everyone is looking for some sort of sign because it’s so bizarre how something like this could happen,” Small said. “She was a beautiful person, good, sweet, a good mother. He was the most beautiful and mellow person, and he genuinely loved people.”

Lisa Strain-Jarvis, the second of Hartman’s three wives, said he was always a calming influence. They divorced in 1985 because “we were both unable to do the work necessary to make a good thing better,” but remained friends, she said. “He was a quiet man and a sensitive and gentle person.”

A small memorial had been erected Friday near the gate to the the couple’s $1-million, 4,000-square-foot, four-bedroom, five-bath home.

One bouquet rested against the wrought-iron fence. A handwritten note in slightly smudged red ink was etched on the back of a white envelope: “Brynn & Phil--I miss you so much, we love you forever. Both of you in our hearts!”

Times staff writers Brett Johnson and Andrew Blankstein and freelancer Cliff Rothman also contributed to this story.