Ex-Employee Kills Co-Owner of Camarillo Firm, Police Say

A disgruntled former employee of a computer software firm shot and killed the company’s co-owner Wednesday afternoon before shooting himself in the stomach, authorities said.

Sheldon Snyder, 36, died at the scene. The suspect, 29-year-old Mikhail Khaimchayev of Los Angeles, was in critical condition Wednesday night at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard. He is expected to live, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Shortly after 2 p.m., Khaimchayev walked into Postal Innovations at 5251 Verdugo Way in Camarillo, went to Snyder’s office and shot him several times with a handgun, Ventura County sheriff’s deputies said.

Khaimchayev had been fired about a month ago and had returned Wednesday to ask for his job back, sheriff’s Capt. Keith Parks said.

After hearing gunfire, several employees fled to a neighboring business to call for help, deputies said.

The 911 operator “was actually hearing the shots being fired,” said sheriff’s Sgt. Chuck Buttell.

Authorities escorted the 12 employees on duty to an adjacent building that houses the Ventura County superintendent of schools offices.

The county Fire Department’s chaplain and a sheriff’s psychologist were called in to talk with several distraught employees.

“Some of them are pretty shook up. We are doing the best we can to calm them down,” Buttell said.

One employee said, “They can prepare you for earthquakes and fires, but nothing prepares you for this.”

The company, in an industrial park near the Ventura Freeway, designs computer hardware and software for clients including the U.S., Argentine and Taiwanese postal services, IBM, Lockheed-Martin, Loral Corp. and Unisys Corp.

The industrial park was descended upon by two hospital helicopters, a Sheriff’s Department chopper and a dozen patrol cars. The commotion prompted several neighbors in a nearby residential area and more than 50 employees from surrounding businesses to flock to the crime scene.

“This is usually such a quiet neighborhood that I have never felt any fear,” resident Karen Koosmann said. “This upsets me very much. It’s got me quite shaken.”

Several dozen workers from a Blue Cross insurance office nearby took afternoon breaks and watched the investigation unfold from behind yellow crime scene tape, but employees at the county schools building were told to stay inside.

“Some people in our offices downstairs said they heard several shots,” said Supt. Charles Weis. “They called me out of a meeting and told me I had to help calm people down, so I did.”

Authorities released little information about Snyder, who was a software engineer, except to say that he lived in a gated condominium community in Simi Valley and had co-owned the 2-year-old company with another man.