Agent Sought in Killing

In a jealous rage that had been mounting for weeks, a suspended federal drug agent shot and killed his estranged girlfriend Wednesday night in front of six children, including the couple’s daughter, police said.

The victim’s sister was wounded in the attack at the sister’s home, and police have begun a manhunt for Tony Gerard Bailey, 35, who disappeared in his black sport utility vehicle after the shooting.

Bailey, a 10-year veteran agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, has been on administrative leave since 1997, when he was charged with shaking his infant daughter so violently that she suffered severe brain damage, officials said. A judge acquitted him a year later.

Still, DEA officials said Thursday, Bailey remained on paid leave while they investigated him “for other serious violations of DEA policy” related to the shaken-baby case. DEA spokesman Lance Williams declined to elaborate but said Bailey has been without his weapon and DEA credentials for two weeks.

“We are, of course, shocked and upset by the situation,” Williams said. “But right now our primary focus is assisting police in their search for this suspect.”

Witnesses said Bailey was spotted about 10 p.m. hiding in Wendy Campbell’s backyard garden on Oak Avenue. Her fiance, James Fife, 45, said he told Bailey to leave, and the two argued on the front porch.

When Campbell, 35, opened the front door, Bailey burst inside and pulled out a handgun, Fife said. There was a brief struggle, but Bailey grabbed his estranged girlfriend, Veda Harris, and fired the gun, Fife said.

“He held her with one hand and put the muzzle to her head and just shot her,” Fife said. “Right there, in front of the kids and everyone.”

Two more shots were fired, one of which hit Campbell in the abdomen, before Bailey bolted from the house, police said. He had indicated that he wanted to take his daughter, now 2, but left her behind unharmed, said Fullerton police Sgt. Joe Klein. No one else was injured. All six children were placed in protective custody at Orangewood Children’s Home. The relationship of the other children to the adults was not immediately clear.

Fife and several friends spent Thursday at Campbell’s house, scrubbing bloodstains from the carpets and sofa and boarding up the windows that had been shattered by the gunfire. They wished out loud that they could have done more to protect Harris from the attack, especially because she had voiced her fear of Bailey’s temper.

“She was afraid of him,” Fife said. “She was afraid for her life and moved in here with [her sister] to get away from him for good.”

Harris, described by relatives as a hard-working mother of three who hoped to leave her job as a cook and become a nurse, tried for years to make her relationship with Bailey work, friends and family said. When he was arrested on suspicion of abusing the couple’s 6-month-old daughter in 1997, Harris maintained Bailey’s innocence, according to family members. And she was at his side when a judge found “reasonable doubt” surrounding the case and dropped the felony charges.

But the couple had an on-again, off-again relationship ever since, friends said. She finally left him three weeks ago, after he chased her out of their Anaheim home during an argument one night, Fife said. She then filed a report with Anaheim police stating that Bailey had assaulted her and one of her other children that night.

Anaheim police Sgt. Joe Vargas confirmed that officials were investigating Harris’ report, but said no arrests had been made.

Fife said that when Bailey learned that Harris had started seeing someone else, he became enraged, threatening to kill them both if he ever caught them together.

Bailey is considered armed and dangerous. He was last seen in a 1996 black Ford Explorer with California license plates 3NLW108. Police have asked anyone with information on Bailey’s whereabouts to call (714) 738-6817.

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Times staff writer Daniel Yi contributed to this story.