Violent Loss of Victims ‘Too Much to Take’

All told, they had worked at West Anaheim Medical Center for 40 years. Their lives ended together in minutes on Tuesday when a gunman burst inside the hospital and opened fire.

They were a nursing assistant, a pharmacist and a maintenance supervisor. They were doting parents, nurturing grandparents, gardeners, dog lovers. They may have passed in the halls every day, but their lives only converged when they became the victims of Southern California’s latest episode of violence.

Ronald Robertson, 51, worked at the hospital for 10 years and was the director of environmental services, which put him in charge of housekeeping, the handling of hazardous materials and many of the hospital’s day-to-day functions.

When the shooting began, Robertson, a Vietnam veteran, leaped from his office, ran across the hospital parking lot and charged at the gunman. Shot twice in the chest and once in the neck, he managed to drag the gunman to the ground, ending the killing--and, ultimately, costing him his life.

“He held on after he was shot,” said Dr. Robert McCauley, the hospital’s former chief of staff. “It is amazing. Robertson thought strangers were at risk and he died for them. Who’s going to do that?”

Robertson died minutes later on an operating table, despite the desperate attempts of a fellow Vietnam vet, an emergency surgeon.

A California native, Robertson was married to Suzanne Robertson, a registered nurse at a nearby Kaiser hospital. The Fullerton couple had two teenage sons and a teenage daughter, hospital officials said.

“I just saw him in his yard yesterday. I can’t believe he’s gone today,” said friend and neighbor Adriani Martin. “It’s unbelievable what’s happening lately. It’s too much to take. Too many tragedies. And now it happens to my neighbor.”

*

Marlene Mustaffa was 60 years old and had eight biological children and five stepchildren--but her life had changed dramatically over the last seven years.

Mustaffa, of Buena Park, who had worked at the hospital for 10 years and was a certified nursing assistant, had been high school sweethearts with David Mustaffa. The two had drifted apart over the years, but when he separated from his first wife, “they looked each other up,” said neighbor Jeffrey Leuschen, 35.

They were married six years ago, and she embraced David’s children as if they were her own.

“They were the happiest couple I’ve ever seen,” Leuschen said. “She cared about his family. They were more into each other than anything else.”

David “Dave” Mustaffa, a truck driver, will turn 62 next week. Surrounded by weeping family members on Tuesday evening, he said through a family friend: “She was a beautiful person.”

The Mustaffa family has lived in the area for at least 30 years, neighbors said, but Marlene Mustaffa was a newer addition. One of her stepdaughters, Dawn, bought a house a few doors down from the Mustaffas’ Lorinda Avenue home, and the family routinely swapped baby-sitting services, gardening tips, barbecue suppers and bicycling instruction for the younger kids.

“It’s a big family, a real nice family,” said neighbor Paul Lopez, whose children grew up playing with Marlene Mustaffa’s stepchildren.

Neighbors saw Marlene Mustaffa stooped over her prized tomato plants nearly every day.

“Everybody loved Marlene,” said Jackie Scott, a fellow nurse and the girlfriend of one of Mustaffa’s stepsons. “She was everybody’s friend.”

Mustaffa had recently gone to night school to improve her position at work, said Loretta Brabbin, the hospital’s director of education.

“She was an excellent employee and a very caring person, always smiling,” Brabbin said.

*

Vincent Rosetti, 51, of Seal Beach was a California native and the hospital’s director of pharmacy. He worked at the hospital for 20 years.

Divorced, “Vince” was the father of two daughters. “They were the love of his life,” said Dana Decker, Rosetti’s next-door neighbor.

One daughter, Angela, is finishing medical school at USC. The other, Rebecca, a teacher at Oak Middle School in Los Alamitos, lived with him. Rebecca and her father could often be seen walking their dog during the evening.

“Look at this,” Rosetti would often say to neighbors during spring or fall days. “This is why we live in Seal Beach.”

Rosetti was an accomplished pharmacist. A few years back, he won an award from the World Health Organization, apparently after helping to develop a child vaccination program.

“The only reason I found out about the award was when he came up to me and said, ‘I only have three days in London. What should I do while I’m there?’ ” said one neighbor, who didn’t wish to be named. “I asked him why he was going and he put his head down and said, ‘Well, I got this award.’ ”

Rosetti was known around his neighborhood for playing with local kids, even after his own daughters had grown up, and for offering medical advice to neighbors.

Times staff writer Karen Alexander and correspondent Ana Cholo-Tipton contributed to this report.