Man Fatally Stabbed at Santa Ana Home; Police Arrest Ex-Mental Patient

A mentally ill man was arrested in the death of his brother’s neighbor in Santa Ana after an apparently unprovoked stabbing early Sunday.

The victim, 34-year-old Ignacio Pillado Ortega, had no warning before the butcher knife-wielding attacker shattered the glass of the front door in the 2200 block of South Towner Street and charged into the living room, said Santa Ana Police Sgt. Raul Luna.

The assailant repeatedly stabbed Ortega, leaving the victim to die on the floor, Luna said.

During the attack, Ortega’s relatives hustled children into a back bedroom, where they barricaded themselves and called police, Luna said.

Police arrested Gabriel Estrada, 30, of Santa Ana, who was taken to Western Medical Center-Anaheim. He was being held in a medical jail unit on suspicion of murder, Luna said. Family members said Estrada had recently stopped taking his medication for schizophrenia.

The chain of events began when Estrada showed up unannounced at his brother Fernando Estrada’s house on Towner Street shortly before 9 a.m. Sunday. At 8:57 a.m., Cecilia Estrada called 911 to say that her brother-in-law had taken a butcher knife from her kitchen and was on his way to the Ortega house across the street.

By the time the first police officer arrived, just two minutes later, Ortega was dead, Luna said. After the attack, the assailant walked back to his brother’s house, where he was arrested in the carport.

“It was a very violent attack,” Luna said. “At this point, there doesn’t appear to be any reason whatsoever for the attack.”

On Sunday, neighbors and family members in the area of single-family homes, near Bristol Street and Warner Avenue, were grief-stricken and disbelieving. Traumatized Ortega family members stood somberly for hours in a neighbor’s yard, behind a black iron fence and ribbons of yellow police tape. They stared at their own house and into their frontyard where the attacker had dropped the blood-stained knife.

Yellow markers identified the blood-splashed path the attacker made as he recrossed the street to his brother’s house.

Fernando Estrada, 39, sat alone in the cab of a blue pickup truck parked a few houses away. He said his burly brother has been ill for about 10 years, “but the last couple of years have been nightmares, and it kept getting worse and worse.”

Fernando Estrada said his brother had been admitted to a mental hospital several times and that the family had sought help from police and social workers.

“We’ve been calling doctors, social workers,” Fernando Estrada said. “They came twice to his apartment, with police, to make sure that he was OK. But they said they can’t do anything because he wasn’t hurting anyone.”

Police would not comment on previous dealings with Gabriel Estrada. Luna said that the Estrada family was cooperating with investigators and that they were the first to call police Sunday morning.

Fernando Estrada said his brother had no reason to attack Ortega, who worked as a gardener. The Ortegas were their friends, he said.

“He had no problems with the neighbors,” Fernando Estrada said. “He had a demon inside.”

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About a month ago, Fernando Estrada said, Gabriel Estrada threatened to kill him and recently chased their sister with a knife, but she got away. Gabriel Estrada also recently told his sister “that he had a snake inside of him and that he was going to kill the snake.”

Fernando Estrada speculated that his brother had come looking for him Sunday morning, but he had just left for his job as a mechanic at a tire store.

“The work I did this morning, I could have done any time,” Fernando said, tears welling in his eyes. He said he wished that he had been home to try to prevent the attack.

The Estradas have lived in the neighborhood more than a decade. Gabriel Estrada used to live with another brother, a few houses south on South Towner Street. But because they feared for the safety of their children, the family got Gabriel Estrada an apartment on Bristol Street.

Their mother tried to manage her troubled son, Fernando Estrada said, but she has been away recently in Mexico for surgery.

Fernando Estrada’s next-door neighbor, Jose Romo, 31, said his neighbor had warned him about his brother when Romo moved in about 18 months ago.

“He told me never to talk to him, that his brother has mental problems,” Romo said. “He tried to fight all of the time. Fernando called the police a lot of times.”

Romo had driven his son to Chino on Sunday morning. They returned to find police and yellow tape cordoning off their neighbors’ homes. He said he had had only one encounter with Gabriel Estrada.

“One day he asked me for a cigarette and I gave it to him, then I walked away,” Romo said. He described Ignacio Ortega as “a pretty cool guy. He never attacked anyone. He’d only say hi.”

Another neighbor, who lives next door to the Ortegas, said that when his family moved into their house about two months ago, the Ortega family told them to call if they ever needed anything. Ignacio Ortega was unmarried and lived with extended family.

“The people are really nice,” Ruben Perez said. “It’s hard to think something like that could happen.”

Fernando Estrada was also having trouble believing it. He wondered if the neighbors now will want him, his wife and three children to move.

“I feel so sorry for the guy who is dead right now,” said Fernando Estrada. “I wish this was a nightmare and that I would wake up tomorrow and nothing would have happened. But I shut my eyes, and then open them, and I’m still in the same place.”