Firefighter Held in Man’s Slaying

An off-duty Los Angeles County firefighter has been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of his wife’s ex-boyfriend following a heated argument in the suspect’s Simi Valley home, police said Thursday.

William Oney, 29, was booked on suspicion of murder late Wednesday in the shooting death of Todd Michael Thies, 31, a Simi Valley construction worker. Thies was shot once in the head at close range with a .45-caliber handgun.

Oney remains in custody in lieu of $500,000 bail at Ventura County Jail.

The shooting was the sixth homicide in Simi Valley this year and the second in less than a week.

Before the shooting, Thies and Oney had been arguing over child-custody issues between Thies and Oney’s wife, Heidi, said Lt. Rex Jones. Thies shared custody of his 4-year-old son with Heidi Oney, 28.

According to sources, Oney told investigators he acted in self-defense. No weapon was recovered from the victim.

The shooting occurred about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday when neighbors of the Oneys reported hearing a woman scream and a single gunshot come from inside the family’s single-story home in the 3100 block of Waco Drive.

Thies had arrived a short time earlier to pick up his son when an argument erupted between the two men, according to police.

Heidi Oney called 911 to report the dispute when the shot was fired, officials said.

Thies was pronounced dead at the scene, Jones said. Witnesses said Oney walked out of the house with his hands above his head before surrendering to officers.

Neighbors said Thursday that the couple had lived in the neighborhood for more than a year and were quiet and friendly. Oney spent most of his off-hours working in his front yard, playing with his stepson or tinkering with his motorcycle in the driveway.

“They’re nice people,” said Jerry McClure, a next-door neighbor. “Something must have happened to make him go over the edge.”

By midmorning Thursday, Heidi Oney, accompanied by two friends, was back home, collecting her mail and picking up the morning newspaper. She declined to comment.

About two miles away at the home of Thies’ parents, Carol and Michael, friends and relatives filed in and out of their two-story Elmsdale Avenue home offering condolences.

Michael Thies said he maintained a close relationship with his son.

“We’re going through a lot of pain right now,” he said. “The family is in shock. We’re all devastated by this. [Todd Thies] was a good kid.”

Late in the day investigators were still sifting through evidence and interviewing relatives and witnesses.

Mayor Bill Davis said the shooting would challenge Simi Valley’s reputation as one of the safest city’s in the nation.

“I thought ‘There goes our safest city title,’ ” Davis said after being notified by police of the homicide.

Federal authorities regularly rank Simi Valley as one of the safest cities. Last year it had the country’s lowest crime rate for a city of more than 100,000 people.

So far in 2001, Simi Valley has had more homicides than any other city in Ventura County. Second on the list is Oxnard, with four homicides.

“I wish there was a sure-fire way to prevent this,” Police Chief Randy Adams said of the recent spate of killings. “I just think, across the nation, we have a lack of sanctity for human life and some individuals think the outlet for their anger is deadly violence and it’s tragic.”

Crime statistics show it has been one of the deadliest years in the city’s history. Prior to this year, the city averaged less than two murders annually in the last decade.

The last year to have such violence was 1997, when five killings were reported. Four of those deaths involved a man who killed his wife and three children.

“Most of the types of things that have happened here are inter-family type of killings, not people who have come to rob or gang-related,” said Mayor Davis. “There isn’t any way to prevent this.”

The police chief cautioned residents against reading too much into the recent violence.

“I don’t think there should be undue fear on the part of the public,” Adams said. “As safe as the community is, we’re not exempt from crimes of passion and emotional violence.”

Domestic violence has been at the root, records show, of most of the slayings that have occurred in the city this year.

On June 23, off-duty Los Angeles Police Officer Geno Patrick Colello, 35, shot and killed his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend in front of the victim’s Simi Valley home. Colello, also of Simi Valley, then took his own life.

Less than three months later, on Sept. 5, 35-year-old Reynaldo Herrera Rodriguez, a Caltrans engineer, shot and killed his ex-girlfriend’s grandmother, brother and 4-year-old daughter. Two days later, with police hot on his trail, the Thousand Oaks man committed suicide.

And last weekend, 18-year-old Simi Valley resident Robert Paul Winters was arrested on suspicion of stabbing to death carpenter Randy Lucero, 21, at a birthday party in Simi Valley.