Man Sought in Rampage Kills Himself

The suspect in a shooting rampage that devastated a Simi Valley family apparently turned his gun on himself Friday afternoon as police pursued him through rugged back country about 30 miles north of Ojai.

Reynaldo Herrera Rodriguez, a 35-year-old Caltrans engineer, was found dead near a Los Padres National Forest campground about 5 p.m. with a gunshot wound to the head, Ventura County authorities said. On Friday morning, a forest ranger saw his rented Ford Explorer, the same vehicle he drove on his alleged lethal mission to an ex-girlfriend’s home Wednesday.

Three of the woman’s relatives were shot to death in the house. Two others suffered bullet wounds and one was injured when he leaped from a second-story window to escape.

Told of Rodriguez’s death, the woman, 24-year-old Maria Calderon, expressed bitter regret.

“I would have much rather he had stayed alive,” she said. “That way he could face the justice system and live with the fact that he murdered three people and suffer what we’re suffering. Now he took his own life--and he’s not suffering anymore.”

Rodriguez’s death came after a massive search involving agencies throughout Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

Simi Valley police Friday relayed reports that Rodriguez was camping in the Ojai vicinity, officials said. Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to campgrounds but came up empty until checking on a tip from a U.S. Forest Service ranger. Rodriguez’s vehicle was found about 2 p.m. at the Reyes Peak campground parking area.

Campers there told deputies that a polite, well-spoken man had borrowed food from them for about two days. When the man saw deputies arriving Friday, he fled, sheriff’s officials said.

Two campers tracked the man but lost him. Shortly after 3:30 p.m., deputies heard a single gunshot. Later, they saw a man slumped behind a rock.

Police scanned the terrain from a helicopter and dozens of searchers carefully fanned out through the chaparral, not knowing whether Rodriguez was dead or alive. They reached his body about 5 p.m.

The discovery came after three days of turmoil in Simi Valley, long known as one of the nation’s safest cities.

The shootings there came after Rodriguez’s futile attempts to start a serious relationship with Maria Calderon. When Rodriguez pulled up to her family’s half-million-dollar home in a new subdivision at the city’s eastern end, police said, she wasn’t in.

Methodically walking through the house, Rodriguez allegedly killed her grandmother, Esperanza Martinez, 80; her brother, Ricardo Calderon, 12; and her 4-year-old daughter Shantal Rios. Her sister, Lucia Vargas, 19, and her brother, Rigoberto Calderon, 16, were wounded and another brother, Rafael Calderon Jr., 18, injured his ankle and wrist when he jumped from a bathroom window. In an interview Friday, Maria Calderon related the chilling question asked her by Reynaldo Rodriguez after she told him five months ago that she did not want to have a romantic relationship: “How would you like it,” he asked, “if you didn’t have a family anymore?”

The two had dated casually since they met at a 2000 New Year’s Eve party, she said. But it wasn’t long before he was calling her incessantly and begging to see her. By then, it had turned into a one-sided attraction.

“He was always depressed and sad,” she said, adding that he was taking medication for his emotional problems. “He was mentally unstable. It was like that saying, ‘a fatal attraction.’ ”

At one point, she said, Rodriguez said he had HIV and had contracted it from her. But, she added, she took tests to prove otherwise and has never had the virus.

By Friday, funerals had not been scheduled. Family members said they feared Rodriguez would show up at the services. They also said relatives in the Mexican city of Zamora were still waiting for visas.

In the meantime, several pondered their tormentor’s last act.

“We only pray that God forgive him for what he did,” said Luis Calderon, Marie’s uncle.

He said Simi Valley police detectives told family members that the man left suicide notes at the Simi Valley house and at his own home in Thousand Oaks, which he attempted to burn down hours before the killings. The fire caused only minor damage.

His only known brush with the law before this week was in 1993, when he was convicted of vehicular manslaughter in San Luis Obispo County. Returning from a highway project in Big Sur, Rodriguez was passing a car when he slammed head-on into a motorcycle ridden by Walter Rolsma, the rowing coach at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, according to court records.

Pleading no contest to a charge of misdemeanor manslaughter, Rodriguez served no jail time and three years’ probation, according to Jeff Stein, the San Luis Obispo attorney who represented him.

“He struck me as a thoughtful, caring, decent, sensitive sort of guy,” Stein said. “I think it was tremendously hurtful for him that he’d been involved in a circumstance that led to someone else’s death. This was someone who felt the pain deeply.”

That image of compassion contrasts starkly with the scenario sketched Friday by Calderon family members.

Rafael Calderon said he and his sister, Lucia Vargas, were upstairs working on her job resume at his computer when he heard shots. Lucia was to graduate today from the California School of Culinary Arts in South Pasadena.

Calderon said he saw Rodriguez climbing the stairs, clutching a handgun.

“I didn’t know what he was going to do until I saw his face,” Calderon said. “He looked determined.”

Rodriguez opened fire, hitting Vargas in the wrist and the stomach. According to other members of the family, Rodriguez shot 4-year-old Shantal before confronting 16-year-old Rigoberto Calderon in the garage.

“The guy came in and asked him if he was Maria’s brother,” Rafael Calderon said. “He said yes, and Rodriguez said: ‘You’re dead.’ ”

Rodriguez wounded Rigoberto in the right thigh. He reentered the house and shot 12-year-old Ricardo in the kitchen, near his dying grandmother.

“Oh my Ricky, oh my Shantal, oh my mother,” Ana Calderon cried Friday, nearly collapsing in grief at a makeshift shrine to her loved ones. “I know I’ll never be the same person. They’re the most important people of my life and they’ve been lost.”

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Times staff writers Jenifer Ragland, David Kelly, Margaret Talev and Tina Dirmann contributed to this story.