Juan Carlo / Star staff A yellow tarp covers the body of a victim as Simi Valley police investigate the scene of a shooting Tuesday morning at Tire Pros on East Los Angeles Avenue. Two people died and two were wounded. Police had used the blue tarp to keep the crime scene out of view.

VIDEO

Victim's husband speaks

Michael Sutcliffe talks about his wife Susan, who was shot and killed while sitting outside a Simi Valley tire shop.
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Reports from the scene

Sgt. David Livingstone reports from the scene of the Simi Valley shooting that killed two and injured two others. More video will be posted through the day.
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Multimedia

Map, timeline of events, images of the shop and video from the scene
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Sitting in the sun and reading, Susan Sutcliffe was patiently waiting Tuesday morning for the Tire Pros shop in Simi Valley to open when a man walked up, shot her in the face and wounded two others before killing himself.

The unexplained attack left Simi Valley residents Sutcliffe, 53, and Robert Becerra, 29, dead, according to the Ventura County Medical Examiner's Office, which identified the two.

Police believe the man shot Sutcliffe and two people inside the shop — franchise owner Henry John Heeber IV, 37, of Simi Valley and employee Albert Ramirez, 20, of Moorpark — before turning the gun on himself.

Ramirez was shot in the stomach and Heeber in the arms, but both were expected to survive. At least one other employee managed to flee unharmed.

Simi Valley police would not give a possible motive for the 7:30 a.m. shooting at the East Los Angeles Avenue tire shop.

Sutcliffe's husband, Michael Sutcliffe, said he and his wife had no enemies, they did not know Becerra, and he had no idea why someone would want to kill her. His wife "was at the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.

A very isolated incident'

At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Simi police were still not releasing Becerra's name or other details about the incident, such as the number of shots fired, saying they did not want to compromise their investigation. Police Chief Mike Lewis, however, wanted to reassure residents.

"This is a very isolated incident that took place today," Lewis said. "This was a lone gunman who took his own life, and we have no outstanding suspects."

Consistently ranked among the safest cities in the West, Simi Valley had recorded one homicide this year before Tuesday and three last year.

At the home Becerra shared with his parents, detectives and coroner's officials spent much of the day investigating. A little after noon, a woman whom neighbors identified as Becerra's mother arrived. When officials told her what had happened, she could be heard screaming.

For those who work at the collection of auto body shops, garages and other stores near Tire Pros, the day took a bad turn from the beginning.

"It was an ugly morning," said Cosmo Torrez, who runs the Newcastle Motors auto body shop about a half-block from the tire store.

One of his employees, Osvaldo Gil, 25, was buffing out a paint job when it all started. "I heard two shots," Gil said in Spanish, "then the screaming."

Heeber left trail of blood

Torrez had just parked his car and was getting out when he heard the screams. " Cosmo, Cosmo, help me, I've been shot,' " Torrez said he heard.

It was Heeber, his friend of 16 years. Running for his life, Heeber left a long trail of blood all the way down the block and into Torrez's shop.

"He'd been hit in the arms," Torrez said. They started wrapping the wounds with big towels and trying to stop the bleeding.

"He said he didn't know what happened or why some guy started shooting," Torrez said.

Heeber was in fair condition Tuesday at Simi Valley Hospital, while Ramirez's condition was listed as serious after surgery, hospital officials said.

The Rev. Joe Schimmel of Blessed Hope Chapel in Simi Valley, which Heeber attends, was at the hospital and acted as the Heeber family spokesman. About 60 people, many of them Blessed Hope members, gathered around the emergency room and at one point made a circle, held hands and prayed for the victims.

"We're praying not only for the victims' families but the assailant's family," said Schimmel, who has known Heeber for 10 years.

Schimmel said he talked with Heeber before the victim had surgery. Heeber told him the shooter was methodical as he walked up to the woman, took out a gun and shot her, then went into the business and shot Ramirez in the stomach and later shot Heeber, Schimmel said.

Manager didn't know the dead

Sutcliffe's body was found in a chair just outside the shop. Becerra's body was found inside the shop's garage.

Several other employees and a Tire Pros corporate representative converged on the shop after the shooting. One manager said that both Sutcliffe and Becerra were strangers to him and that most of the clientele are repeat customers.

A woman at Becerra's home turned reporters away Tuesday afternoon. Becerra's neighbors said they knew him as a former Marine who had been living in his parents' garage. His younger sister, who has two young boys of her own, also sometimes stays at the home, neighbors said.

James Quinn, who runs My Way Exotic Auto Refinishing and lives two doors down from the family, said Becerra stayed with the family off and on.

Another neighbor, Bob Chrisman, said he thought Becerra had been living in his parents' garage for at least two years.

Chrisman said he had no problems with him until an odd incident last year, when Becerra shot a hole in Chrisman's roof. When Chrisman talked to police, he was told the shooting was an accident. Becerra said there had been a prowler in his own backyard when he fired one shot with a Beretta 9 mm handgun, Chrisman said. Officers found the slug on the floor of Chrisman's closet.

"I just knew it scared the hell out of me," said Chrisman.

— Star staff writer Marjorie Hernandez contributed to this report