Fury as California salon shootings suspect faces court

The man accused of a deadly shooting rampage at a Southern California hairdressing salon that killed eight people has faced enraged relatives of the victims at a court appearance.

The friends and relatives hurled insults at Scott Dekraai, 41, when he appeared briefly in court in Santa Ana, California, yesterday. One person shouted: “I hate you.”

Prosecutors, who are calling for the death penalty, said Dekraai, in a rampage that lasted two minutes, killed his ex-wife and seven others, shooting his victims in the head and chest, at the salon in Seal Beach on Wednesday.

The prosecutors said he wanted revenge against his ex-wife Michelle Fournier, with whom he fought over custody of their son, who friends said the former tugboat operator doted on.

Dekraai wrapped himself in body armour and armed himself with three handguns before bursting into the salon where Ms Fournier worked, as their eight-year-old son waited miles away at his school for one of them to pick him up.

The boy learned of the shootings at the school, said Orange County district attorney Tony Rackackaus, wiping away a tear and pausing to compose himself at a news conference yesterday.

“That little boy’s a victim,” Mr Rackackaus said. “Now his mother has been murdered and he has to grow up knowing that his dad is a mass-murderer. So what kind of sick, twisted fatherly love might that be?”

Of his decision to seek the death penalty, Mr Rackackaus said: “There are some cases that are so depraved, so callous and so malignant that there is only one punishment that might have any chance of fitting the crime.”

Superior court judge Erick Larsh ordered a medical review after Dekraai’s lawyer Robert Curtis said he was not receiving his needed anti-psychotic medication while in custody. Mr Curtis said he would probably request that the trial be moved out of the area.

The crime, the worst in Seal Beach’s 96-year history, has shaken the seaside city of 24,000. Until this week, it had only one murder in four years.

Authorities say that after a final argument by phone with Ms Fournier on Wednesday morning, Dekraai drove to Salon Meritage in Seal Beach, where he knew she would be working.

During a two-minute span, authorities say, he gunned down eight people in the salon and a man in the car park.

The only survivor was Harriet Stretz, 73, who is in a critical condition in hospital. She had been having her hair done by her daughter, Laura Lee Elody, who was killed.

As people fled the building screaming, hid in adjacent rooms or simply lay on the floor attempting to play dead, the onslaught continued. When he finished, the gunman walked out of the salon and, encountering a man who had just pulled his vehicle up next to his, shot him dead and drove away.

“He was willing to end any life in his path, and he did,” Mr Rackackaus said.

Police stopped Dekraai about half a mile away and he surrendered without resisting.

Dekraai and Ms Fournier split up in 2006 and divorced the following year. The two had been involved in an increasingly acrimonious custody fight over their son ever since. Dekraai had asked a judge for “final decision-making authority” when it came to matters involving their son’s education and his medical and psychological treatment.

Both parents were in court the day before the shootings for a custody hearing that was continued until December.

But Ms Fournier’s boyfriend, Michael Warzybok, said the judge appeared to side with Ms Fournier, saying he saw no problem with leaving the couple’s custody agreement the way it was.

Under terms they had reached at the conclusion of their divorce, Dekraai had custody of the boy 56% of the time and Ms Fournier 44%.

Throughout the custody battle, Dekraai and Ms Fournier traded serious allegations, each calling the other an unfit parent.

Dekraai said in court papers that Ms Fournier had a drink problem and Ms Fournier said Dekraai was mentally unstable, had been violent and abusive to her when they were married and had once called emergency services, threatening to kill himself and others.

Dekraai’s stepfather, Leroy Hinmon, had obtained a restraining order against him in 2007 after he said Dekraai attacked him. The order required Dekraai to surrender his guns, but it had long since expired.

Shortly before the divorce became final, Dekraai was badly injured in a tugboat accident as he tried to save a woman co-worker who was crushed to death when a towline snapped. A Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective who investigated the accident called his actions “heroic” at the time.

His leg badly mangled, Dekraai was unable to work, and friends and acquaintances have said he was in constant pain since then. He told the court he lived off an insurance settlement and his retirement benefits.