Town Baffled By Pitchfork Attack
by BRIAN MELLEY
Associated Press Writer
MERCED, Calif. (AP) -- After a sleepless night mourning the deaths of two of his children -- killed by a stranger with a pitchfork -- John Carpenter slipped out of the hospital to get some doughnuts.
He quickly discovered that a popular coffee shop in his hometown would provide no refuge from his grief.
''Guys twice my size were breaking down and crying,'' Carpenter said Thursday. ''They just can't believe it.''
An entire community was grieving over a seemingly random act of violence. A stranger broke into Carpenter's farmhouse 60 miles north of Fresno on Wednesday and terrorized his five children. Two of them, age 7 and 9, were fatally stabbed before deputies shot and killed the attacker.
Carpenter, a carpenter by trade, was working, and his wife, Tephanie, 34, had taken her car to get the brakes checked at the time of the killings.
One of their daughters is still recovering from stab wounds. The other two were not injured.
''It's such a shock,'' Carpenter said, his eyes red from crying and a lack of sleep. ''You keep pinching yourself. I got to wake up.''
Investigators still don't know what led 27-year-old Jonathon David Bruce on the violent rampage. They knew of no connection between the family and Bruce, who was identified through fingerprint records from a 1999 arrest for being under the influence of methamphetamine and fighting with police.
''The whole thing is very, very bizarre,'' Merced County Sheriff Tom Sawyer said.
The terror began when Jessica Carpenter, 14, awoke and saw a stranger in her living room pulling on his pants. He had barricaded himself and the children in the house by pushing furniture against the walls.
At a news conference at a local hospital with her parents and sister Anna, Jessica said she slipped back into her bedroom, locked the door and tried to call police. The phone was dead. The man began banging on her door.
When she heard crying, Jessica climbed out a window and sprinted to a neighbor's house, cutting her bare feet on a coarse farm field along the way.
No one was home, and when she returned to her house. Anna, 13, and sister Vanessa, 11, were fleeing, too, saying the man was attacking their younger brother and sister with a pitchfork.
Anna said the man had told her to lie down, then jabbed the pitchfork at her, cutting her hands when she tried to defend herself.
''He looked possessed,'' she said Thursday, her bandaged hands hugging a teddy bear.
The youngest girl, Ashley, 9, had come in from another room and yelled, ''Stop it!'' When the attacker turned his attention to Ashley, Anna and Vanessa ran down a hallway and locked themselves inside a laundry room.
The man said, ''Let me in, I'll be nice to you,'' Anna said. The girls fled through a window and went to a neighbor's house.
''They could hear Ashley screaming as they were running, and then she went quiet,'' the father said.
In her call to the 911 dispatcher, Jessica said: ''There's somebody in my house who I don't know. (He's) stabbing my brother and sister with a pitchfork.''
When deputies arrived, they entered the house through a front window and saw the attacker coming at them with the pitchfork. Deputies shot and killed him.
Ashley and 7-year-old John were found dead in their beds.
''Their lives will never be the same. It's amazing how one man can affect so many lives like that,'' John Carpenter said.
Before being evicted last month, Bruce lived in a duplex behind Ann Adams' house in downtown Merced. Adams said the man frequently yelled at her three great-grandchildren and his girlfriend's children, who all played together.
She said Bruce had worked part time as a
telemarketer, but mostly paced around the neighborhood after the girlfriend and her children moved out.
''He just sort of went downhill,'' Adams said.
"Carpenter, a carpenter by trade, was working, and his wife, Tephanie, 34, had taken her car to get the brakes checked at the time of the killings."
In other words, the children were left unattended by any adult until the headcase broke into their house.
I am uncertain what mom would have been able to do against Mr. Pitchfork but if forewarned, she would have had a better chance of deterring him than several screaming children.
Not only were the police useless for protection in this case (but at least they deleted the guy from the population), so were the neighbors. I hope the lesson has been noted by the locals out there.
Jeff
