This comes from Jerry Rocha, a friend of the Ortega family who is putting together a Santa Anita fundraiser:

Rocha Family and Friends Day at the Races Presents Ortega Family Benefit (Profit from proceeds will go to Ortega Family Trust) February 28th, 2009 Santa Anita Race Track Arcadia, CA Gates Open at 10:30am First Post: 12:30pm Cost: $25.00 adults (18 and over) $10.00 children (17 and under) Includes: Admission, parking, racing program and steak lunch R.S.V.P. by Feb. 15th Jerry Rocha 626-945-6729 jrocha@dtsone.com Jim Rocha 909-267-8623 jimr@adamscampbell.com

The Covina City Council will hold a special meeting tonight at 7:30 p.m. to discuss the Christmas Eve Massacre and its affect onthe community. This from the Council agenda:

NEW BUSINESS

NB 1. Update and discussion of possible actions as may be necessary to respond to the

Christmas Eve Homicides

We’ve rounded up al our coverage of the Covina Christmas Eve slayings in one spot on the Internet. You can find the stories here.

Here’s the lead in:

On Christmas Eve, 2008, Bruce Pardo dressed in a Santa Claus suit, armed himself with guns and drove to a house in Covina where his ex-wife, Syliva Pardo, was celebrating with her family. When an 8-year-old girl answered his knock, he shot her in the face. He continued inside, executing Sylvia and other members of her family. He then sprayed fuel in the home, prompting it to catch fire. Eight people died there. Pardo later killed himself, closing out one of the most violent outbursts in the history of the San Gabriel Valley.

Among the Interactive extras on the page are the chilling 911 call from Sylvia’s sister and portions of the divorce records.

We’ve also rounded up photographs, videos, and summaries of the evidence.

Also on the site, is Amanda Baumfeld’s latest story regarding plans for a private memorial for the victims.

Reporter Amanda Baumfeld, who has been covering the Christmas Eve Massacre since day one caught up with Sylvia Pardo’s best frend, a Pomona woman who shared her memories Monday. Here’s the top of the story:

COVINA – Roxanne Jauregui talked to her best friend Sylvia Pardo nearly every day for the last 30 years.

Monday she remained unable to cope with the fact that Sylvia is gone. So, Jauregui continues to leave messages on a cell phone owned by Sylvia trying to hold onto their daily routine.

“I continue to talk to her as if she was still here,” Jauregui, of Pomona, said. “We would talk almost everyday after work; she would tell me her private issues…I know her inside and out. I still believe that she is going to call me.”

What kind of monster dresses as Santa Claus and shoots an 8-year- old girl in the face as she expectantly greets him at the front door on Christmas Eve?

What kind of monster systematically executes nine people with semiautomatic handguns, takes out a homemade flamethrower festooned with Christmas wrapping and burns a two-story house to the ground?

What kind of monster takes out a whole family gathered together to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace?

What kind of monster rigs his rental car to explode with the hope that more victims will be added to the unfathomable death toll?

What kind of monster could be so enraged by a failed marriage and an acrimonious divorce that he could be driven to commit the most evil acts imaginable?

Those questions have been on my mind since Christmas Day. It was then we first learned that Bruce Pardo, 45, of Montrose killed nine members of the same family who had gathered at a Covina home on Knollcrest Drive.

An explosion from the blaze Pardo set off seared the Santa suit to his flesh. His getaway to Moline, Ill., or Davenport, Iowa, became unlikely.

Pardo, who spent months planning his attack, slipped past police responding to the horrific scene and made his way to a brother’s home in Sylmar.

The questions began to form in the minds of first responders who spent early Christmas morning grappling with the monster’s appetite for destruction.

But the monster did not stick around to answer the questions. The monster took the coward’s way out. He saved the last semi-automatic round for himself, completing the purchase of his one-way ticket to hell.

As a result, there is no accounting for the pure evil of the monster other than facts that could apply to anyone.

The monster lived among us.

The monster had a family.

The monster felt affection for his dog.

The monster achieved high grades in high school.

The monster attended college.

The monster worked as a software engineer.

The monster’s friends recalled him as quiet and unassuming.

The monster spent his Sunday evenings ushering the children’s Mass at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Montrose.

The monster wished acquaintances Merry Christmas.

The questions and the irrelevance of the answers loomed large on Knollcrest Drive on Monday morning — five days after the massacre that likely claimed the lives of Jose and Alicia Ortega, two of their sons, two of their daughters-in-law, two daughters and a grandson.

I went there hoping to learn something — anything.

I left there with a profound feeling of despair and sadness for a loving and close-knit family taken out by a selfish, soulless and sociopathic monster who turned a day of joy into something we will never understand or comprehend.