Slaying of 3 Pool Players Leaves Friends, Family Asking 'Why?' : Shooting: Authorities say the suspect complained that the men were talking about him. One victim pushed a woman out of the line of fire before he was killed.

Slaying of 3 Pool Players Leaves Friends, Family Asking ‘Why?’ : Shooting: Authorities say the suspect complained that the men were talking about him. One victim pushed a woman out of the line of fire before he was killed.

By PHIL SNEIDERMAN

Feb. 29, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The soft-spoken janitor accused of killing three pool players at a Pasadena-area bar walked out after the shooting and returned to his job mopping floors at a nearby restaurant, authorities said Friday.

“He clocked out at 5:30 in the morning, and he had all his work done,” said Dino Bicos, co-owner of Tops drive-in, where Juan Miramontes, 41, had worked for the last five years. “It’s unbelievable.”

When he was arrested late Thursday afternoon at his home a few blocks away, Miramontes told investigators that the men in the bar had been talking loudly about him and that he had felt threatened.

Miramontes, who had been drinking beer and smoking cigarettes alone in the R-Place bar on East Colorado Boulevard, responded by pulling a handgun and firing three shots that killed Travis Loller, 54, of Monrovia, Paul Walton Joyce, 39, and Johnny Lee Rogers, 26, both of Pasadena, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

Investigators believe that the pool players had been paying no attention to Miramontes.

When the shooting erupted, Rogers pushed a woman out of the line of fire moments before he was shot in the head, deputies said.

On Friday, deputies--along with the victims’ relatives and friends--tried to make sense of the shooting.

“I don’t have any answers to the ‘why,’ ” said investigator Patrick Morgan, who tracked Miramontes to a room he rented in east Pasadena, then called in a special weapons team to make the arrest. “What can you say? Was it fate that these three men ran into this loner’s misconceptions?”

Miramontes is being held without bail pending arraignment Monday.

An immigrant from Mexico, the suspect has made a full confession, Morgan said, but he added that questions about Miramontes’ mental fitness will probably be raised in court. Acquaintances said Miramontes’ behavior was sometimes peculiar, but they had never seen him commit a violent act.

His employer said Miramontes was hired as a cook. After a couple of weeks, Bicos said, “we saw he couldn’t handle the job. We were about to let him go, but the other store needed someone to clean the floors. So we sent him over.”

“He never talked to anybody,” Bicos said. “He wouldn’t say ‘hi’ or ‘bye’ or anything.”

Blanca Castaneda, whose parents rented Miramontes a room behind their home on Mountain View Avenue, said his hobby was tinkering with his old car. “We were surprised,” she said of his arrest. “He never spoke. He never gave us any trouble.”

Miramontes was a regular at neighborhood bars in the Pasadena area, investigators said. While drinking, he usually kept his head down, talked to himself, or maintained a blank stare, they said. It was that unusual behavior that helped deputies identify and track down Miramontes.

R-Place was described by co-owner Sonnie Shepard as a quiet place patronized by a close-knit group of regulars, some of whom participate in a softball league under the bar’s name.

The mood was gloomy Friday in an Old Town Pasadena bar called Thirty Fiver Cocktails. Rogers used to work there as a bartender. He had gone to R-Place to unwind late Wednesday night, friends said.

“The phone’s been ringing all day long, asking if it’s true,” said Jennine Terzo, co-owner of the Thirty Fiver. “We took up a collection for him. Everybody’s putting in--customers, employees, everybody. . . . He was very well liked.”

The victim’s mother, Marian Rogers, said her son grew up in Pasadena and played on the football team at Pasadena High School. She said the donated money will be set aside for her 8-year-old grandson, Johnny Lee Rogers Jr.

Loller’s family could not be reached.

The third victim, Joyce, sold home appliances at the L.A. Tronics store on Colorado Boulevard.

“The mood in the store has changed,” said manager Jack Grigorian. “Everyone’s sad because they liked Paul.”

Grigorian said Joyce had a good voice and often belted out hit songs to the accompaniment of the karaoke sing-along machines he sold.

“It’s a crazy world,” Grigorian said of the shooting.