Friends, Co-Workers Remember the Lives of Gunman's Victims

Friends, Co-Workers Remember the Lives of Gunman’s Victims

By TINA NGUYEN and DAVID REYES

Dec. 20, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The church seat reserved for Michael J. Kelley at a Christmas lunch Friday was empty, a painful reminder of his tragic death a day earlier. Kelley was one of the four Caltrans employees killed in Thursday’s shootings in Orange.

“It’s unbelievable,” church secretary Kathy Moyer said. “We are very shocked this happened to one of the kindest and most generous persons.”

Punctual. Reliable. Courteous. Kelley, 49, was seldom late, especially not for church-related work, friends and relatives said. But when he did not show at 4:30 p.m. Thursday as promised at the Beatitudes of Our Lord Catholic Church in La Mirada, those close to him began to worry.

“It was odd he didn’t even call to tell us he was running late,” Moyer added. “When we heard about the shooting, I called the Orange Police Department right away.”

Kelley was gunned down Thursday with three co-workers--maintenance supervisor Hal Bierlein, 51; Paul White, 30, an equipment operator; and Wayne Bowers, 43, a maintenance worker. The gunman, Arturo Reyes Torres, was a fired Caltrans worker who was killed in a subsequent shootout with police.

Co-worker Carrol R. Coleman, 52, knew all four victims. He said Friday that most of the Caltrans employees he has been in touch with are emotionally drained but, like him, are taking it one day at a time.

“I know it’s really going to hit me hard when I go to the funerals,” Coleman said. “I knew Wayne [Bowers] well, he was a very good friend, a family man.”

Bowers, a maintenance worker for the sign crew, was a 14-year Caltrans veteran and had worked 10 years in Orange County.

Bowers and Coleman were similar in that they chose to settle away from the maddening rush. Bowers, who was married, lived in the Temecula area. Coleman picked San Bernardino.

Each morning they would rise early and leave their homes for the long drive to Orange.

Bowers “used to live in Orange County but was able to get a lot more house for a lot lower price out where he lived,” Coleman said.

The two workers would say hello to one another after they parked their pickups. Bowers absolutely loved his Toyota and would make boastful banter with Bowers that it had 225,000 miles and still ticked like a clock. “Not noisy like my truck,” Coleman said.

Caltrans co-workers said White had just been transferred to Orange County from Caltrans’ road crew office in West Los Angeles on Nov. 16.

White had joined Caltrans in 1990 as an equipment operator. He turned 30 on June 5, and he had married in September. “He had his life ahead of him,” a Caltrans spokeswoman said.

White was so new to the job that his co-workers hadn’t had a chance to get to know him.

Kelley, though, had been with Caltrans for 20 years and saw the tension building between Torres and supervisors. He told friends a couple of months ago about trouble at work.

“Mike told me something was going on at work,” said longtime friend and neighbor Everett Allmon, 58. “He was concerned about a guy who testified [in an administrative hearing] for stealing aluminum. When I saw the shooting on the news, I immediately thought of Mike and called him at home. There was no answer and I suspected something happened to him.”

Kelley’s neighbors in Fullerton, Susan and Rick Buckley, had known him for 20 years, ever since they moved into the quiet tract neighborhood 20 years ago.

“Our kids grew up together,” Susan Buckley said. “He was a great father and would help out with anything.”

A father of two children, Kelley was active in his church. He loved to dance and play softball. He volunteered often at the church--doing everything from office chores to sprucing up the garden and fixing a leaky roof.

Kelley would drop everything to drive a priest to the airport, or safely escort an elderly parishioner home.

“He would do anything from answering phones to replacing a garbage disposal, to help setting up the Christmas tree,” Moyer said. “He was such an integral part of the workings of this place.”

Coleman said Kelley was a dedicated and hard-working employee who always arrived at work promptly at 5:30 a.m.

“Mike had a certain space he liked parking in, and if he had to get there at 4:30 in the morning, he would to get that parking space,” Coleman said.

Kelley was divorced several years ago, but remained close to his former mother-in-law, Mary Lodermeier.

“He was like my son,” Lodermeier said. “He was always hard-working. Most of all, he loved helping people.”