Woman shoots herself on Menifee campus

MENIFEE — A 59-year-old woman who worked at the county library was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in her car outside Paloma Valley High School on Friday morning, authorities said.

Deputies responded to the campus shortly before 8 a.m. and found Roggena Hunsaker of Sun City dead inside her car parked outside the library, which sits at the front of the Menifee campus, a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said.

Cpt. John Hill said deputies found both a note and a firearm upon arriving at the county-run library that sits just outside the school’s gates. Students were already in first-period classes when the body was discovered.

A spokeswoman at Library Systems & Services’ Maryland corporate headquarters confirmed Hunsaker had worked for the company, which contracts to operate nearly three dozen branch libraries throughout Riverside County.

“Her last day of employment was yesterday (Thursday),” the spokeswoman said, declining to say whether Hunsaker had been fired or laid off.

As a library technician at the Riverside County Library system’s Menifee branch, Hunsaker helped customers and performed a wide variety of maintenance tasks. In a statement, the company said: ”Library Systems and Services is deeply saddened by the death of the former employee Roggena Hunsaker. We express our sincere condolences to the family.”

Parents of high school students were notified by a recorded message from the school district about the death, and told that classes would not be canceled. The school was placed on lockdown to conduct an investigation that wrapped up before students began exiting for lunch around 11 a.m.

“There are no suspects outstanding or any fear that there was a gunman,” Deputy Albert Martinez said Friday morning.

The library was scheduled to be closed Friday. District officials said they believed the woman shot herself around 7 a.m. -- 45 minutes before school began on the final day before spring break.

“We believe she committed suicide with a gun,” Perris Union High School District Superintendent Jonathan Greenberg said. “Nobody heard it or saw it happen, but I guess somebody passed by and saw her slumped (in the car). I don’t know if it was a student or an adult. We got kids on campus and did a lockdown during first period just to make sure we didn’t have a gun on campus.”

Paloma Valley football coach Bert Esposito said the campus was only locked down for about 10 to 15 minutes before regular school activities resumed. He said he wasn’t even aware that a shooting had occurred before the lockdown.

Esposito said school staff members were notified of the suicide through a campus email.

Students later were informed over the intercom before they were released to second-period classes. Before that, many weren’t sure what was going on during the lockdown, senior Richard Krottmayer said.

“It was a really eerie feeling after that,” Krottmayer said as he left for lunch.

Added senior Cody Lewis: “It was disturbing to find out that it happened right on our campus.”

Greenberg said the school was providing counseling for any students or staff members who knew the woman.

“It’s a tragedy,” Greenberg said. “It’s a tragedy for the woman and her family, but we also see it as a tragedy for the school. Our kids have to learn a lot at school and unfortunately they learn life lessons that are painful, and suicide is painful.”