Man Kills 4 in Health Club, Commits Suicide

EL CAJON —  A weightlifter described as an angry loner dedicated to pumping iron opened fire with a shotgun at his San Diego-area health club Thursday, killing four people before returning to his car and killing himself, police said.

Two elderly men were wounded in the rampage and were treated and released from a nearby hospital.

James M. Buquet, 19, who lived with his mother and stepfather in the rural community of Alpine in eastern San Diego County, drove up to the Family Fitness Center on Arnele Avenue at 12:18 p.m. and fired blasts from a single-barrel, 12-gauge shotgun, killing a man on the sidewalk and shattering the club’s plate-glass window, police said.

He then stormed into the club--crowded with lunch hour exercisers and a group of children--and resumed shooting. Within minutes three women--including one who had just finished baby-sitting an infant and seven toddlers in the club’s day care center--lay fatally wounded as terrified club members fled.

The children were herded out the front entrance by other day-care employees and escaped unharmed, police said.

Authorities in the city 20 miles east of downtown San Diego said late Thursday they were investigating the possibility of mental illness and drug abuse but had no solid leads to indicate either.

Mike Nesis, 26, said he was lifting weights when Buquet, a recent regular at the club, rushed into the workout area.

“He was shooting wild,” Nesis said. “He was a crazy man, using curse words. He was a mad psycho. He shot people in the head and then he laughed. Everybody was screaming and yelling for 911 and begging for mercy. But he just kept on shooting.

“All the women and all the men fell down, and some couldn’t run, they were so scared,” Nesis added.

John Aubert, a 32-year-old Navy enlisted man whose child was playing in the day-care center, said he heard gunshots and rushed in, hoping to save his 2-year-old daughter, Melody.

“The whole place was full of smoke from gunshots and you could really smell it,” Aubert said. “People were screaming. I got inside and saw a woman shot and leaning against a mirror. I gave her CPR but I lost the pulse and we lost her.

“Thank God the children had already been taken out.”

Tim, a club employee who asked that his last name not be published, said he watched helplessly as a woman was shot to death.

“He just walked right up to her and put the gun in her chest and blew her away,” Tim said. “I was 10 feet away, and I couldn’t help it. I just choked.”

Standing over at least one body to fire a second shot, Buquet reloaded several times and inflicted a variety of chest and head wounds, said Bill McClurg, spokesman for the El Cajon Police Department.

“He entered firing,” McClurg said. “And he kept firing until he left. He got in his car and killed himself. It’s still a mystery to us why he did it and whether he picked his victims or whether they were random.”

A source close to the investigation said Buquet apparently came to the club to settle differences with an ex-girlfriend, who was working out when the rampage began. Police declined to disclose the woman’s name or whether she was among those shot.

But late Thursday, investigators had begun to discount the girlfriend motive.

“Unfortunately, it just looks like he wanted to do some killing and came here because he was familiar with the location,” McClurg said.

Killed were Laxmi Patel, 19, a club member; Helenmary Spatz, an aerobics instructor, and Rebecca Negretti, who worked in the child care center. The names and ages of other victims had not been released late Thursday, pending notification of next of kin.

Witnesses said Buquet circled the parking lot for several minutes before the attack and at one point tried to enter the club but was turned away by employees. He then parked, jumped out of his 1980 Datsun 280-Z coupe and, according to witnesses, shot to death the man on the sidewalk before running into the club he had joined three months ago.

Formerly enrolled at two community colleges in San Diego, Buquet spent much of his time at the club and kept almost totally to himself, said members who lifted weights alongside him. They said he was remarkable only for being so eerily quiet.

Don Hawkins, 48, a mobile home manager who often lifts weights at the club, described Buquet as a muscular, blond, clean-cut physical culturist with a menacing look and a no-nonsense demeanor.

“He was one of those kinds of guys you don’t want to cross,” Hawkins said. “He always had an angry look on his face. If you saw him coming down the street, you wanted to cross the street and get away from him.

“He was just a bundle of anger and looked very tough. He didn’t talk to anybody.”

Hairdresser Mike Lehre, 21, said he remembered Buquet from the health club and the campus at Grossmont College in east San Diego. Grossmont officials said Thursday that Buquet had enrolled for the fall semester but had stopped attending classes.

“He wouldn’t talk to anybody unless you talked to him first,” Lehre said. “I talked to him just yesterday (Wednesday). He said he was tired and (angry) about something but he wouldn’t say what. He’s not the kind of guy you ask questions about.”

When the scene of terror erupted Thursday, the children were playing in a day-care area near the weightlifting room, where many of their parents were working out.

“I heard the shots and I knew I had to save the babies,” said Lupita Huerta, 50, one of the child care workers. “I took the little one (a 6-month-old infant) in my arms and told the others to follow me. They were all scared, but they didn’t know what was happening. I got them all out the front door and away and safe.”

Huerta’s niece, Elizabeth Gomez, 18, helped move the children to safety. “I was so afraid,” Gomez said. “My legs could barely move, but the babies needed our protection.”

Linda Adams, 32, an off-duty San Diego County sheriff’s deputy, was working out with her husband, Ernie Adams, 44, an off-duty San Diego policeman, while their 6-month-old daughter, Paige, slept in the day care area.

“I heard four gunshots, and the first thing I thought of was my baby,” Linda Adams said. “But the shots and the gunmen were between me and the room where the children were. I ran out the back, and a few seconds later, the child care workers came out with the children, and we all sort of said a prayer.”

She tried in vain to give CPR to one of the women who died.

“She was gasping, but I could tell it was no use,” Adams said.

In Alpine, where the Buquet family lived in a large two-story home on a hillside overlooking a deep valley, neighbor Carla Harris remembered the assailant--whom she had known for about 10 years--as a gifted child who excelled in math and computer-related technologies.

“He was an average teen-age kid,” Harris said of Buquet. “Nothing wild. . . . Who knows what could have set him off.”

Perry reported from El Cajon, Granberry from San Diego. Times staff writer Sebastian Rotella also reported from Alpine.