Eight bodies were recovered and another person remained unaccounted for in a suburban Los Angeles house where a man dressed as Santa Claus opened fire at a Christmas Eve party and then started a raging blaze, police said Thursday, CNN reported.
The prime suspect - Bruce Jeffrey Pardo, 45, who had recently divorced one of the women at the party - later committed suicide, police said.
Police said the holiday party was attended by about 25 people. The gunman, dressed in a full Santa Claus outfit, came in the front door and then moved through the house, firing two semi-automatic handguns and using an apparently homemade pressurized device to spread some kind of accelerant.