Friends Try to Explain Killer’s Desperate Act

SIMI VALLEY — Ahmad Salman reached his snapping point the same day his three-month disability leave expired.

On Tuesday, the 44-year-old had to choose between returning to his job as a quality control technician at Harris Corp. in Camarillo or applying for long-term disability.

Salman took the leave for a depression-related illness. A company official said he had decided to return to work in a week or two.

Instead, he shot his wife and their three young boys to death.

He tried to strangle his wife, Nabela, according to a coroner’s report released Wednesday. Snatching his hunting rifle, Salman shot her through the heart and fired fatal shots through the torsos of his three preschool-age sons.

Then he killed himself.

“He just went crazy for one minute,” said family friend and real estate agent Zeyed “Zee” Elalami.

Mounting debt left Ahmad and his wife wondering how they would provide for their sons. Family members gave them loans and even bought the family groceries.

Trained as a teacher in her native Syria, Nabela, 38, was unable to find professional work in the United States. Against her husband’s wishes, she had accepted a job peddling sodas and snacks at a bowling alley.

Homesick and lonely, Nabela returned to Syria two years ago and threatened not to come back. Friends counseled her to leave Ahmad for good.

Neither Ahmad’s stacks of self-help books nor Nabela’s unwavering faith in Islam offered him any solace.

In desperation, Ahmad turned to his hunting rifle. About 8:25 a.m., as his wife and sons--twins Zain and Zaid, 5, and Yezen, 3--scrambled to escape in their backyard, Ahmad Salman fatally shot them all in his suburban home on a Simi Valley cul-de-sac.

A funeral service is scheduled for today in Adelanto, Calif.

The tragic shootings, among the most violent in Ventura County history, pained friends and family, teachers and students in the neighborhood, fellow Syrian-Americans and steely SWAT officers alike.

Outside the Salmans’ Hope Street home Wednesday, wildflowers left by loved ones wilted in the hot sun. Unlighted candles at the makeshift memorial melted in the heat. In the driveway were two self-help paperback books: “How to Program Yourself For Success” and “Success.”

An autopsy on Nabela Salman found injuries consistent with attempted strangulation, according to a report released Wednesday by Ventura County Medical Examiner Ronald O’Halloran. The injuries were apparently inflicted shortly before she was shot. The medical examiner’s office would not release further details.

However, Simi Valley Police Sgt. Bob Gardner said one of the children was shot in the side and another appeared to have been shot in the back. Zaid was hit twice, with one bullet angling upward into his brain. Nabela Salman, Gardner said, died of a single bullet through her heart.

Chief Deputy Coroner Jim Wingate said the autopsy found no indication that Nabela Salman had been physically abused in the past.

No one knows for sure what triggered Ahmad Salman to kill. But counselors, family and friends suspect the fatal recipe included money and marital troubles, loneliness and lack of self-worth, career problems and cultural expectations.

“The consensus appears to be that he has money problems and that was the catalyst for this event,” said Gardner. “But as to what set him off, we have no idea.”

The fact that Salman’s disability leave had come to an end sounds “very significant,” however, said Scott Barrella, a licensed marriage and family counselor and the director of Simi Valley’s ACT Domestic Violence Program.

Although he was on a leave of absence from his job at Harris Corp., which produces telecommunications test systems, Ahmad had told some friends that he was unemployed.

In his seven years at Harris, he was promoted once, from an inspector to a quality control technician in 1995, according to Jim Burke, director of media relations for the Florida-based company.

Depression was a factor in Salman’s leave of absence, which began in February, Burke said. He declined to elaborate.

Tuesday was the end of the 90-day leave.

“My understanding was that he was coming back [to work] in the next week or so,” Burke said.

Based on his actions, Salman may not have been certain that there was a job still waiting for him, said counselor Barrella.

Much of a man’s self-esteem is tied up in his career, Barrella said.

“Money and employment play a huge role in depression,” he said. “There’s a huge emotional drag. He’ll start feeling like a loser, like he’s let himself and his family down.”

And the pressures on a Middle Eastern man are even more intense, according to family friend Elalami.

“In our culture, the man is supposed to be able to take care of the whole family--in the Palestinian and Syrian cultures,” he said. “He’s the one who’s supposed to put food on the table and make everyone happy.”

Ahmad found himself unable to fulfill that role. And friends say his marriage was on the skids.

Close friend Kim Rodas said Nabela was angry when she thought Ahmad was flirting with a neighbor. And Ahmad also didn’t like it when Nabela drew interest from men at the bowling alley.

When Rodas ran into Nabela and the boys at a Simi Valley park three weeks ago, the physical toll showed on her face. Usually a striking woman with dark eyes and glossy hair, Nabela had dark circles under her eyes.

“ ‘Ahmad is really pulling you guys down--you need to go back to Syria,’ I said,” Rodas recalled. “She said, ‘You’re asking me to leave my husband.’ Then she started to cry.”

As his debt mounted, Ahmad Salman searched for ways to earn extra income.

Aneacie Bishop was one of several neighbors at the Lockwood Court condominiums with whom the Salmans stayed in touch.

Last year, the Salmans asked Bishop, who used to run a home day-care center, for advice on opening a child-care center to raise more money.

Three months ago, Salman decided to sell his house, said Elalami. Salman had invested about $17,000 in the home, which sold for $169,000.

Others said the couple appeared desperate for friendship. Jan Farris, whose family rented the Salmans’ Lockwood Court condominium, said Ahmad Salman insisted rent payments be made in person. He wanted his renters to come by and have long chats over tea.

“One time we mailed the rent and he just freaked out,” Farris said. “He said, ‘Please, don’t ever do that again.’ ”

Nabela struggled to learn English and longed to return to Syria, Farris said.

“I think she would have moved home in a second,” Farris said.

A cousin of Ahmad Salman who declined to give his name said relatives in Simi Valley pitched in to help the struggling family.

“Everything, right down to the food,” the cousin said. “Everything he needed. This is Middle Eastern culture. It’s close knit. It’s a different dynamic than we have here in America. . . . We’re family.”

The Salmans’ Hope Street neighbors said Wednesday they were still recovering from shock. Lois Billos remembered seeing the twin boys wearing tiny helmets and riding their tricycles.

“Adorable, just adorable,” Billos said. “To think he killed his wife and the children. Why didn’t he just kill himself?”

Police had never received any reports of domestic violence at the Salman home. Officers visited the house once or twice in the past several years, Gardner said, but the visits all came after Ahmad Salman called police to complain about such minor problems as children setting off firecrackers.

Nabela Salman and two of the children were found in a next-door neighbor’s yard, on the other side of a chain link fence separating the two homes. The third child lay just inside the Salman family’s yard.

Salman’s cousin will forever wonder why things turned so tragic.

“He had our support,” the cousin said. “But we’re constantly asking ourselves if we did enough.”

Folmar is a Times staff writer and Chi and Baker are correspondents. Times staff writer Miguel Bustillo also contributed to this report.

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FYI

Traditional Muslim burial services for the Salman family will take place at 2 p.m. today at the Islamic Center of the High Desert, 18907 Bellflower St., in Adelanto in San Bernardino County. The Syrian-American community has started a fund to cover burial costs for the debt-ridden family. Donations may be mailed to Account No. 1728512, First Western Bank, 1475 E. Los Angeles Ave., Simi Valley 93065.

* EMOTIONAL ‘DEBRIEFING’

Officers get counseling after tragedy. B8