Slayings Suspect Jailed Week Earlier

Just a week before a double slaying in the Upper Ojai, the alleged killer threatened, assaulted and attempted to escape from Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who pulled him over for speeding in Malibu, authorities said Friday.

The “bizarre, threatening and violent behavior” of Miguel “Mike” Hugo Garcia, 43, of La Crescenta included attempting to flee from deputies down Pacific Coast Highway, kicking out the window of a patrol car and lunging through the window after refusing to sign a speeding citation, according to a 15-page account of the May 15 incident.

“You are gonna die, you are gonna kill yourself with that gun,” Garcia screamed at deputies, according to the report. “I know you. I’ve got friends, man. I’m gonna nail you through the wall.”

Garcia, released on bail by Los Angeles authorities, is now in Ventura County Jail on suspicion of murder in the Thursday morning slaying of an elderly man and his daughter. His bail was set at $1 million, and an arraignment is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Authorities have said Garcia called 911 and admitted to shooting Albert “Jim” Alexander, 83, and his daughter, Helen D. Giardina, 42, who had moved to the small rural home to care for her terminally ill father.

Her 3-year-old son, who was in the house when the shooting occurred, was physically unharmed and stood waiting with Garcia when sheriff’s deputies arrived Thursday morning.

Giardina’s husband, reached at his Mar Vista home Friday, said Garcia was a neighboring property owner and friend who was “very charming” and “slick.”

Still, something about him prompted Alexander “to keep him at arm’s length” all along, Thomas Giardina said.

And, Garcia had seemed “a little off” for the past two weeks, Giardina said, declining to elaborate.

“The guy was loony obviously, he could have taken my son out too,” said a shocked and distraught Giardina. “It just scares me to think what [the boy] saw that night. . . . I don’t know if my son was there watching him pump lead into his mother and grandfather.”

When L.A. County deputies arrested Garcia, they found a handgun concealed in the new Audi he was driving. It was one of six firearms registered to him.

“We’re wishing we could have been able to keep him in jail, but we couldn’t because he came up with a bond,” said Sgt. Tom Garagliano. “It would have been good if we could have kept him off the streets.”

According to a sheriff’s report on the PCH incident, deputies attempted to subdue Garcia by squirting him with pepper spray.

After that, Garcia assaulted paramedics who attempted to treat injuries he had inflicted upon himself, the report states.

He also spit at a deputy, screamed to passersby that deputies were beating him and finally made sexual remarks and advances to a nurse at a local hospital where he had been taken after complaining of various injuries, according to the report.

Garcia, who told deputies in Malibu he owned six Los Angeles-area mattress stores, was booked into jail after the incident, but was released after posting $30,000 bond. He still faces a long list of charges in the incident.

After his release, Station Capt. Bill McSweeney said, Garcia came into the station and complained about his treatment by deputies.

“We never thought his condition was psychiatric,” he said. “We just thought he was the world’s greatest jerk.”

In Pasadena, where Garcia recently opened a mattress store, people who knew him said they weren’t surprised about the shooting.

“He was friendly,” said Bernie Parker, a sales manager at the Simmons Beauty Rest Gallery of Mattresses next door to Garcia’s store. “It’s just that he had an erratic and hyperactive personality--one moment he was jovial and the next he would be on the verge of a total breakdown.”

Garcia opened his store, called the Bedroom Gallery Oak-Furniture and Mattress Store, about two months ago. Parker said Garcia had offered him Cuban cigars several times and invited him to visit his store.

What stood out most about Garcia was his constant movement. Parker recalled that Garcia never stood still and often paced up and down in front of his store.

“You could talk to him and he would seem normal, but then he would go off on these tangents,” Parker said.

But Garcia presented a different face to neighbors in the upper-middle-class enclave of Glenwood Oaks in La Crescenta where he had lived for about 15 years in a five-bedroom $265,000 home.

There the staunch Catholic has lived quietly with his wife, Norma, a teenage son who attends a private school, and a daughter who attends a Catholic school, neighbors said. Reached Friday, Garcia’s wife declined comment.

“They are wonderful neighbors,” said Winnie Carroll, who lives across the street from the Garcias. “In fact they watch our house whenever we go away.”

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Yet to some people who knew him in the Upper Ojai, Parker’s and the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s characterization of Garcia rang true.

“That’s totally consistent with what I saw, and I’ve known him for five years,” said James Mellinger, who leased a home from Garcia and lived next door to Alexander.

Other neighbors described Garcia as a friendly man who often visited and chatted about building homes in the area.

Mellinger said he and his family had been threatened by Garcia over the years and that he still is concerned about his family’s safety.

Garcia and his wife owned the five-acre plot of land and home, which Mellinger leased, along with three other adjacent five-acre plots with a total value of about $360,000.

The land was subdivided in 1993, and Garcia had often told neighbors that he wanted to build four homes on the properties.

Hadly is a staff writer and Green is a correspondent. Times staff writer Stephen Byrd and Times correspondent Sylvia L. Oliande contributed to this story.