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Coroner: Killer Santa used coke before rampage

COVINA, Calif. — A California coroner says a man who dressed as Santa Claus and murdered his ex-wife and eight of her family members at a party Christmas Eve used cocaine before the rampage.

An autopsy report detailed Friday in the Pasadena Star-News says Bruce Pardo had low levels of the drug in his blood and urine.

Laboratory director Joe Motto says it’s unclear how much influence the cocaine had on Pardo’s behavior, but that it’s unlikely it prompted the attacks.

He says Pardo could have taken cocaine up to 12 hours before the attack.

Authorities have said the 45-year-old Pardo may have been bitter over his divorce when he went on his murder spree in the Los Angeles suburb of Covina.

Citizen Online Archive, 2006-2009

This archive contains all the stories that appeared on the Tucson Citizen's website from mid-2006 to June 1, 2009.

In 2010, a power surge fried a server that contained all of videos linked to dozens of stories in this archive. Also, a server that contained all of the databases for dozens of stories was accidentally erased, so all of those links are broken as well. However, all of the text and photos that accompanied some stories have been preserved.

For all of the stories that were archived by the Tucson Citizen newspaper's library in a digital archive between 1993 and 2009, go to Morgue Part 2

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