Man accused of shooting 2 people, then himself, at Yorba Linda park dies, as victims face long recoveries
The man who shot two people at a Yorba Linda park before turning the gun on himself died at a hospital two days later, authorities said this week.
Interviews and GoFundMe pages set up to help the men who were shot, meanwhile, portray the challenging ordeals they and their families are facing following the attack.
The suspect was identified as 52-year-old Saead Ettefagh of Wildomar. On Sunday afternoon, May 4, Ettefagh was involved in an altercation with someone at Featherly Regional Park and Canyon RV Park before he returned and tried to hit the person with a pickup, Orange County sheriff’s Sgt. Gerard McCann said.
The suspect also fired several shots, striking two people, before turning the gun on himself. Another person was struck by Ettefagh’s truck and had minor injuries. The person was treated on scene.
McCann said Ettefagh and the two shooting victims were acquaintances. A motive for the shooting has not been given.
Leon Zoltzman, 42, a fiancé and father to two children, was one of the men struck by gunfire. He said he had only met Ettefagh a handful of times. He’s been in the hospital since the shooting and does not know when he’ll be discharged.
In a brief phone call on Friday, Zoltzman was up and walking, “like a miracle, like Jesus” he said half jokingly.
He said he stood up for the first time since the shooting on Wednesday and was able to walk 50 feet on Thursday.
Zoltzman said he has to take pain medication 30 minutes before his physical therapy sessions so he can withstand the pain, and, he added, to “impress” the practitioners.
GoFundMe campaigns were created to support the recoveries of Zoltzman and Jamie Benn, who also was shot. Benn’s condition was not immediately available on Friday.
Zoltzman’s recovery will be “long, painful, and uncertain,” says the GoFundMe his brother Erick Zoltzman set up to help him.
It gives the following account of what happened:
Leon Zoltzman was first struck by the truck, suffering serious spine injuries. He then was shot on the right side of his chest, the bullet missing his heart but lodging into his left armpit. His right forearm was shattered because he blocked a gunshot that was directed towards his head.
“If he hadn’t, he would have been dead,” Erick Zoltzman said in a text. A third bullet grazed Leon Zoltzman’s left calf.
The shooter was targeting someone else, according to Zoltzman’s family members; They said Zoltzman simply happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Jamie Benn also was hit by the truck before being shot, the GoFundMe set up for him by his family states.
“Jamie had known the attacker for over 30 years, and two years prior to this attack, Jamie had severed all communication with the perpetrator, because of mental health issues and threats,” the GoFundMe text says.
“Jamie suffered full body extensive trauma and injuries, four broken ribs, two gunshot wounds to his right leg and suffered from a heart attack as a result from the attack,” it states. “Thanks to the quick thinking of a friend who applied a makeshift tourniquet, Jamie survived long enough to reach emergency care. Upon hospital arrival, his heart briefly stopped, and he required an emergency blood transfusion before undergoing life-saving surgery.”
Benn, too, has severe injuries, with no feeling in his right foot, and is facing additional surgeries.
His family declined to be interviewed.
Ettefagh, after shooting himself, was transported to a hospital and placed in an intensive care unit, in custody of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
The cause of his death was not provided.
The Orange County District Attorney’s office will be investigating the case as an in-custody death.
