Witness to Anaheim Man’s Slaying Threatened, She Says

ANAHEIM — An Anaheim man was shot to death Sunday and his girlfriend, who witnessed the slaying, told police the gunman threatened to come back and kill her and her children.

Police released scant information about the 4:30 a.m. shooting at the girlfriend’s apartment in the 2500 block of East Park Lane. They identified the victim as Paul Rivas, 31, and said the suspected gunman remains at large.

In an interview Sunday, Rivas’ girlfriend, Becky Cruz, 30, said she knew the assailant. “He told me he was going to come back and kill me and the kids and himself,” she said.

Cruz said the assailant apparently came into her apartment Sunday by climbing through her front window. Rivas, who was awake and was in the living room at the time, confronted the man with a baseball bat, Cruz said.

When she ran into the living room, Cruz said, the assailant had Rivas in a headlock with a gun pointed at his temple. “He said, ‘This is for you’ (to Rivas) and shot him,” she said.

The gunman then left the house, and as Cruz tried to revive Rivas, he returned, shoved her away, grabbed Rivas’ hair and said, “This is for you, Becky,” and shot Rivas in the head once more, Cruz said.

The assailant then turned the gun toward her, Cruz said. “I was on my knees and I (begged) him, ‘Please, please, don’t kill me,’ ” she recalled.

She lunged for the gun and during the ensuing struggle, the gunman apparently lost his balance, Cruz said. She ran from the apartment and the assailant fired after her, she said.

“I guessed he tried to shoot me but got some cars instead,” Cruz said. She said she ran to her mother, who lives nearby in the same neighborhood.