Killer May Have Had Kidnapping Plans

Richard W. Willsey may have planned to kidnap his estranged wife and her boyfriend from their La Habra rental home and take them to the desert to torture and kill them, authorities said Tuesday.

Instead, the 60-year-old trucker ambushed them after dawn Monday and gunned them down before he shot himself in their living room, police said.

Willsey, who died at the scene with his victims, Nancy Willsey and Dennis Loefs, had brought duct tape and handcuffs in addition to two assault rifles, a semiautomatic pistol and more than 150 rounds of ammunition, said acting La Habra Police Chief John Rees.

And Willsey had made that and other threats before, police said.

Whittier police “learned that he had told the victims and others that he was going to kidnap these people, handcuff them or tie them up, and take them out to the desert and [torture] them,” said one police official who asked not to be identified. He said Willsey had shared this plan with “people he knew.”

“Because the handcuffs and the tape were there [at the scene], there appear to be those consistencies there that, if the plan had not gone awry, we probably would have gotten a call later in the day saying, ‘Hey, these two people didn’t show up for work today. Can you go by the house?’ ”

For reasons that will probably haunt both family and friends, the man they knew as Dick Willsey armed himself with high-powered weaponry that police believe was illegal, and drove a rented red Buick to the small home shared by the woman who had left him in 1996 for another man.

Nancy Willsey and boyfriend Dennis Loefs, co-workers at a Santa Fe Springs tool manufacturer, were inside as her estranged husband hid.

About 6 a.m., La Habra police said, Loefs, 59, stepped out the back door to go to work. Willsey started firing.

Wounded, Loefs crawled back into the kitchen, where Willsey shot him again and killed him. Police said Nancy Willsey, 51, heard the gunfire and bolted for the front of the small home as her estranged husband fired at her. A neighbor watched the gunman drag her back into the living room, where he shot himself in the head and collapsed.

The ongoing police investigation focused Tuesday on the legality and origin of Willsey’s arsenal and how a man already convicted of felony threats toward the couple could obtain them.

One of the assault rifles and a semiautomatic Taurus 9mm pistol had the serial numbers ground off, suggesting they were stolen or illegal, La Habra Police Capt. Terry Rammell said.

The FBI and Department of Justice were helping trace the ownership of the guns, he said, particularly the assault rifles, which as foreign-made weapons were subject to federal import bans issued in 1998 by President Clinton. But without knowing when Willsey acquired the guns, authorities could not be certain.

“There are so many variables that make these things legal or illegal,” Rammell said.

“He could have bought them legally and modified them. With a $15 part and a bit of skill, the guns could be converted to fully automatic,” thus rendering them illegal.

The weapons that Willsey took to the La Habra home were among numerous guns he had owned in recent years. After Nancy Willsey told Whittier police that he had threatened to kill Loefs in June 1997, officers arrested him and searched his home.

Court records show that they seized three handguns, ammunition, gun and survivalist magazines, a book on shotgun combat techniques, a laser device that illuminates a target, and a cassette for a secret telephone taping device. Perhaps most chilling, police found an electric device similar to a cattle prod.

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Willsey pleaded guilty in July 1997 to a charge of felony terrorist threats. Rammell gave this account of how that case had developed:

Nancy Willsey left her husband in mid-1996. In June 1997, she went to his home to discuss their finances. Richard Willsey said he wanted her to move back in and give their marriage another try, but she was already living with Loefs at his Whittier apartment and told her estranged husband that was not going to happen. Willsey then went to his bedroom and returned with what she thought was an Uzi assault gun and told her, “Dennis is history.”

She left and told her boyfriend about the threats. Loefs called Willsey to ask why he was making threats. The response: “This is not a threat, it’s a promise. I’m going to blow you away.”

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lynch said Tuesday that he was alarmed by the allegations of the case, to such a degree that he told deputies, “This guy could be for real.” But of the three felony counts against Willsey, only the least serious--making threats--held up in court.

Willsey agreed to plead guilty in return for a suspended 16-month prison sentence and three years’ probation. He would go to prison only if he violated the conditions of his probation, which included leaving the couple alone and not having weapons, authorities said.

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Willsey’s recent infatuation with guns mystified his friends and neighbors. “That’s the strange thing. It wasn’t like he was a gun nut or big hunter,” said Carbita Parker, the bartender at Poor Denny’s Saloon in Whittier.

Parker said she saw Willsey with a gun only once, when they joined friends for a weekend trip to the desert three years ago.

“We went out target shooting, you know, at tin cans and bottles,” said Parker, who has known Willsey since 1971. “He was awful. He couldn’t hit anything. He was worse than I was.

“He was a super nice guy. I just can’t believe this. I just feel so bad for his kids.”

Poor Denny’s is a cozy neighborhood bar that Willsey had frequented for 30 years, even after he quit drinking a decade ago. Parker said he would order cranberry juice.

Willsey, she said, had dropped by on Friday and seemed the picture of calm. Nancy Willsey’s name never came up.

It was different when she first left him, though, Parker recalled. Back then, Willsey sat at the bar grousing that he wished Dennis Loefs “was dead.” Everyone dismissed it as harmless rantings of a brokenhearted man.

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Willsey’s former wife, Elaine Willsey of Bullhead City, Ariz., said that Willsey began drinking again after Nancy left. “I don’t know if he was a heavy drinker like he was before,” she said, “but I know he was drinking again.”

She said Willsey had a temper but was never physically abusive. Their marriage crumbled, she said, because of his womanizing. Despite their breakup 15 years ago after a dozen years of marriage, Elaine Willsey said Tuesday that she remained friends with her former husband and his three sons, whom she helped raise.

When Nancy left him, Elaine Willsey said, “he just couldn’t handle it. He really did care for her. He was in debt. He had to file bankruptcy, which he blamed on her for running up his credit cards.”

But she never thought he was dangerous. Willsey called her a few days before the shooting and visited her two weeks ago. He was quite calm, she said.

Willsey started collecting guns about two years ago, she said, but his interest struck her as more of a hobby than an obsession.

“He always collected things. First it was fishing poles, then he was into jewelry and gold. Guns were just the latest thing,” Elaine Willsey said. “They’re making such a big deal of the guns. I don’t understand it. All it takes is one.”

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Times staff writers David Haldane and Brady MacDonald contributed to this report.