California Sniper Death Toll Hits Three

Apr. 27, 1965 - A five-year-old boy last night became the third person to die from the barrage of bullets fired on motorists Sunday by a young sniper standing on a quiet hillside in Santa Maria, Calif.

Kevin Reida, whose father, mother, and one brother were also wounded, died at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara. The death came as the stunned father of the dead teenage sniper, 16-year-old Michael Andrew Clark, tried to find the reason for his son’s actions.

Young Clark, a good student and an active Boy Scout, waged a one-man war Sunday against passing motorists on U.S. Route 101, killing three and injuring 11 other persons before committing suicide as law officers closed in on him.

The youth’s father, Forrest Clark, 44, owner of a Long Beach corrugated steel firm, said his son “was never in trouble with the law, the school, or us.” The Clarks have two other children — Ronald, 15, and a daughter Terri, 10.

“I just can’t understand it,” Mr. Clark said. “The boy has never been in trouble. I want to know why he did it, too — if only for my own satisfaction.

He was a good student. He was church-going since he was three. He had hobbies such as fishing and camping. He was a Sea Scout. He belonged to no gangs.”

Mr. Clark said the youth had been helping his mother Saturday night when he disappeared, taking his mother’s car, credit cards, and a high-powered foreign rifle his father had purchased in 1959 for deer hunting.

“Everything was well and happy up until the time he left,” said Mr. Clark. “There was no family fight — no reason. He didn’t leave any notes, and there were no clues.”

“No one can believe it,” said a schoolmate of the young killer. “It doesn’t make sense. He was one of the last persons, in my mind, who would do a thing like that.”

Teachers said Michael was quiet but not a brooder.

“Yes, he was quiet,” said his mother, Joyce, a former schoolteacher. “But even though he was interested in art and music, he wasn’t moody. He played baseball and was interested in sports.”

Another schoolmate, Steve Cremeen, 16, who said he had known Michael since the eighth grade, recalled that Michael “sometimes talked about guns” and of hunting. “He recently invited me to target practice, but we never got around to it.”

“Obviously, something snapped,” Michael’s father said. “I wish someone would write an article about the pressures society puts on these young people.”

The two other motorists killed by young Clark were Joel Kocab, 28, of West Los Angeles, and Charles Logan, 21, of San Luis Obispo.

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