HOLIDAY SPECIAL: The Santa Claus Massacre Pt. 1

Serial Killers & Murderous Minds

Crime House

True Crime

4.5 • 713 Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Christmas is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year — but for Bruce Pardo, the holidays brought something far darker. After losing his marriage, his family, and even his dog, Bruce’s bitterness turned deadly. In this first part of our Christmas Crime Special, we meet the Ortega family — a loving, tight-knit clan from Covina, California. When Sylvia Ortega met Bruce, she believed she’d finally found her happily ever after. But behind Bruce’s charming smile was a trail of deceit, neglect, and violence stretching back decades. As Carter Roy guides us through the Ortegas’ story, we uncover how one man’s obsession and thirst for revenge set the stage for one of the most horrifying crimes in Christmas history.
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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Looking for another Crime House original podcast to add to your rotation, you will love Clues with Morgan Absher and Kalyn Moore.
0:12.8	Every Wednesday, Morgan and Kalin dig into the world's most notorious crimes, clue by clue, from serial killers to shocking murders.
0:21.5	They follow the trail of clues, break down the evidence, and debate the theories.
0:26.3	It's like hanging out with your smart and true crime-obsessed friends.
0:29.8	Listen to clues on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:44.6	Music. or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House.
0:48.8	Happy holidays to all the Crime House listeners out there.
0:52.6	I'm Carter Roy, host of murder, true crime stories.
0:56.9	And this is the first episode of Crime House's Christmas Crime Special, The Santa Claus Massacre.
1:05.6	They say Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. It's not just about the presents or twinkling
1:12.3	lights. Most of all, it's about spending time with loved ones and celebrating everything
1:18.5	we're thankful for. But for some people, the holidays are a cruel reminder of what they've
1:26.0	lost. Bruce Pardo was one of those people.
1:31.2	After years of hiding his true colors, Bruce's dark past finally cut up to him by 2008,
1:38.9	and the truth cost him everything, his wife, his family, even his dog.
1:47.0	And instead of holing up alone that holiday season, Bruce decided to take action.
1:55.0	Slowly but surely he developed a terrible plan, and all he wanted for Christmas was revenge.
2:07.6	Today we'll meet the Ortegas, a tight-knit Mexican-American family living in Covina, California.
2:20.0	Growing up, Sylvia Ortega knew true love existed.
2:24.7	She'd seen it with her own parents.
2:27.5	And when she met Bruce Pardo in 2004, she was certain this was her happily ever after.
2:35.0	But soon she learned a terrible secret about Bruce,
	...

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