Hide Article Text (OCR)
PHOTOS: H. LORREN AU JR., THE REGISTERQUESTIONS: Joe Almazan, left, comforts his wife, Patricia Almazan, as she faces her dad's killer, Edward Aliaway, who carried out Orange County's worst killing spree in 1976.By GREG HARDESTY ■ THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTERFROM PATTON STATE HOSPITALatricia Almazan reached across the table and gently nudged the black-and-white photo intothe killer’s hands.“This is my father, after you shot him,” she said.Edward Charles Allaway briefly studied the bloody image of Frank G. Teplansky dying on anambulance stretcher.He said nothing, slowly chewing gum, his mouth shut.She handed him another picture of her father as a Marine staff sergeant, and another of himsmiling at his desk at Cal State Fullerton, where he worked for 11 years as a graphic artist in thecampus media center.Aliaway knew the face well.“Very friendly, very friendly,” the former custodian recalled of theman who used to wave at him andsay hello - the man he shot three times in the back and head.Teplansky, 51, died at a hospital squeezing his only daughter's hand.Almost 30 years after Allaway carried out Orange County's single worst kilting spree - seven dead and two wounded - Almazan was ready to talk to the killer, face to face.She wanted to try to put to rest questions that have been tormenting her since the 1976 massacre.Why did you kill my father?That was at the top of her list.Allaway agreed to his first-ever meeting earlier this month with a relative of a victim out of a sense ofduty, he said.“It’s the least I can do for her.”DINNER PLANSOn the morning of July 12, 1976, Allaway prowled the hallways of the campus library with a rifle he had purchased three days earlier at a Kmart.At his trial, he said he remembered nothing except cowering in a stairwell, afraid and unarmed - as if someone were hunting him.The onetime Baptist Sunday-school teacher with a history of mental illness testified that a group of homosexual men in a bathroomhe cleaned were plotting to kill him, and that his wife had been recruitedto appear in pornographic movies being shown in the library basement.A judge found Allaway not guilty by reason of insanity.Almazan is convinced Aliaway knew what he was doing.She feels he should be in prison instead of a mental hospital, where he can work outdoors in a vegetable garden, browse in a 10,000-title library, play tennis, swim in a pool -even have a girlfriend, while her father lies underground at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange, under- ..... _ _ ISENTENCE: Edward Allaway has been at Patton State Hospital In San Bernardino County since 1995 after stays at other mental Institutions.FRUSTRATED: Patricia Almazan met with Allaway to get answers. After talking with him, she realized that sometimes there aren't any answers.a tree.“He loved trees,” she said.Almazan always was close to him, despite being separated from him for long periods by her parents’ divorce and remarriages.The w**ek Allaway killed him, Almazan was planning to have her fa I her over for dinner at her home inCerritos. He loved her spaghetti.Her children, then 10 and 7, probably would have begged him to puli quarters from behind their ears andperform other magic.Almazan would have talked to him about how things were going at her secretarial job at a firefighters union.Maybe Teplansky would have sat down and played the piano. He could play everything from “Chopsticks” to Chopin.The last time Almazan and her father spoke to each other - he called her “Patsy” - was three days before he died.“He took the time to be a good parent,” Almazan said of the former amateur boxer from New York whotaught her how to spar.She was the oldest of his four children by her mother.Daddy's girl.FACE TO FACEAlmazan and her husband, Joe, passed through the 14-foot fence topped with razor wire that surrounds Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County - Allaway’s home since 1995, after stretches at mental institutions in Atascaderoand Napa.They walked past three police guards into a conference room.Allaway sat in a chair. He wore a freshly pressed uniform of long khaki pants and matching short-sleeve shirt. He looked muchyounger than his 67 years.His close-cropped, mostly grayhair framed a smooth face that borea wispy gray moustache that drooped to his chin.He briefly stood. The Almazans sat without shaking his hand.Pat Almazan took off her sunglasses.She placed a H-inch-thick binder of papers, photos and notes on the table.She had seen Allaway countlesstimes from the courtroom gallery.Now, he was less about three feetaway.She looked at him, then down. She cleared her throat.“What would you prefer 1 call you?” said Almazan, a single gold cross hanging from her neck.“Ed would be fine.« I*I’m Pat. I’m sure you know.”Joe Almazan, a retired firefighter,sat next to his wife of 42 years, his right arm resting on her back.4*“Did you know that my father, like you, was a Marine?”No,” Aliaway said. I had no background on any ... ”“That he fought in World War 11 and the Korean War? And that you gunned him down?”“Yes.”You shot him three times in the back and the buck of the head. And ISEE MEETING •RAGE 25The crimeOn July 12,1976, Cal State Fullerton custodian Edward Charles Allaway, aformer Marine with a history of mental illness, armed himself with a 22-caliber semiautomatic rifle androamed the halls of the campus library, shooting nine people and killing seven in a five-minute rampage. He drove to a nearby hotel where his estranged wife worked, called police and quietly surrendered.The victimsKilledStephen L. Becker, 32, library assistant . Y YE!Seth Fessenden, 72, professoremeritus in speech communicationsPaul F. Herzberq, 30, photographer Bruce A. Jacobson. 32, equipmenttechnician Y EEDonald E. Karges, 41, janitor Deborah D. Paulsen, 25, janitor Frank G. Teplansky 51. graphic artWoundedMaynard Hoffman, 64, supervisingcustodian Y' Y'Y EY-Y*Donald W. Keran, 55, associate librarian YEThe outcomeAfter a 1977 jury convicted Allaway of murder but deadlocked in thesanity phase of the trial, a judge found Aliaway not guilty by reason of insanity. By law, defendants found insane are committed to amental institution until they arefound sane. In 2001, Allaway's clinical team at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County detei mined that his illness - paranoid schizophrenia - was in remission, giving Allaway his best shot at freedom. But in a hearing that attracted international media attention, a judge ruled that Allaway still posed a danger to society and shouldn't be released - a ruling upheld by the California Supreme Court in December2003 .What's nextAllaway says he’s resigned to spending the rest of his life in a mental institution, He is eligible toapply for release once a year, but says he will seek release only if he wins the support of the stateorganization that would monitor him. Meanwhile, Cal State Fullertonstudents are making a documentary about the killings as the 30th anniversary of the massacre approaches./
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Sun, May 21, 2006
Page 74
Full Page
Clipped by
Lee D.
USA 07 Jul 2023
Other Publications Near Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana Pacific Weekly Blade
Santa Ana Excelsior
Santa Ana News
Santa Ana Evening Blade
Santa Ana Orange County Register Evening
