Updated: Shooting Victims Identified

Ending more than a day of rumors and speculation, Seal Beach police have identified the eight people killed in Wednesday's shooting rampage.

Originally, police planned to reveal the names at a Friday press conference in Santa Ana, a decision that frustrated some members of Seal Beach's tightknit community.

“Everybody here knows who died,” said Kim Criswell, who owns a salon two doors down from the scene of the rampage. “We need to be able to talk about them.” It’s painful to see and hear stories about the shooter rather than stories about the people he killed, she said.

At the moment, details about the eight lives cut short remain sketchy, but here is what Patch has learned so far:

• Randy Lee Fannin, 62, Murrieta: Born Dec. 11, 1948, Fannin founded Salon Meritage in 1990. He had many longtime clients, some going back 20 years. He was married to Sandy, also a hairdresser. "I've known Randy professionally since 1979," Mary Shawn Usborne wrote on Facebook. "I know no one who could cut hair like him." Another client described Fannin as laid-back, a sentiment echoed in a chalk message on the front door of the salon: "Randy, RIP friend, Aloha." .

• Michelle Marie Fournier, 48, Los Alamitos: Described as cheerful, friendly and easy to be around, Fournier was the ex-wife of alleged killer Scott Dekraai. Born March 3, 1963, she is survived by three children, two of them adults. On Thursday afternoon at Fournier's rented condominium in Garden Grove, her sister declined to be interviewed.    

• Christy Lynn Wilson, 47, Cerritos: Born June 5, 1964. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Wilson had testified on behalf of Fournier on Tuesday as part of Fournier's custody fight with the accused killer.          

• Michele Daschbach Fast, 47, Seal Beach: Born May 21, 1964, she was a client of Salon Meritage. She was described as "blonde, cute and friendly" by Michael Vosburgh, a homeless man who hangs around the business park and used to rent a room from Fast's neighbors. Vosburgh said Fast is survived by her husband, Patrick, and three kids: two girls and a boy. He said Fast used to walk her dog every morning. "I just about fainted when I heard about Michele," he said. According to the Beach Futbol Club website, Fast was a team mom for the girls' U16 soccer club. "It is with great sadness that we write to let you know that one of the victims in the senseless Seal Beach tragedy was Michele Fast, wife of Patrick Fast who manages our Girls U16 White team, and mother of Lisa Fast a player on that team," the club's website states.

• Victoria Ann Buzzo, 54, Laguna Beach: Born July 21, 1957. Published reports describe Buzzo as having a "bubbly personality." The Orange County Register reports that she was married to her high school sweat heart for more than 30 years.

• Lucia Bernice Kondas, 65, Huntington Beach: Born Feb. 19, 1946.    

• Laura Lee Elody, 46, Huntington Beach: Born Oct. 1, 1965, she had just celebrated a birthday and was newly married. A stylist at the salon, Elody was also the daughter of Hattie Stretz, who was critically wounded in the shooting (see "One Survivor" below).

• David Caouette, 64, Seal Beach: Born July 14, 1947. He was a Massachusetts native who married his high school sweetheart and eventually moved to Seal Beach. He had three children. Read more about Caouette and .

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One Survivor

Although not listed in Thursday's press release, the remaining victim of Wednesday's shooting is 73-year-old , who was still hospitalized Thursday morning, after surgery Wednesday. She's married to Tom Stretz, a former director of the Los Alamitos Youth Center. .

Deep Roots

Many of the shooting victims had deep roots in Seal Beach and Los Alamitos, and several had children in local schools, including McGaugh Elementary, Oak Middle School and Los Alamitos High.

As police, firefighters and crime scene volunteers attempted to rescue survivors and investigate the carnage Wednesday afternoon, they soon realized they knew many of the victims.

“In a community that is as small and as closeknit as Seal Beach, you can imagine that the impact is terrible,” said Seal Beach Police Department Chaplain Don Shoemaker.

Main Street business owner Erik Dreyer-Goldman agreed. "Everybody knew them, and there is just a heavy feeling in the air."

Criswell knew both because her son attends second grade at McGaugh Elementary with DeKraai and Fournier’s son, Dominic.

“I was just never really comfortable around him,” she said of Dekraai. “He made me uneasy.”

Prelude to the Rampage

Fournier's attorney, John Cate Jr., said Dekraai and his ex-wife were in court Tuesday. Dekraai had been seeking sole custody of their son, Dominic, but a court-ordered report recommended against it, according to City News Service.

The two shared custody of the boy, with Dekraai taking him Thursdays through the weekend, and the mother from Mondays through Wednesdays, the attorney said. "It was almost an exactly equal split,'' Eisenberg said.

"The reason for that, I believe, was she worked as a hairdresser on weekends and those were her busy times, and it was based on their availability.''

Dekraai and Fournier married in Clark County, Nev., in early 2003 and he filed for divorce in Los Angeles County in 2007, a month after a tugboat accident that still causes him to walk with a limp and reportedly caused him to suffer from post-traumatic stress. 

On Wednesday, Criswell and her employees said they watched Dekraai shoot one of the victims in the parking lot outside the salon, prompting them to run and lock themselves in the bathroom to escape the rampage.

“I am just grateful we are alive—it’s hard to say that because we are still here. I have friends who are gone, and there is no sense of why they are gone and we are here,” she said.

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