Former Fayette County woman worked with Calif. salon shooting victims
A local attorney said his sister is devastated after losing her best friend and co-workers following a shooting massacre at her California workplace on Wednesday afternoon.
“She’s very distraught,” said Thomas Shaffer of his sister and former Fayette County resident, Carla Shaffer Eenner. “She lost her close friends and her job.”
According to Shaffer, Eenner, 52, was scheduled to work Wednesday at the Salon Meritage, located in the community of Seal Beach, Calif., where she had been employed for more than a decade.
“My mother had called her earlier and asked if she would take her to a senior citizens dance on Tuesday night, so she decided to take Wednesday off,” said Shaffer. “Instead of working, she had to go and identify her friends for police.”
The gunman, identified by police as Scott E. DeKraai, 42, is the estranged husband of Eenner’s best friend and co-worker, Michelle Fournier.
Eight people were killed in the shooting rampage, including the salon owner, employees and customers. One woman was injured and remains hospitalized.
According to the Associated Press, others were in the salon at the time of the shooting, but were not injured.
Shaffer said that his sister knew DeKraai. The couple was embroiled in a bitter custody battle over their 8-year-old son, he added.
Shaffer said that earlier in the week Eenner had accompanied Fournier to a custody hearing.
“(DeKraai) went into the salon with three guns, two knives, ammunition and body armor,” said Shaffer. “He killed his estranged spouse and then he murdered the owner, four other employees, two customers and then went outside and shot another person.”
Shaffer said that employees pleaded with DeKraai to stop after he had shot and killed Fournier, but he continued to fire.
Six of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene and three others taken to a local hospital, where two later died.
Police apprehended DeKraai shortly after the 1:30 p.m. shooting.
The tragedy, said Shaffer, could have been much worse for the family as oftentimes, their mother, Lucille Nardo-Shaffer, spends time at the salon chatting with her daughter’s co-workers and customers.
Shaffer, too, had met Fournier and the others during previous visits to California.
“God works in mysterious ways,” he said. “Had my mother not called my sister to take her to the dance and my sister not taken the day off, she, too, might have been a victim.”