Slain Nurse’s Husband Dies in Shoot-Out

SANTA ANA —  Richard P. Connaty, the estranged husband of a Buena Park nurse bludgeoned to death last month, was killed Monday in a shoot-out with the man accused of murdering his wife, police said.

Neil Matzen, 36, of Santa Ana was wounded in the shoot-out with Connaty and was arrested Monday evening at UCI Medical Center in Orange. He was transferred to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana and booked on suspicion of murdering Donna J. Connaty, Buena Park Police Lt. Terry Branum said.

The day’s events began about 7:25 a.m. at the Coach Royal Mobile Home Park on South Sullivan Street, when Connaty emerged from the trailer of Carlos James, a friend he has stayed with off and on for the past year. He walked next door to Matzen’s trailer, stood over him and his wife--still in their sofa bed--and said, “You killed my wife!” before shooting Matzen in the left arm with a handgun, Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton said.

Connaty ran outside, where he was followed by Matzen, who was now armed with a .357-caliber Magnum revolver. Matzen fired three rounds, one of which hit Connaty in the chest, Helton said.

Connaty, a diesel mechanic for Lucky stores, died shortly before 1 p.m. at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Richard Connaty’s parents said they were devastated by the loss of their daughter-in-law and their son within little more than a week of each other.

“I cannot take anymore of this,” said Richard Connaty’s mother, Rose Connaty, sobbing and burying her hands in her face at her Buena Park home. “I was just telling a friend how this could not get any worse.”

The Connatys, who were nearing the end of lengthy, rancorous divorce proceedings, had two sons, ages 8 and 10, and a 6-year-old daughter. The children are currently in the custody of their paternal grandparents.

Police arrested Matzen--a tow truck operator and friend of the Connatys--following interviews Monday with him, his wife, Cynthia Matzen, and Carlos James.

Police believe that Matzen murdered Donna Connaty Nov. 24 about 9 a.m., when she came home from her shift at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange. He had gone there as early as 6 or 7 that morning to wait for her, Branum said.

The house was empty; Richard Connaty had gone to the desert the night before with the couple’s three children. Matzen allegedly stole three savings account passbooks from the house, and, when Connaty arrived, he beat her on the head with a lead pipe, then drove out to the desert near Barstow, where he spent the rest of the weekend with Richard Connaty and the children.

Police recovered a lead pipe Monday from underneath the house that they believe was the murder weapon, Branum said.

Donna Connaty was found dead by her father-in-law the following afternoon, still wearing her nurse’s uniform and stethoscope. Police had been questioning both Connaty and Matzen since the murder about their weekend in the desert, Branum said.

“They were both in here on Saturday, we were trying to pin them down to specific times,” Branum said. “That was Connaty’s alibi, that he was out in the desert, and that’s how Matzen came into the picture.”

Police do not know when Connaty concluded that Matzen was his wife’s killer, if he had anything to do with the murder, or why Connaty suddenly decided to confront Matzen Monday morning, Branum said.

“What’s unclear in our mind, is why is he (Connaty) there at 7:30 arguing with him?” Branum said. “Maybe that’s the key to this. I just don’t know.”

Richard Connaty and Matzen were friends, according to trailer park resident Carlos James. It was through James that Connaty first met Matzen, relatives of the dead man said.

“They went camping together,” James said. “Sometimes they went to the desert together. But I don’t know what went wrong.

“When I jumped out of my bed everything was over. I didn’t know what happened. No one talked to me, no one told me what was going on.”

Ramsay and Rose Connaty said that Matzen and his wife had been having trouble paying the monthly rent at the mobile home park and were soon going to be evicted and that they may have wanted to move in with their son.

They said they were not surprised that Matzen had been arrested.

“Donna never liked them to begin with,” Ramsay Connaty said.

Monday’s gun battle jolted residents of the quiet mobile home park. Marietta Haggard, who lives across the street from Matzen, said she was doing her laundry when she heard a single gunshot. “It was followed by a second shot (that) sounded like a cannon,” Haggard said.

Two bullets sliced through the aluminum skirt of Haggard’s mobile home. Haggard said she peered through her front window and saw a man--later identified as Connaty--lying on the porch of James’ trailer.

Haggard’s neighbor, Rebecca Marthe, said she saw Matzen’s wife cover the body with a white sheet.

“Her little girl was holding on to her,” Marthe said. “The little girl was crying.”

Neighbors, who declined to be identified, said they had recently circulated a petition to have Matzen evicted from the trailer park.

An employee of Coach Royal Mobile Park refused to comment on the neighbors’ allegations.

Richard Connaty had been a reserve officer with the Montebello Police Department until he quit a few years ago.

“He’s a very good-natured kid,” Rose Connaty said. “There was always someone coming to him for help.”

Donna Connaty described a much different man in divorce papers--a man who beat her and his children, who tried to vacuum vitamins out of his children’s mouths, and once turned one of his sons upside down and used his head as a mop to clean up water he spilled.

She told of a June, 1989, incident in which she said her husband “nearly killed me” by hitting her on the head with a hydraulic jack. At one point last year, Donna Connaty obtained a restraining order against her husband, but it was lifted when the couple temporarily reconciled some of their differences.

“He was under constant stress,” his father, Ramsay Connaty said. “He would work at night and baby-sit the kids during the day while she went to (nursing) school . . . . He never got to sleep.”

Times staff writer Lily Eng contributed to this story.