6: Murder in Paradise

Safe by any standard, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks were staggered nonetheless by senseless violence in 1997.

Simi Valley, the nation’s safest large city, suffered the worst mayhem in its history when a hard-working but despondent immigrant father, Ahmad Salman, killed his wife and three young sons as they fled his aim, then turned a .30-06 rifle on himself.

Deeply in debt despite two decades of trying to make a new life in America, Salman, 44, had encountered a series of frustrations: He had failed to get U.S. visas for family members living in Syria; his wife, Nabela, 38, had gone home to Syria for a time because she was homesick; he couldn’t make payments on a new car and was forced to return it; he didn’t want his wife to work, but she took a job at a bowling alley.

Finally, while off the job on disability, Salman broke in late May and gunned down his family.

“I can’t imagine what would lead anybody to do something like this,” Police Chief Randy Adams said.

Just a month earlier and a few miles away, in another white-collar commuter community, bank teller Monica Leech, a 39-year-old mother of two, was handcuffed and executed during a takeover robbery in Thousand Oaks--the second-safest city in the U.S. with a population of 100,000 or more.

The search continues for her two assailants, authorities say.