Teen Slain After Theft of Plastic Pumpkin; Man Held

BUENA PARK —  A 17-year-old boy died Tuesday after being shot by a homeowner apparently upset over the theft of a plastic light-up pumpkin from his frontyard, police said.

Pete Tavita Solomona, 47, was booked on suspicion of murder. Prosecutors are expected to decide today whether he will face homicide charges.

Until Solomona came out of his house waving a loaded .357-caliber revolver, most saw him as a kindly neighbor and loving grandfather. And the young man he reportedly confessed to shooting, Brandon Ketsdever of Buena Park, was a popular high school athlete and fun-loving prankster.

Now the tragic shooting, which Solomona insists was accidental, has traumatized a normally quiet subdivision and posed disturbing questions for those trying to sort out what happened and why.

Residents described a chaotic scene Monday night in the neighborhood, less than a mile from Knott’s Berry Farm, after Solomona allegedly fired a shot into a Ford Escort carrying three 17-year-old boys. The bullet, police said, struck the head of Ketsdever, a student at Kennedy High School in neighboring La Palma, who was driving the car.

As Solomona’s daughter raced toward the car and frantically attended to the boy’s head wound, her father froze in the middle of the street, visibly stunned, witnesses said.

“He was standing out there in a daze,” said neighbor Marsha Long. “He couldn’t believe what he had done. He kept saying, ‘It just went off, it just went off.’ ”

A distraught woman arrived at the scene, being pulled along by one of the youths who had fled from the car, according to two witnesses. “She kept saying, ‘That’s not my son. That’s not my son,’ ” recalled neighbor Darren Scheidt.

Solomona called police minutes after the incident and said he had shot the boy when his gun discharged accidentally, said Buena Park Police Sgt. Chris Nunez.

The shooting left residents struggling to understand the violence.

“This neighborhood is going to take a while to recover,” Scheidt said. “I’ll be really surprised if any of the kids come out to trick-or-treat if the parents let them.”

Ketsdever and his two friends had been circling the neighborhood that evening, looking for decorations to steal so they could leave them in the frontyards of friends as a prank, Nunez said.

Solomona told detectives he had noticed that his decoration was missing at 8:45 p.m. and saw the three teenagers drive away from his home, police said.

When the car returned a few minutes later, Solomona grabbed his revolver, which is legally registered, and confronted the youths as they pulled up opposite the house, he told police.

One of the boys who had been in the car, however, said the confrontation occurred right after they took the pumpkin, which he described as about 3 1/2 feet high.

“What the hell are you doing?” Solomona shouted, according to one of the teenagers, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified. “Why’d you steal my pumpkin?”

One shot rang out, striking Ketsdever in the head. The other two boys ran from the car screaming, “You killed him; what have you done?” witnesses said. Solomona’s daughter tried to help the wounded boy, urging him to “stay with it, hold on,” witnesses said.

Ketsdever died at UC Irvine Medical Center at 3:12 a.m., police said.

“Our family is devastated over the senseless death of our son,” said the slain boy’s father, Jon Ketsdever. “We want Brandon to be remembered as the funny and compassionate son, brother and friend we know him as.”

The teenager who had been in the passenger seat suffered a minor cut to his arm. Police said they did not know whether he was hit by flying glass or bullet fragments.

Friends of Ketsdever, known for his sense of humor, laid a bouquet of flowers by the bloodstained roadside where he was shot. Ketsdever, they recalled, was a gifted athlete, representing his school in football, track and water polo.

“He was just so funny; he was so awesome,” said 17-year-old Christie Epperly as she choked back tears. “He was one of those people who would totally make your day. Just seeing him smile, that’s what you look forward to.”

Other friends noted how trivial an argument had ended so tragically.

“It was over a pumpkin,” 17-year-old Simeon Nichols said in disgust. “I would have bought the guy a pumpkin.”

Similar pumpkins retail for $10 to $35 at local stores.

Students at Kennedy High talked with grief counselors, who arrived at the school Tuesday morning. “There’s a very somber mood this morning,” said Principal Norie Atherton.

Meanwhile, residents said they were horrified that the neighbor they had known for years as a quiet family man may now face murder charges. Many said they had never even heard him raise his voice at his own children, and could not believe that he could have fired his revolver intentionally.

“For him to do it out of malice, I can’t believe that,” Scheidt said. “For a plastic pumpkin. He was trying to scare them.”

Long, who moved into the area three years ago, about the same time as Solomona, agreed.

“He’s a nice guy. He’s got adult kids, two sons and one daughter, and at least one grandchild. . . . I think the adrenaline got to him. Everything happened too fast. It was an accident, an unfortunate accident.”

Though he kept much to himself, neighbors described Solomona as a family man who doted on his children and grandchild. He fit the local area well.

“This is an all-family neighborhood,” Scheidt said. “Ninety percent go to the same church, and all the kids play together. That’s why we moved here.”

Long watched Solomona put out the plastic pumpkin Saturday, she said. But many others in the area had decided to wait until later to decorate their houses, she said.

“Things have been missing the last couple of weeks, and people have been waiting to put out the decorations until Halloween, because they get stolen,” she said.

Neighbors described Solomona as a deeply religious man who could often be seen tinkering outside with his car or tending to his lawn.

Solomona was caring for his garden, watering the grass, when Long left her house Monday evening to pick up her children.

“When I came back to him, he was standing in the street saying, ‘It just went off,’ ” Long recalled. “It’s really sad.”

Experts said a key to the charges Solomona faces will be whether he planned to fire at the car and whether he felt his life was in jeopardy.

“For someone to arm himself with a weapon . . . it’s very unbalanced,” Nunez said. “You have to use force that is reasonable. You’re talking about a loss of minor property.”

The mother of one of the two passengers in the car agreed.

“I don’t think a rational, mature adult would take a loaded handgun out to the street unless he intended to use it,” said the mother, who asked not to be identified.

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Times staff writers Louise Roug and Matthew Ebnet contributed to this story.