SEALBEACH, Calif. _ Wednesday at 1.
Two people, five years later, lucky to be alive.
Tillie Boitel will never forget the day she rescheduled her hair appointment at Salon Meritage, the little beauty shop on Pacific Coast Highway in Seal Beach. Doug Childers will never forget the violent sounds that interrupted his lunch break.
It was Oct. 12, 2011.
Boitel still marks Oct. 12 on her calendar to honor her friend.
"I think of Victoria," said Boitel, 69. "She's missed the birth of her grandchild, and so many other things."
Wednesday at 1.
It's been five years since the worst mass shooting in the history of Orange County. A madman, armed with three handguns, shot nine people in and around Salon Meritage. Only one of the victims survived. The memorial flowers are long gone. And the smell of gunpowder. And the innocence that once led people to describe the town as "Mayberry by the sea."
Childers was working across the street from the salon at a construction site.
Wednesday at 1.
Childers had taken his lunch break in a trailer on the site. He heard gunshots. Childers had been a combat Marine, so he knew immediately what he had heard.
He ran toward the sound. He heard more shots. He kept going.
Childers still has nightmares about what happened in the next 21 minutes.
Police arrived at Salon Meritage five years ago Wednesday at 1:21 p.m.
