Jennifer San Marco and the Goleta Postal Facility Shooting

The Jennifer San Marco Goleta postal shooting took place on the evening of January 30, 2006, when the 44-year-old former United States Postal Service clerk killed a former neighbor at a Goleta condominium complex, then drove to the Santa Barbara Processing and Distribution Center on Storke Road and shot six postal employees before killing herself. Seven people died. It remains one of the deadliest acts of workplace violence at a U.S. postal facility.

What Happened That Night

San Marco began at a condominium complex in Goleta where she had previously lived. She shot and killed Beverly Graham, 54, a former neighbor she had clashed with over San Marco’s habit of singing loudly outside her unit.¹ Graham’s body was not found until the next day.²

Shortly after 9:00 p.m., San Marco drove to the mail processing plant where she had once worked. The facility had no security guards and no metal detectors.³ She slipped through the gated employee parking lot by following another vehicle, then forced a worker at gunpoint to hand over a key card to get inside the building.⁴

She shot three people in the parking lot and one in the lobby. Her 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol then misfired. She reloaded and moved deeper into the plant, where she shot two more employees. The pause during reloading gave some workers time to escape.⁴ After killing six postal workers, San Marco turned the gun on herself and died at the scene.¹

The People Killed

Counting Beverly Graham, seven people died. All six victims at the postal facility were people of color, a detail consistent with San Marco’s documented history of racial hostility.¹ The postal workers who were killed were:

Ze Fairchild, 37, of Santa Barbara.
Maleka Brinley-Higgins Pineda, 28, of Santa Barbara, who had recently returned from maternity leave.
Dexter Shannon, 57, of Oxnard.
Nicola Grant, 42, of Lompoc.
Guadalupe Swartz, 53, of Lompoc.
Charlotte Colton, 44, of Santa Barbara, a mother of three. She was shot in the head and pronounced dead at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, survived by her husband, Jim, and their three sons.⁵

Who Jennifer San Marco Was

San Marco worked as a sorting clerk at the Goleta facility for about six years before leaving in June 2003. Before the Postal Service, she had worked briefly as a dispatcher for the Santa Barbara Police Department in 1995, passing a psychological screening but leaving after only four months.⁶

At the Goleta plant, her behavior grew increasingly erratic. Coworkers said she talked and argued with herself and made racist comments aimed particularly at Asian employees. A former colleague described her as “particularly hostile.” Officials said she never made direct threats against coworkers.⁷ On February 5, 2001, sheriff’s deputies removed her from the plant and took her to a psychiatric facility in Ventura County for a three-day involuntary assessment.⁶

Deputies were called again in 2003 after she was found under a mail-sorting machine. She was handcuffed, placed on a mail cart, and wheeled out of the building. U.S. Postal Inspector Randy DeGasperin said she was placed on medical leave because of concerns for her own safety, not because of threats to others, and was granted early retirement on a medical disability for psychological problems.⁷

San Marco moved to Milan, a small village in western New Mexico, in late 2003 or early 2004. Residents and officials there described her ranting in municipal offices, harassing a female clerk, foraging through dumpsters, and parking on the roadside to pray. Police were once called to a gas station after reports that she was naked, though she was clothed when officers arrived.⁸⁷

In 2004 she applied in Milan for a business license to publish something she called “The Racist Press.” Deputy clerk Terri Gallegos said the application was part of a pattern that convinced officials San Marco had “some mental problems.”⁸ A seven-page edition appears to have been produced; its content was described as “impossible to follow,” with a “murky” position on racism and passages about mental telepathy and surveillance. She also tried to place a classified ad in the Los Angeles Times soliciting readers, but the paper rejected it because she did not provide a copy of the publication for review.⁹

How She Was Able to Buy the Gun

In August 2005, roughly six months before the shooting, San Marco bought a 9mm Smith & Wesson Model 915 handgun with a 15-round capacity from Ace Pawn & Antiques in Grants, New Mexico, for $325. She later bought ammunition at a pawnshop in Gallup.¹¹⁰

She passed the required federal instant background check. Under California law, her 2001 involuntary psychiatric hold would have automatically barred her from buying a firearm for five years. Federal law set a higher bar: it prohibited gun purchases only by people who had been formally “adjudicated as mentally defective” or committed to a mental institution through a judicial process, and her hold did not meet that standard. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said the case “demonstrates the limits on a state’s ability to effectively enforce firearms laws, because they are avoidable by purchasing a gun in a less-regulated state,” and called for “more rigorous national standards to keep weapons out of the hands of the mentally ill.”¹¹

Investigation and Motive

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI, and U.S. Postal Inspectors investigated the attack.³ Shell casings at Graham’s condominium matched those at the postal facility, confirming the same weapon was used in both attacks.²

On February 2, 2006, investigators executed a federal search warrant at San Marco’s New Mexico home. They recovered writings expressing deep frustration with the Goleta Distribution Center, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, and a California medical facility. Sergeant Erik Raney of the sheriff’s department said the writings suggested she believed those organizations were conspiring against her: “She obviously believed that these organizations were out to get her in some way or another and were plotting against her.”¹² Investigators also found a cancelled check made out to cash with the word “Will” written on the memo line, suggesting she may have anticipated her death.¹⁰

Authorities never settled on a single definitive motive. Whether she targeted specific individuals or fired at random was never conclusively established.¹³ The evidence pointed to severe paranoid delusions combined with racial hostility. She had no criminal record and no prior arrests.¹

How the Victims Were Remembered

The American Postal Workers Union set up a memorial fund for the families of the slain postal workers, with all donations directed to those families. The U.S. Postal Service paid for the victims’ funerals and gave Goleta employees time to attend them. A community memorial service was held on February 12, 2006.¹⁴

Six trees were planted at the Goleta postal facility in memory of the six workers killed there, and a plaque bearing their names was placed at the site. Bouquets have been left outside the facility on the anniversary of the shooting.¹⁵

1
Santa Barbara Independent. Goleta Postal Murders
2
Chicago Tribune. Wounded Postal Worker Dies; Shooters Ex-Neighbor Slain
3
Los Angeles Times. Postal Facility Shooting in Goleta
4
Violence Policy Center. Goleta Mail Processing Plant Active Shooter Incident
5
NBC News. Wounded Postal Worker Dies
6
Daily News. Killers Psychosis Got Worse in 2004
7
CBS News. Postal Shooters Bizarre Behavior
8
NBC News. Detectives Search New Mexico Home
9
Los Angeles Times. Postal Shooters Publication Details
10
KOAT. Detectives Search New Mexico Home in Connection With California Postal Killing
11
Vail Daily. Postal Shooter Got Gun Legally
12
Daily Nexus. Police Find Probable Motive, New Details in Recent Shooting
13
New York Times. 5 Killed at Post Office by Ex-Worker, Officials Say
14
APWU. APWU Establishes Fund for Shooting Victims Families
15
Noozhawk. Bouquets Mark 8 Years Since Goleta Postal Shootings