A Hollister man vacationing with his wife was one of two people
killed when a man intentionally drove a stolen car into a crowd of
pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip Wednesday.
Hollister – A Hollister man vacationing with his wife was one of two people killed when a man intentionally drove a stolen car into a crowd of pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip Wednesday.
Hollister resident Gordon Kusayanagi, 52, who owned the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in Monterey with his wife Stephanie, died when a Rialto man drove a stolen Buick onto the sidewalk near Bally’s hotel-casino. It is unknown whether his wife was one of the 13 people injured when 27-year-old Stephen Michael Ressa plowed into a crowd mainly made up of tourists visiting Las Vegas. A second man from Irvine died from his injuries on Thursday.
Kusayanagi’s family members could not be reached for comment Thursday, however Eric Palmer, assistant manager at Kusayanagi’s sweets store, said his boss was a guitar player full of youthful enthusiasm who played in a popular rock cover band in Monterey. But when he wasn’t living out his rock and roll dreams playing guitar or singing back-up vocals while covering songs from bands like Matchbox 20, Palmer said Kusayanagi was incredibly honest, quiet and funny.
“He definitely wanted to be a rock star – that’s how him and his wife met,” Palmer said. “This was quite a shock. He always came in with a smile on his face. He wasn’t a strict boss at all.”
Palmer said he had not talked with Kusayanagi’s wife, who owned the small store with her husband, but believed the couple were vacationing with members of her family.
Kusayanagi and his wife owned two Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory stores in Gilroy before selling them about a year ago and buying the one in Monterey, according to Gilroy Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory employee Steven Robles.
Kusayanagi’s daughter, Sara Savage, who is a police dispatcher for the Morgan Hill Police Department and lives in Gilroy, went to Las Vegas Wednesday when she was notified about the accident, according to Donna Macknight, who works in police records.
Macknight said Savage, who has worked at the Morgan Hill Police Department for several years, has a young son and should be coming back to the area Friday. Macknight and Palmer did not know when funeral services will be held for Kusayanagi.
Kusayanagi and Irvine resident Mark Modaressi were killed, and 13 other people suffered minor to serious injuries. After Ressa accelerated his mother’s burgundy Buick into the crowd of people for unknown reasons, the car crashed into a nearby concrete wall and came to rest in front of Bally’s.
One witness described it as “humans being mowed down like a lawnmower,” said Deputy Las Vegas Police Chief Greg McCurdy. “It appears he did this intentionally. The reason is questionable.”
Right after the accident happened, an off-duty Las Vegas Police Officer, Martin Wright, rushed from a nearby restaurant to help.
“All I saw was bodies on the sidewalk and in the bushes,” Wright said Thursday. “One man in particular was face down. His legs looked like they were broken, like he had been run over.”
When police came to arrest him, witnesses said Ressa was standing next to the Buick, and offered no resistance when they placed him in handcuffs. He was booked into the Clark County Jail on one charge of murder – Modaressi didn’t succumb to his injuries until late Thursday morning – and 12 charges of attempted murder, however additional charges are expected to be filed.
The severity of the incident hadn’t quite set in for one of Kusayanagi’s neighbors, San Benito High School senior Kristen Coffey, who baby-sat for the couple’s grandson.
“It’s pretty shocking,” she said. “I didn’t know them that well but they were both nice. You don’t expect this to happen to someone who lives two houses down from you.”
During interviews with detectives, Ressa appeared lucid and correctly answered questions to determine his ability to distinguish right from wrong, according to McCurdy. But Ressa’s statements were “bizarre in nature,” McCurdy said.
Results of alcohol and drug tests were pending. There was no record that Ressa had retained a lawyer.
Ressa had been sought by police for questioning in a near-fatal assault Monday on his 54-year-old mother, Rialto police Detective Sgt. Reinhard Burkholder said Thursday. Ressa may have been under the influence of methamphetamine at the time, Burkholder said.
A man “punched her numerous times in the face and choked her into unconsciousness and stood over her with a butcher knife,” Burkholder said.
Ressa hasn’t been charged in the Rialto assault.
Wednesday’s crash closed the Las Vegas Strip in both directions for almost five hours and was reminiscent of an April 2000 crash that killed a Wisconsin man and injured five other people in front of the Aladdin hotel-casino in Las Vegas, and a Thanksgiving Day 1980 crash that killed seven and injured 23 in Reno. A Las Vegas stripper, Juanita Kim McDonald, was sentenced to five to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to driving under the influence in the 2000 crash.
In Reno, Priscilla Ford was convicted of six counts of murder and 23 counts of attempted murder and sentenced to death in the 1980 crash on the city’s main casino drag. She died in January at age 75 at the Southern Nevada Women’s Correctional Center in North Las Vegas.
Staff Writer Luke Roney and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Erin Musgrave covers public safety for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or
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