Carjacking Victim Describes Terrifying Face-To-Face Encounter With Santa Monica Gunman
SANTA MONICA (CBSLA.com) — A Culver City woman who was carjacked by the 23-year-old man suspected of killing five people in Santa Monica Friday told her terrifying tale in an interview Monday with CNN's Anderson Cooper.
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Laura Sisk said she was on her way to watch her nephew in play when she ended up on Yorkshire Avenue, where the suspect, John Zawahri, had just shot and killed his father and brother and set the house on fire.
"He just appeared in the middle of the road, pointing a machine gun at me," she said. "He was dressed all in tactical gear from head-to-toe, sort of a medium-sized person. Brown hair. Pointing the gun, saying, 'Pull over. Pull over.'"
Sisk said that's when Zawahri shot at another car and then at hers.
She pulled over and suggested Zawahri just take her car, but instead, he got in the passenger seat.
"He starts yelling at me to drive down the street and basically just giving me directions. 'Go right, go left, go straight.' Until we got to a red light at which point he opened his door and started firing on the bus next to us and into the cars coming towards us. And that's maybe 20, 30 rounds, I don't know," Sisk told Cooper.
Sisk said Zawahri appeared winded and calm when he got back into the car and told her to drive to Santa Monica College.
During the ride, Sisk said, "I kept saying, 'Don't hurt me. I have kids.' He said, 'How old are the kids? Calm down, you'll be all right. Don't do anything stupid.'"
Sisk continued, "I tried to escape from him but the direction I was facing was right into a cement wall and I would have had to turn around and go back past him, so I entered the campus on pedestrian sidewalks and drove through the campus, wildly screaming at people to go the other way."
Sisk said she afraid there was a bomb inside the suspect's bag and that's why she didn't crash her car on purpose.
