Santa Monica, California (CNN) -- By all accounts, suspected Santa Monica shooter John Zawahri was ready to inflict maximum harm.
Victim: He 'was going out to execute'
Family emotional over tragic loss
Before shooting rampage, a troubled life
Santa Monica hero used car as blockade
He had multiple firearms and about 1,300 rounds of ammunition. Also, apparently, he had the capacity to kill.
Police say he killed his
father and brother, along with three others, during a Friday afternoon
rampage in Santa Monica, California.
But by some strokes of good luck, or because of quick thinking, Zawahri was not able to kill more.
"As soon as I looked him straight in the eye, I saw what he was going to do," said Deborah Fine.
She told CNN she saw the gunman pull over another woman and hold a rifle to her head.
Victim: He 'was going out to execute'
Family emotional over tragic loss
Before shooting rampage, a troubled life
Santa Monica hero used car as blockade
"I thought to myself,
'What are you doing? Why are you pointing this gun at her?' And so I put
on my accelerator, I hit the gas, and I got in between the two of
them," she said.
The bold move quickly turned the gunman's attention to Fine.
"I'll never forget his eyes. They were just so intense and so cold," she said.
"I was somebody in the way, and I was somebody to get out of the way. And that's when he raised his rifle."
Bullets struck Fine three to four times across her body.
She balks at the idea that anybody might call her a hero.
"It really was just an
anger that came over me that he wouldn't leave her alone, and she was
young," said Fine, a mother of twins.
"I get angry and take on the bully," she said. "I'm glad I did what I did, but thank God, I'm alive."
'He let me go'
Laura Sisk was the woman Fine saw get pulled over.
"He just appeared in the middle of the road," Sisk told CNN's AC360 Monday night.
He screamed at her to get out of the car and to pick up a heavy bag of his off the ground and put it in her car.
"I suggested he take my
car and go. He didn't like that idea and said that I was going to drive
him and made me get in. And then he got in after shooting a little bit
more," Sisk said.
During the drive, he gave her directions -- go right, go left, go straight. At an intersection, he opened fire on a bus.
Sisk said she was shaking hysterically. The gunman kept telling her to calm down.
"I just kept saying don't hurt me, I have children, don't hurt me," she said.
"He let me go ... I
don't know why. I don't know if it was because I had said I had children
and he bonded with me on that, I don't know."
Spree leaves five dead
Police say the spate of
violence that left this beachfront city reeling on Friday involved as
many as six incidents over 13 minutes.
It started at the
Zawahri family house on Yorkshire Avenue shortly before noon and ended a
mile away in the college library where students were studying for
finals.
Officers were dispatched
to the house to respond to reports of shots fired. There, they found
the 1,000-square-foot home in flames.
Inside, firefighters would later find two bodies in a back room -- those of Zawahri's father, Samir, and his brother Chris.
Both had been shot.
Outside the house, police came across Fine.
She had interrupted the gunman's carjacking, but his rampage was just beginning.
He got into the vehicle
and forced Sisk to drive the short distance to Santa Monica College,
which Zawahri attended as recently as 2010.
During their ride, 911 calls poured in, keeping police on the gunman's path.
As the car headed toward
the campus of the community college, where 30,000 students are
registered, he opened fire on a passing bus, slightly wounding three
people.
He then got out and shot
into a red Ford Explorer, carrying 26-year-old Marcela Franco and her
father, 68-year-old Carlos Navarro Franco.
Carlos Franco worked as a groundskeeper at the college. They were on campus to get textbooks for Marcela.
Both died.
"'Broken' is not a strong enough word to describe us," said relative Margret Quinonez Perez.
'Miraculous' more people weren't hurt
After shooting into the
SUV, the gunman abandoned his hijacked vehicle. In a stroke of good luck
for the driver, he left her unhurt.
Dressed in black, the
gunman then walked the campus, "shooting as he went along," Santa Monica
Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said.
Outside the school library, he saw a woman and "executed her," the police chief said.
Her death was the fifth of the rampage.
Authorities identified her Monday as Margarita Gomez. She was a resident of Santa Monica but not a student at the college.
Finally, the gunman walked into the library.
"He attempted to kill
several library patrons who were hiding in a safe room. It's miraculous
that those individuals were not physically injured," said Seabrooks.
Inside, Priscilla Morales and her friends hid.
"I was so scared and thought literally I was going to die," she said.
By then, the gunman had returned to the main area of the library and was met by three police officers.
"Drop it!" Morales said she heard police say.
Then she heard gunshots and a man's screams.
Officers had shot and killed 23-year-old Zawahri.
The suspected gunman's mother released a short statement Monday night, asking for privacy.
"As may be assumed, I am
in mourning for my family and for those who were also affected by this
horrific tragedy over the past few days. I cannot express my great
sadness for the families who are also suffering at this terrible time,"
Randa Abdou said in the statement obtained by CNN affiliate KABC.
"I do ask the media
please give me time to grieve and to come to grips with the overwhelming
sorrow that has befallen all of us."