Victim in tire shop slaying always put her children first
By Kyle Jorrey kjorrey@theacorn.com

Photo Courtesy Michael Sutcliffe 'A FLAWLESS MOTHER'- Susan Sutcliffe, seen here with her husband, Michael, on a recent vacation in Hawaii, was killed last week at Simi Valley Tire Pros by a gunman who then committed suicide. In the company of her two children, Greg and Kathryn, Sutcliffe was, her husband said, "as happy as she's ever been."

Susan Sutcliffe may have been the greatest mother on Planet Earth- she certainly never stopped trying.

In a day and age of sitters and nannies, nurseries and daycare, she was completely hands on when it came to the lives of her two beloved creations, Greg and Kathryn.

From the moment their children were born, Greg in 1986, Kathryn in 1990, Susan and her husband, Michael, agreed to live by one motto above all else- the kids come first, and from that philosophy they did not waiver.

"We elected to dedicate our entire lives to our children," Sutcliffe said. "She was a full-time mom. And a lot of people don't understand, that's a pretty tough job.

"It's harder than my job," he said. "It's harder than your job. She really worked hard at being a good mother."

Susan, a Simi Valley resident since 1995, was fatally injured in last week's still unexplained shooting at Tire Pros on East Los Angeles Avenue, shot without warning while she sat reading a book, waiting for the tire on the family minivan to be fixed.

She was laid to rest Saturday at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth in front of family and friends following a service at St. Peter Claver Church in Simi Valley. Susan was 53 years old.

"My wife had so much more left she wanted to do, so much more she wanted to give," Sutcliffe told the Simi Valley Acorn on Friday.

"She used to drive me nuts about this stuff. 'You need to donate more time,' she'd say. 'You need to this, you need to do that.' But that wasn't me- that was her. She was an Irish woman and she was stubborn at times, but he had no right to put a gun to her head and shoot her. I wish so bad sometimes these last few days that we could switch places. She was such a good person."

Setting an example

Both East Coast transplants- she from Connecticut, he from Massachusetts- Susan met Michael in 1979 while they were both working for a small company in the San Fernando Valley.

They were married in 1985. Baby Greg came a year later, and the couple decided Susan would be a stay-at-home mom, caring for their boy while Sutcliffe made the 140-mile round trip each day from their home in Lancaster to his job in Canoga Park.

"It was a struggle not having her income, but it was still the kids come first in our family,"

Susan Sutcliffe

Sutcliffe said. "Sometimes she struggled with it because she felt like she wanted to work to help us out, but she stayed committed to being with her children whenever they needed her."

Kathryn, the daughter the couple so badly wanted, arrived a few years later. Though her responsibilities were greater, Susan stayed dedicated to a goal she had set for herself years early- to earn a college degree- something she wanted to do, Sutcliffe said, so she could set an example for Greg and Kathryn.

"She wanted to do it so she could show her children that going to college was important," Sutcliffe said.

Fitting in classes at Antelope Valley College whenever she could, Susan kept the family together while her husband was at work, sometimes from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m.

"I would get home and the kids would be asleep and she would be up there working in her books- she always had a cup of coffee prepared," Sutcliffe said. "And the house would be immaculate. I would say, 'How do you get all this stuff done?' I really think the compassion for her children carried her through these times."

Susan finally accomplished her goal in 1989, just shy of her 36th birthday. She not only earned an associate's degree in business administration, but finished in the top of her class as well.

"It was a proud moment, oh it was," Sutcliffe recalled. "Her parents flew from Connecticut to see her graduate."

Bookworm

If Susan had a passion besides her children, it was reading.

Whenever she had a free moment- whether between innings at her daughter's softball game or waiting in line at the grocery store- Susan's head could be found in a book. In her world, idle time was reading time.

"She just wanted to learn everything she could. She wanted to know more, to be well-spoken, to be understood," Sutcliffe said. "You couldn't pour knowledge into her head fast enough."

A regular customer at the Friends of the Library 25-cent book sales- as well as at Borders- Susan would read everything she could get her hands on- and then try to pass on her recently required knowledge onto her husband and kids.

"It used to drive me nuts," Sutcliffe joked. "She'd read a whole book and then she'd want to share everything she learned with me. I couldn't keep up."

But more than anything, Susan loved sharing what she learned with her children.

"She used to give me all her (John) Grisham's once she was finished with them," son Greg said.

So great was Susan's thirst for knowledge, her family said, that she would spend hours thumbing through atlases. Several world maps adorn the walls of the Sutcliffes' home on Hidden Ranch Drive.

"When some place came up on the TV that she didn't know she would run up there with the kids and try to find it," Sutcliffe said.

Susan had a passion for world travel, and imparted it to her children.

The summer after Greg's junior year at Santa Susana High School, Susan convinced him to go along on a class trip to Germany.

"She wanted me to see the world," Greg said. "She was adamant about it."

The trip, as turned out, Greg said, was a dream come true.

"It was amazing," he said. "It really opened up my eyes. I was so glad I went."

"If it was up to me he would have never gone," Sutcliffe said. "But she knew better."

Cherished memories

This past summer the Sutcliffes decided to take one more big family vacation before the kids were officially "all grown up."

Greg was about to begin his second year at Moorpark College and Kathryn, 16, was entering her junior year at Simi Valley High. Susan, meanwhile, was considering going back to school to get her teaching certificate, preparing to enter what Sutcliffe described as "the next phase of her life."

Their destination: the island of Kauii in Hawaii.

It was an interesting choice for Susan, whose fair Irish complexion generally kept her out of the sun.

"She would always stay covered up, always make sure there was shade on her face because she was so scared of getting skin cancer," Sutcliffe said. "I said to her, 'Susan, you realize we're going to Hawaii, the land of the sun.' She said she didn't care. She was just so excited for us all to be together on vacation for what she thought might be the last time."

Once on the island, Susan enjoyed herself immensely, even braving the bright blue waters of the Pacific Ocean- something she never did in California, Sutcliffe said.

"Here's a woman who wouldn't put her foot into the water most of her life out there Boogie-boarding," Michael said. "She had a grand old time."

"She was taking on these 15foot waves with the biggest smile on her face," said Greg, who accompanied his mother and sister in the water.

The August trip is one the family will always cherish.

"She was just so happy," Sutcliffe said.

Wrong person, time

As of Thursday, police still don't know what drove 29yearold Simi Valley resident Robert Becerra to shoot Susan and two Tire Pros employees on the morning of Oct. 9 before turning a gun on himself.

Sutcliffe is convinced authorities will never know the answers.

"There's no enemy in the world of my wife- she never crossed anyone," he said. "They will never find anything but wrong person, wrong time."

In fact, he's sure his wife has already made peace with her killer.

"I think milliseconds after he shot her she forgave him- that's the kind of person she was," he said.

But "I'll never forgive him."

Susan, who was born in New London, Conn., and graduated from Waterford High School, is survived by her mother, brother and sister, all residents of Connecticut.

Family members are working to set up a fund in Susan Sutcliffe's name to benefit Alzheimer's research. Susan felt deeply about the disease, having lost her father to Alzheimer's many years earlier.

When asked how his mother would like to have been remembered, Greg answered quickly and simply.

"As a flawless mother," her son said.