CITY HALL SUSPECT HAS TROUBLED PAST OFFICIAL: GUN-TOTING WOMAN SPENT TIME IN PRISON, MENTAL FACILITIES.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

PALMDALE -- A gun-toting woman shot by sheriff's deputies in a July 21 confrontation outside Palmdale City Hall had been involved in at least two similar confrontations with police in Los Angeles and Wisconsin, including one in which she pointed a gun at a Los Angeles SWAT officer after invading the home of a woman who jilted her.

Susan Dyer, 43, who a prosecutor once described as a ``walking time bomb,'' had been paroled after prison to Palmdale to keep her away from the Los Angeles woman, and over the Past 10 years she has been repeatedly in and out of prison and at least twice put into mental institutions, authorities said.

``This is a never-ending case,'' said Deputy District Attorney Rhonda Saunders, who prosecuted Dyer in the Los Angeles case and, as a result, pushed for a strengthening of California's stalking law. ``She has remained obsessed with the wrongs that are done to her. ... To be very honest, this ending right now doesn't surprise me, considering what happened where she pointed a gun at the officer in my case, what happened in Wisconsin, and now.''

Detectives and city officials said they don't know why Dyer showed up armed at City Hall. A detective who worked on the Los Angeles case suggested she might have been looking for her former parole office, even though the parole office is miles away from City Hall.

``It's very bizarre,'' said Mayor Jim Ledford, whose office window was broken by the gunfire.

Sheriff's homicide Lt. Joe Hartshorne said Dyer won't talk with investigators.

``She was there armed with two guns. We don't know if she was waiting for somebody. The city checked and knows of no previous known contact,'' Hartshorne said.

Dyer, whose attorney in the City Hall case has questioned her mental competency, is in custody in a hospital ward after undergoing two surgeries for her wounds, the detective said.

Dyer was holding two pistols when city maintenance workers saw her before dawn July 21 outside Palmdale City Hall. When a half-dozen deputies, summoned by the workers' 911 call, ordered Dyer to drop her weapons, she ran into a parking lot, then pointed the guns at the deputies, officials said.

During an arraignment hearing Aug. 11 on charges of assault on a peace officer, grand theft firearm, and possession of a firearm by a felon, a judge ordered Dyer to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. She is due back in court Sept. 1.

Dyer's attorney could not be reached last week for comment.

In 1992, Dyer was sentenced in Los Angeles to seven years in prison after being convicted of brandishing a weapon at a SWAT team officer and assault, with personal use of a gun, said Saunders.

``She was stalking a woman; they had a brief affair, and they broke it off. She refused to take the rejection and launched a campaign against the victim,'' Saunders said. ``She would follow her to work and try to get her fired. There were repeated phone calls.''

At one point, Dyer was living in the crawl space beneath the woman's house, though that wasn't discovered until after the SWAT team confrontation.

``There was clothing identified as belonging to Susan, dried food scattered all over. From that crawl space, Susan could hear everything going on in house. The telephone box was down there with scratch marks consistent with tapping into the phone,'' Saunders said.

In the Los Angeles case, Dyer was first arrested on suspicion of burglary when a friend house-sitting for the woman found Dyer inside the home. Bailed out by her father, she stole his gun and went back to the house.

The victim and two friends, who were having lunch, ran outside. An hourslong confrontation with a SWAT team ended when she came outside and was tackled by SWAT officers, Saunders said.

After four years in prison, Department of Corrections records indicate, Dyer was sent back to prison repeatedly for parole violations after her initial release in 1996.

She was paroled to Palmdale so she would be at least 35 miles away from the Los Angeles victim, Saunders said. Dyer had to wear an electronic monitor and was checked at least once a day by her parole officer, Saunders said.

In 1998, she somehow slipped out of the monitoring device and was found later in Santa Monica, Saunders said. She was returned to prison.

In 1999, Dyer was sent to a locked mental facility after being ruled a danger to the community. She was released after a jury determined her to be sane, Saunders said.

After finishing her parole in 2000, Dyer left California and ended up in Wisconsin, where she worked as a railroad engineer, Saunders said.

In 2005, police in Wisconsin got a report of a woman lying in a ditch. It was Dyer, who when police arrived got in a car and led them on a high-speed chase, Saunders said.

``When it ended, they started to approach, and she took a blanket, threw it over her body, and simulated a gun from under the blanket,'' Saunders said.

After several weeks in a mental hospital, she was released and headed to California. Saunders said she last heard she was living out of her car.

Saunders said she couldn't charge Dyer with stalking in the 1992 case because California's law at that time was weak. Stalking was a misdemeanor unless there was a restraining order.

The law was rewritten to make stalking a felony -- carrying a prison sentence -- and to say that it could be indirect, and implied by conduct.

``The definition of `credible threat' was meant to be, `I'm going to kill you right now.' What Susan was doing was: `I'm not going to hurt you, but I'll destroy you mentally,''' Saunders said.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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