DANVILLE — Four years before Mark Allen Sypien allegedly shot and killed him in a local parking lot, Danville resident John Moore typed up a document predicting Sypien would one day harm him or his family.
“(Sypien’s) recent history and past criminal record shows he has the capacity to be violent and harm women without remorse,” Moore wrote in a 2014 restraining order request. “I believe he has the capacity to be a sociopath.”
In court filings dating back to 2014, Moore and his family members cited years of threats, domestic violence, stalking and harassment, all at the hands of Sypien. Around 2:25 p.m. Sunday, Sypien, 51, allegedly made good on those threats, shooting 76-year-old Moore multiple times in a parking lot in the 3400 block of Fostoria Way, police said.
After the shooting, police say Sypien fled. He has not been heard from since, and remains a fugitive considered armed and dangerous. Meanwhile, the Danville community is mourning Moore, a respected businessman and former president of the town’s Rotary club.
“He loved his family, loved his friends,” said Robert Combs, the president of the Danville Rotary Club and a friend of Moore for the past five years. “We’re all shocked and in disbelief that something like this could happen to someone like that.”
Court records revealed a history of bad blood between Sypien and the Moore family, starting when Sypien dated one of Moore’s daughters in the late 2000s. This news organization is not naming Moore’s daughter because of a policy to protect the identity of domestic violence victims.
Court filings by several members of Moore’s family allege that Sypien was abusive to his girlfriend and her children, and that he continued to harass the Moore family after the relationship ended in 2014. Sypien contended that Moore owed him hundreds of thousands of dollars and demanded the money, which Moore referred to in court records as “extortion.”
“That was part of his life he did not and was not wanting to share,” Combs said. “It was his own private hell, it sounds like.”
In one 2016 email to his family, Moore expressed concern that Sypien would return to Contra Costa County after serving a jail sentence in Illinois, and begin harassing the family again.
“I believe we need to be more vigilant going forward,” Moore wrote, adding that he notified Danville police and advised his family to renew their permits to carry a concealed gun.
Moore’s email was prompted by several harassing, profanity-laced messages from Sypien, who promised to “get back in touch with (Moore) very soon.”
“You honestly can’t think I was going to let you destroy ever (sic) aspect of my life and get away with it,” Sypien wrote. The email ends with the phrase, “I’ll be in touch.”
In another email, Sypien wrote, “John Moore, the time is now.”
Sypien’s phone went straight to voicemail and he did not respond to requests for comment Monday afternoon.
History of abuse
In early 2014, it was clear that Sypien’s relationship with Moore’s daughter was disintegrating. One of Moore’s grandchildren wrote a sworn statement describing Sypien’s profanity-laced fits of rage.
In March 2014, a month before the couple broke up, Moore’s grandchild arrived to her mother’s home to find a sliding glass door in the home had been broken. Sypien was inside, and allegedly yelled, “This is your mom’s fault.” Scared, the grandchild ran to her car out front, got inside and locked the doors.
“(Sypien) started pounding on the window of my car. I thought it was going to break,” the grandchild’s statement says. “Mark’s face was red and his eyes were very scary. … He was like a mad man.”
A few days later, Moore’s daughter asked him to help mediate a meeting between her, Sypien and other members of Moore’s family, telling her father she had been trying to get Sypien to move out but he was refusing. A month later, she applied for a restraining order against Sypien.
According to Moore, when Sypien found out about the restraining order, he became “very anxious and agitated.” He told Moore he had an arrest warrant in DeKalb County, Illinois, and that “he was not going to be handcuffed and put in jail again,” Moore wrote in a sworn court statement.
The Moores pursued the restraining orders against Sypien anyway. In the aftermath, Moore wrote in May 2014, “We have seen one violation after another,” including vandalism, trespassing, harassing messages and Sypien spending $3,600 of his ex-girlfriend’s money.
The DeKalb County arrest warrant turned out to be for violating a protective order following a 2004 domestic battery conviction in Illinois. Sypien was eventually arrested on that warrant, and in August 2016 accepted a 120-day jail sentence as a part of a plea deal, according to the DeKalb County state attorney’s office.
In late 2014, Sypien sued the Moore family, claiming that after the relationship ended, they began destroying or seizing his property, including “19 dozen cases of high-end wine,” and a “purebred Italian mastiff cane corso.” The suit was settled out of court, but Sypien continued to insist in emails to Moore that he was owed $200,000.
“John, I’m looking forward to getting back in touch with you very soon,” Sypien wrote in one May 2016 email. In another, he wrote “U (sic) better be thinking about how to repay all u stole from me. $200,000 k (sic) plus. See u soon.”
Sypien is described by police as white, 5-foot-9 and 185 pounds with gray hair and green eyes. He has an address in or near Dublin and was last seen driving a silver 2003 Ford Escape with Illinois license plate 1008122.
Anyone who sees Sypien or has information is asked to call police at 925-314-3702. Anonymous tips may be sent by texting Tip DanPD and the text of a tip to 888-777.