Co-Workers And Community Shocked, Investigation Continues

Authorities are holding two men and are still seeking another in connection with the murder-arson of a NASA engineer and three others early last week that shook the community surrounding NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in Lancaster, CA.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Joseph Paul Ciganek, a 60-year-old management system analyst, was found murdered Monday along with family relative Jenny Park and her two children Jamie and Justin after authorities responded to a fire consuming Ciganeks home in Quartz Hill. Investigators report all four had been beaten and stabbed before the fire started.

"The burns they suffered happened after they were killed and did not contribute to the death," Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman Ed Winter said Friday.

Ciganeks wife, Jocelyn was not home at the time of the fire and was returning from work at a local mall at the time the blaze began.

Authorities took into custody Jae Hwan Shim, 39, of Palmdale and another man Saturday night in Douglas, Arizona, near the California border after he and Si Young Yoon, 34, of Lancaster were named as persons of interest in the murders. According to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Oscar Butao, Yoon is still being sought for questioning.

Co-workers to Ciganek at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base were shocked and saddened after learning of his loss. Ciganek had worked at the facility for 18 years.

"He was thought of very highly here," said NASA spokesman Alan Brown. "Employees who were close to him took it very hard.”

Among other tasks, Ciganek maintained a one-of-a-kind SR-71 Blackbird flight simulator that he had rebuilt and operated for almost a decade, Brown said.

Though the aircraft was retired in the late 1990s from Air Force use, Dryden continued to fly an example for testing purposes, and Ciganek's flight simulator was critical to keeping Blackbird pilots trained to fly the transonic spy plane.

FMI: www.lasd.org, www.dfrc.nasa.gov