Senior Editor at PC World Killed in Targeted Attack

Life repeatedly remains stranger than fiction. It should be interesting to hear how this unfolds.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
Pittsburg man shot dead in home invasion/Police say editor at PC World was involved in illegal narcotics trade
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

(01-10) 13:37 PST PITTSBURG -- Four masked men burst into a Pittsburg home, pistol-whipped a woman and fatally shot her husband -- a senior editor for PC World magazine -- in what police believe was a targeted attack because they said the victims had been involved in narcotics activity.

Rex Farrance, 59, senior technical editor at PC World in San Francisco, was shot in the chest and killed shortly after the assailants forced their way into his home on Argosy Court at about 9 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said today.

Farrance's wife, Lenore Vantosh-Farrance, 56, was pistol-whipped in the head during the home-invasion robbery, authorities said. She called 911, but the assailants fled on foot before police arrived. No arrests have been made in Pittsburg's first homicide of 2007, said Pittsburg police Inspector John Conaty.

The couple was apparently targeted because they had been involved in the narcotics trade, Conaty said.

"We have substantial reason to believe that the victim and his wife were involved in the possession and, potentially, the distribution of illegal narcotics," said Conaty, who declined to specify what type of drug. Farrance turned 59 on Sunday, and his wife has been a registered nurse in California since 1983, public records show.

PC World editors did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Police today were still searching the couple's home, which abuts Willow Cove Elementary School.

Herculano Darosa, 54, who has lived on the street for 24 years, said he often saw Farrance jogging or exercising in the neighborhood. "He looked nice to me," said Darosa, who expressed shock at the police assertion that the couple was involved in drugs.

E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com
Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle