Barry Chvarak and the 1980 Starburst Lounge Massacre
The Starburst Lounge
In the early morning hours of February 3, 1980, 21-year-old Barry Raymond Chvarak carried out one of the deadliest acts of violence in the history of El Paso, Texas. The attack occurred at the Starburst Lounge, a small country-and-western bar located at 5030 Fairbanks Drive in Northeast El Paso. What had been an ordinary Saturday night of drinking, dancing and playing pool ended with five people dead, three others wounded and an entire community struggling to understand why a young man had suddenly opened fire on strangers.
The shooting began at approximately 1:45 a.m., near closing time. The bartender had turned on the house lights, signaling that the night was coming to an end. Chvarak had been drinking and reportedly became involved in an argument concerning who was the better marksman. Witness accounts later indicated that he was angry and told his twin brother that he was going to shoot up the bar. His brother apparently believed the statement was an empty threat and did not realize that Chvarak intended to act on it.
The Attack
Chvarak walked outside to the parking lot and approached his truck. Instead of leaving, he retrieved a .22-caliber Marlin Model 60 semi-automatic rifle. He loaded the weapon outside and then returned to the lounge. The patrons inside had little warning before he raised the rifle and began firing across the crowded room.
Witnesses described hearing several sharp popping sounds that initially resembled firecrackers. Chvarak stood near the entrance and swept the rifle across the room, firing repeatedly at people gathered near the bar, pool tables and dance floor. He reportedly fired at least 14 rounds. Several women standing near one another were struck almost immediately and fell together near the bar. Other bullets traveled through one victim and struck another person nearby.
One survivor, 19-year-old Phil Sell, was facing away from the doorway when the gunfire began. A bullet struck his cheek, exited near his chin and continued into the shoulder of a woman standing nearby. Sell initially thought someone had punched him. When he touched his face and saw blood on his hands, he stumbled into the restroom while screaming and confusion spread through the lounge.
Chvarak continued firing as patrons tried to take cover or escape. Randy Wayne Steele, one of the people killed, reportedly pushed a young waitress out of the line of fire. Steele was struck three times and died during the attack. The waitress later visited Steele’s mother and told her that her son had saved her life. She had recently become a mother herself and promised that she would try to live a better life because of Steele’s sacrifice.
The Victims
- Randy Wayne Steele, age 20 — Killed on February 3, 1980, inside the Starburst Lounge at 5030 Fairbanks Drive in El Paso, Texas. Steele was reportedly shot three times after pushing a waitress out of the gunman’s path.
- Kathleen Lynn Austin, age 32 — Killed on February 3, 1980, inside the Starburst Lounge in Northeast El Paso.
- Marianne Laweka, age 53 — Killed on February 3, 1980, inside the Starburst Lounge in El Paso.
- Jana L. Carpenter, age 29 — Killed on February 3, 1980, inside the Starburst Lounge in El Paso.
- Frederick James Bergford, age 28 — Killed on February 3, 1980, inside the Starburst Lounge in El Paso. Bergford was identified in reports as a soldier stationed at Fort Bliss.
- Three unidentified surviving victims — Wounded by gunfire during the February 3, 1980, attack. Public reports have not consistently provided the names of all three survivors.
Patrons Fight Back
The massacre was stopped by several people inside the lounge rather than by arriving police officers. Roger Miller, a friend of Phil Sell, charged toward Chvarak and managed to disarm him. During the struggle, Miller struck Chvarak across the face and head with a pool cue. The force of the blows broke the cue in half. Chvarak dropped the rifle, and another patron carried it into the bar’s office so that he could not retrieve it.
The intervention almost certainly prevented additional deaths. Investigators discovered that Chvarak still had ammunition in his pocket and might have continued shooting if the patrons had not confronted him. After losing the rifle, he did not attempt to flee. He sat at the bar and waited for police officers to arrive.
Arrest and Statements
El Paso police arrested Chvarak at the scene. As officers took him away, he reportedly said that he did not know why he had done it and recognized that he was probably going to prison. He was initially held on five murder charges, with his bond reportedly set at a total of $1 million.
Chvarak’s later statements suggested that the attack may not have been a completely spontaneous reaction to the argument in the lounge. He told investigators that he had wondered what it would feel like to shoot someone. He had also reportedly asked a friend who had served in Vietnam what it was like to shoot another human being. These statements led some survivors and relatives to believe that the idea of killing had been developing in his mind before he entered the Starburst Lounge that night.
No meaningful personal connection was found between Chvarak and the people he shot. The victims appear to have been selected simply because they happened to be inside the lounge when he returned with the rifle. Although the argument over marksmanship may have helped trigger his anger, Chvarak never provided a clear explanation for why he chose to fire into a room filled with strangers.
Guilty Plea and Sentencing
In July 1980, Chvarak pleaded guilty to five counts of murder with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to five life terms in the Texas prison system. Later reports have differed over whether the terms were formally imposed concurrently or consecutively, but he remained imprisoned for the five killings and first became eligible for parole in 2000.
Survivors and members of the victims’ families repeatedly organized petitions opposing his release. They were forced to revisit the details of the massacre whenever another parole review approached. For them, the possibility that Chvarak might leave prison renewed memories of the gunfire, the dead and wounded patrons, and the families who had lost loved ones without warning.
Lasting Impact
At the time, the Starburst Lounge attack was regarded as El Paso’s worst mass shooting and one of the most devastating mass murders Texas had experienced. The lounge was eventually demolished, and the property was later used as a car wash before becoming an abandoned lot. Although the physical location disappeared, the shooting remained deeply painful for the victims’ relatives and those who survived.
Randy Steele’s mother, Shirlene Masterson, continued speaking publicly about her son decades after his death. She remembered being awakened by sirens on the morning of February 3 and later seeing a detective, a police officer and a pastor standing at her door. They told her that Randy had been killed. She described that day as the worst day of her life and said part of her died with her son.
Phil Sell survived his facial wound but experienced nightmares about the bodies he saw inside the lounge. Four decades later, he could still remember the screaming, the blood and the people lying near the bar. The Starburst Lounge massacre remained the deadliest mass shooting in El Paso until August 3, 2019, when a gunman attacked a Walmart and killed 23 people. For those connected to the 1980 killings, the later tragedy brought back memories of the terror Chvarak had inflicted in less than a minute inside a neighborhood bar.
