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 Until then, Marquez, 24, had appeared to live a mostly
unremarkable life, working short stints at a variety of low-paying
jobs and residing mostly with his mother and step-father in the
suburban Riverside house in which he grew up.
His neighbors there said they were shocked this week when
authorities revealed that Marquez had supplied the guns used by
Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, in their shooting spree at a
holiday party for San Bernardino County employees that left 14 dead
and 21 injured.
The relationship between Marquez and Farook dated back to their
teenage days, when they were next-door neighbors. Although Farook
was four years older, the two boys shared a common interest in
automotive repair, and could often be seen working under the hoods
of cars on their driveways, friends and neighbors said.
In about 2008, as Farook was becoming more devoted to his Muslim
faith, Marquez converted to Islam and began attending Friday prayers
at a Corona mosque.
Marquez never seemed terribly pious, however, said Azmi Hasan,
manager at the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco. The young convert
attended prayers sporadically, sometimes missing them for months at
a time, and he confided to Hasan that he was struggling with Islam.
He may have been struggling with something else as well. Media
outlets, including the New York Times and CNN, reported on Wednesday
that Marquez told federal investigators in recent days that he and
Farook had planned an attack of their own in 2012, but abandoned it.
Reuters could not independently confirm those accounts.
At around that same time, neighbors report, Marquez and Farook
seemed to become estranged. One resident who declined to give her
name said she was surprised to see them both standing on the street
one day without acknowledging one another. After that, she said, she
did not see them together again.
At the mosque, Hasan said, Marquez told him about three years ago
"that Islam was not for him. He said that he was thinking about
becoming a Buddhist."
Since then, Marquez has moved frequently from one low-paying job to
another, seldom leaving much impression on his bosses and
co-workers.
"It was hard to make a conclusion about what he was like," said Sid
Hashemi, director of operations at Power Security Group, a small
firm based in Corona that hired Marquez part time for a few months
in 2013 to help with the company website.
"He just floated around," he said.
After leaving Power Security, Marquez was hired by United Security
Services in Corona, where he made about $9 an hour as an unarmed
security guard, mostly working nights on patrol at construction
sites or warehouses.
Things started out well for Marquez at the firm, according to the
man who hired him, and after two months he was put in charge of the
work schedule for about 15 other guards. But Marquez struggled with
the responsibility: he forgot when other guards were on vacation;
shifts were missed.
"He couldn't handle the step up," said the man, an account manager
at United Security who asked not to be named. "He just couldn't take
the stress."
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Three months after starting on July 11, 2013, Marquez was gone,
company records show.
He subsequently worked security at a local bar. Then, up until the
time of the shooting, he worked at a Walmart Supercenter in Corona
checking receipts of departing customers. At Walmart, fellow
employee Ashlee Sims, 25, described him as somewhat withdrawn and
"awkward."
Outside of work, friends and acquaintances say, he wanted to belong.
During a stint at community college, he sometimes met with fellow
students for coffee or dinner, and he tried to be entertaining.
"He was quiet, he wouldn't talk much - and then he would crack
jokes" said Viviana Ramirez "He was awesome.”
And although he may have become more distant from Farook, he
remained in touch with others in his friend’s family. In 2014,
according to state records, Marquez married a Russian woman who was
the sister of Farook’s older brother’s wife. The brother, Syed
Raheel Farook, was one of the witnesses to the marriage.
But according to Ramirez, the relationship was troubled, and Marquez
wanted more from his wife than she was willing to give. Several
neighbors say Marquez continued to live at home, and two said they
had never seen him with a woman and were surprised to hear he was
married.
"I saw no sign of him having a wife - it was only his mom in the
house," said Lori Aguirre, who lives across the street and said she
knew Marquez because he sometimes drove her son to and from school.
"I only saw him going to work or coming home alone. It would be a
big surprise if he was married," she said.
Ramirez expressed concern about her friend amid numerous media
reports that he checked himself into a mental hospital the day after
the attacks. The last communication she had from him came in the
form of a cryptic posting to Facebook at 1:45 a.m. that morning:
"I'm. Very sorry sguys (sic). It was a pleasure."
(Additonal reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Rory Carroll, Dan Whitcomb
and Alexandria Sage; Editing by Sue Horton)
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