Lonnie Ramos

LAKE FOREST – Authorities believed a man who allegedly shot his estranged wife in the face and fled with his 9-year-old son has switched his car for a purple-and-gold motor home and may have fled to the San Diego area as he remained at large Friday morning.

An Amber Alert was in effect throughout California for Lonnie Ramos, 46. He was believed to be driving a rented 39-foot Fleetwood Providence motor home with the license plate number 5EGW556, the Orange County Sheriff's Department said.

Ramos was possibly in the San Diego area and Border Patrol agents were notified in case he tried to head for Mexico, sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino said.

Amormino said Ramos was considered “armed and extremely dangerous.”

Ryan Ramos

Ramos apparently jumped out from behind a car or bushes and shot his estranged wife in the face with a semiautomatic weapon on Wednesday when she drove to his home in the Portola Hills area to pick up their son, Ryan, for a custody exchange, Amormino said.

The 41-year-old woman, whose name was withheld, was critically wounded but was expected to survive, he said.

The department said Ramos and his son were seen trying to buy plane tickets at John Wayne Airport on the day of the incident.

A housemate of Ramos urged him to return the boy.

“Be a man. Turn yourself in,” Randy Jick said during a KCAL-TV news broadcast.

“Bring Ryan back. Ryan doesn't deserve this,” he said.