Bullets Fired Into Heads but Couple Survive

An intruder awakened a Northridge man and his wife and shot them in the head early Tuesday morning, but the wounded man chased the gunman from his house and then drove his wife and 4-year-old daughter to a hospital.

Christopher Petersen, 38, a warehouse supervisor, was reported in good condition at Northridge Hospital Medical Center with with wounds in his head and neck. His wife, Virginia, 27, a Postal Service clerk, was reported in stable condition with a face wound.

Los Angeles Police Department spokesmen said officers were looking into the possibility that the shootings were connected to a string of similar predawn attacks that have occurred in homes in Glendale and the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys since March.

“I don’t know if they’re connected right now,” said Lt. Ron Lewis, head of Los Angeles Police Department homicide detectives.

“It’s just too early,” he said. “In order to determine any connection, we have to sit down and take a look at all cases,” he said.

Four Killed

The series of attacks includes four people killed and four women beaten or raped in June and July in the San Gabriel Valley. Monterey Park Police Chief Jon Elder said last month that while “we can’t specifically connect the crimes . . . at this point, we believe we’re looking for one suspect” in those cases.

Monterey Park Police Lt. Joe Santoro told a meeting of worried residents at that time that “this is not something that is happening only in Monterey Park,” adding that “there are several hundred police officers working on the case.” He did not elaborate.

Los Angeles police have refused to discuss whether they are taking part in the investigation.

The San Gabriel Valley slayings included two women in Arcadia, both of whom were found with slashed throats, and a man and a woman in Monterey Park, who were bludgeoned to death.

A Glendale couple were shot to death. A Thai immigrant was shot to death in his sleep and his wife raped at their home in Sun Valley.

All the crimes were attributed to an intruder who entered the house late at night.

Monterey Park police were hunting a suspect about 25 to 30 years old, 160 pounds, with curly brown hair, about 6 feet tall.

The Petersens could only describe their assailant to police as a man about 6 feet tall.

Door Possibly Unlocked

The intruder entered their house in the 18200 block of Acre Street about 2:30 a.m. through the back door, which may have been unlocked, said Detective Lou Bobbitt.

Virginia Petersen was awakened by a man standing over her bed holding a pistol, police said. She screamed and the man fired a single shot at close range.

The noise awakened Christopher Petersen, and the gunman shot him in the head.

“She screamed, ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ Then bang,” said Bill Petersen, father of the wounded man, who spoke to him in the hospital. “My son raised up in bed, and the guy shot him as he turned his head to look at his wife. That probably saved his life.”

The father said a bullet struck Virginia Petersen on the side of her nose and passed through her head near her eye. Christopher Petersen was shot in the temple but the bullet coursed downward and lodged in his neck. Neither suffered brain damage, police said.

Fired Again

Christopher Petersen jumped out of bed, and the gunman fired at him again and missed. Petersen chased him through a hallway and the living room, his father said. The gunman fired and missed again.

Christopher Petersen then threw himself to the floor in front of his daughter’s bedroom door. He was pretending he had been hit again, so he could attack the intruder if the gunman tried to enter the girl’s room, his father said.

The couple’s daughter heard the commotion but did not leave her room until the intruder had fled, police said. She was not harmed.

Despite his wounds, Christopher Petersen placed his wounded wife in the back of the couple’s camper-equipped pickup truck and put his child, wrapped in a bedsheet, in the front seat.

Detectives called burglary a probable motive in the shootings but did not rule out other motives. They said there were no signs that the house, in a quiet residential neighborhood, had been ransacked or any items had been stolen.