Detectives Link 7th Slaying to ‘Intruder’

The March 17 fatal shooting of a Monterey Park woman has been linked to a series of six other recent slayings believed committed by the so-called “Valley Intruder,” authorities said Wednesday.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Dick Walls said the killing of Tsal-lian Yu, 30, came about an hour after another woman, Dayle Okazaki, 35, was found shot to death in her condominium in Rosemead, about three miles away.

Witnesses told authorities that a man walked up and shot Yu shortly before midnight as her car paused at a stop sign in the 500 block of Alhambra Avenue. The assailant drove away in another car.

“Based on the proximity to (the) Okazaki (murder) and the time of day it occurred, there are strong indications that (Yu’s death) is connected to the others” in the intruder series, Walls said. “We’re looking at everything and anything to see if it’s related.”

The lieutenant declined to provide additional details.

Detectives believe that Okazaki’s slaying may have been the first in the series, which is being investigated by a six-agency law enforcement task force.

Okazaki’s roommate, a 35-year-old woman, escaped after being accosted and shot in the hand as she returned home. Investigators said that the roommate hid behind a bush until the intruder left and then rushed into the condominium to find Okazaki dead on the kitchen floor.

Detectives have speculated that the intruder--a thin, curly haired man who sneaks through unlocked windows and doors to attack his sleeping victims--may be responsible for as many as a dozen slayings and 15 rapes, beatings and kidnapings this year, most in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys.

With Yu’s death, seven murder cases and a non-fatal assault--in which a 16-year-old girl was bludgeoned in her Sierra Madre home--are now “definitely” linked to the same assailant, according to the task force.