San Diego
A Pacific Beach woman was pronounced brain dead at Scripps Memorial hospital in La Jolla Wednesday, three days after an assailant broke into her apartment and severely beat her.
Patricia Joanne Pekny, 28, a nursery school teacher, was taken to the La Jolla hospital early Sunday morning with massive head injuries. She remained in critical condition until about 4:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Police took Pekny’s ex-boyfriend, John James Campbell, also of Pacific Beach, into custody Sunday morning after an officer saw him in an alley near Pekny’s Grand Avenue apartment wearing bloody gloves and carrying a blood-soaked concrete block.
Campbell was booked into the County Jail in El Cajon in lieu of $1 million bail.
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