Slain Mother of Accused Youth Called a ‘Tyrant’

The maternal grandmother of Torran Lee Meier, the Canoga Park teen-ager accused of strangling his mother, placing her body in a car and pushing it down a Malibu hill, said Wednesday that the youth’s home environment was “a concentration camp.”

The grandmother, Joyce Van Hove, said in an interview that her daughter, Shirley Rizk, 34, was a “tyrant” who once burned her son’s hand with a lighted cigarette and frequently yelled at Torran “for four or five straight hours.”

“I used to tell him to run, run away,” she said. “No matter where he went would have been better than his home.” Torran, 16, and two friends, Matthew Adam Jay, 18, of Woodland Hills and Richard Allan Parker, 23, of Antelope Valley, have been charged with murder and attempted murder.

Sheriff’s deputies said the trio met at a Canoga Park pizzeria and devised an elaborate plan to kill Torran’s mother, poison his 8-year-old, diabetic half brother, then dump them in the Malibu ravine.

Sandwich Poisoned, Deputies Say

Deputies said the trio strangled Rizk Oct. 14 and later offered her younger son, Rory Rizk, a peanut butter sandwich and soft drink laced with rat poison and snail bait. The boy refused to eat the snack, however, and was blindfolded and driven with Rizk’s body to Malibu, where the car was set afire and abandoned, deputies said. Rory escaped from the car and flagged down a passing motorist, who notified police.

Sheriff’s deputies have suggested that the motive for the killing was Torran’s stormy relationship with his mother. “He is a fairly intelligent person who apparently had some real difficulty communicating and living with his mother,” Sgt. Rene Laporte said.

The interview with Van Hove, 62, was arranged by Torran’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Patrick McGarry. He said he has not decided what defense he will present for the boy, a junior at El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, but commented: “This is a very unusual case with unusual circumstances.”

Van Hove said her daughter was diagnosed 12 years ago as a manic depressive, was addicted to pain killers and attempted suicide twice.

Ran Away Twice

Van Hove said her grandson ran away twice this year from his home in the 23900 block of Archwood Road and stayed with her in Sylmar. But each time Rizk called police, who returned the boy to his mother, she said.

“She hit him, she threw things at him, it was a living hell for Torry,” Van Hove said. She said Rizk once yanked the telephone out of the wall so that Torran would be unable to call his grandparents for help.

Van Hove said Torran’s relationship with his half brother was quite different. “I know he loved Rory,” she said. “He used to give him an insulin shot every afternoon. I can’t believe Torry would ever have wanted to hurt him.”

Van Hove said her daughter, who was employed as a department manager at Best Products Co. in Northridge, had been married at 16 and divorced at 17, when Torran was 3 months old. Van Hove said she and her husband cared for Torran until he was 4, and that Rizk twice tried to kill herself during that time by taking large doses of sleeping pills and alcohol.

Rizk married two other times, but both marriages lasted less than six months, Van Hove said.

Van Hove said that she and her husband hired an attorney in 1973, hoping to gain custody of Torran. But they were told that removing the child from his mother would be nearly impossible and they gave up, she said. Rizk learned of the effort and retaliated by restricting their visits to the boy to two or three a month, Van Hove said.

“Whenever we got to see Torry, we knew something was wrong,” she said. “There was fear in his eyes. He was scared to death. . . . He grew petrified of her, no matter what he did.”

Van Hove said she once asked Torran why he did not run away. “He told me, ‘Gram, there’s no place I can go where she won’t come and get me.’ ”

Neighbors Heard Screams

Neighbors said they often heard screams coming from the Rizk house. Marsha Caple, who described herself as Rizk’s closest friend, said Shirley Rizk took Valium regularly to calm her nerves.

“Shirley would come weep on my shoulders,” said Caple, who served as a maiden of honor at Rizk’s last two weddings. “She was your typical high-pressure mom. If she was yelling and screaming, she was just letting off steam.”

As Torran grew older, he became interested in computers and often sent messages to friends in the area, neighbors said. Van Hove said Torran reacted to his mother’s outbursts by busying himself with the two computers he had in his bedroom.

In the summer, Torran attended school from 8 a.m. to noon, then worked at a gas station in Canoga Park from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., Van Hove said.

Argued Over Paycheck

Neighbor Patricia Emery said that, on the night of the slaying, she heard Rizk and her son arguing over his paycheck. “I heard her screaming at him . . . something about $50 from his paycheck,” Emery said.

Van Hove said that she suspected that some violence would eventually befall the Rizk household. “The miracle was that it went on so long,” she said. “We were praying he could make it till he got out of there.”

Torran, who is being held in Sylmar Juvenile Hall, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Sylmar Juvenile Court. Jay and Parker are being held in County Jail without bail.

Rory Rizk is staying with his natural father at an undisclosed location, Van Hove said.