Roommate Slain; Deaf-Mute, 90, Could Only Wait

A 72-year-old deaf woman was stabbed to death and apparently raped in her Long Beach home early Tuesday morning, but the gruesome murder went unreported until that afternoon because her 90-year-old deaf and mute roommate was unable to call for help.

Long Beach police late Tuesday arrested Michael Loren Smith, a 29-year-old unemployed Compton man, on suspicion of murder in the case, according to Detective Ron Pavek. He said police and prosecutors will probably decide by Monday if Smith will be formally charged.

The victim was identified as Victoria Wheeler Cookson of the 500 block of East 52nd Street. Her roommate, Maude Wheeler, is an invalid who relies on a wheelchair-walker to move about and sign language to communicate. Although she first identified herself as Cookson’s mother, police said they are uncertain that is so.

“It was one of the saddest cases I’ve ever dealt with,” said Sgt. Mike Tracy, who initially supervised the investigation.

Although the exact time of death will not be known until the Los Angeles County coroner conducts an autopsy today, Tracy said police believe the killing occurred in the middle of the night, apparently when Cookson confronted a burglar in her well-kept but tiny two-bedroom home set back from the street in the city’s northwest section.

Both women had apparently been watching the 10:30 p.m. television broadcast of the California Lottery’s “Big Spin” before they retired to separate bedrooms, Tracy said. Sometime before dawn, a burglar apparently entered the home, stabbed Cookson several times and left her sprawled on the floor, with her pajama bottoms dropped alongside.

Wheeler apparently slept undisturbed in the next room but arose the next morning to discover the body, Tracy said.

Although the house was equipped with a special computerized telephone that enables the deaf to make and receive calls by typing out their conversations on a keyboard, Wheeler apparently did not know how to use it.

“She is frail; she is old; she is an invalid,” Tracy explained.

So, the panicked woman wheeled herself to the front door, opened it and sat for about eight hours staring out at a neighbor’s house only a few yards away, Tracy said. Because the front door does not face the street, passers-by were oblivious to the trouble. Finally, when the neighbor arrived home from work shortly before 4 p.m. and saw the distraught woman, investigators were called to the scene.

Police said Wheeler is now staying with friends in the neighborhood.