Tipster Who Led Police to Anaheim Women’s Killers Will Get $5,000

Five-thousand dollars, the largest reward ever given by an Orange County citizens’ group, will go to a tipster whose information led to the successful prosecutions of three neighbors in the deaths of two elderly Anaheim women.

Spokesmen for the group, Anaheim Citizens Against Violent Crime, did not identify the tipster at a news conference Monday because the person wished to remain anonymous.

Anaheim Police Chief Jimmie D. Kennedy said the tipster telephoned Anaheim police with information about three suspects several days after the Aug. 17, 1983, killings.

3 Men Convicted

The information led to the successful prosecutions of Edward Barrios, 25, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, and Jerry Ulloa and Oscar Torres, who were 16 at the time of the slayings. All three had lived in the same neighborhood as the victims.

Elizabeth Kate Schafer, who still was raising bees and working an avocado garden at age 96, and her 69-year-old daughter, Alice Schafer, died after they were left bound and gagged in a robbery at their home.

Socks had been stuffed into the women’s mouths, and medical reports showed that they died of asphyxiation, although the defendants claimed they had not intended to kill them.

The elder Mrs. Schafer was nicknamed the Bee Lady in 1979 when she successfully defeated an attempt by neighbors in a new housing tract to force her to get rid of beehives near her home, which was built around the turn of the century.

Orange County Dist. Atty. Cecil Hicks praised the efforts of the Anaheim citizens’ group.

“We want to communicate to the public that individuals who have information about crimes can step forward and participate,” Hicks said.

“We won’t identify them. They can have that as a shield for protection.”

Barrios’ co-defendants are serving sentences with the California Youth Authority. Ulloa pleaded guilty and Torres was convicted of first-degree murder in 1984, but Torres’ conviction was reduced to second-degree murder by Superior Court Judge William W. Thomason.

Barrios received two concurrent terms of 25 years to life from Superior Court Judge James L. Smith.

Rewards in Other Cases

The slayings outraged the community and spurred donations for a reward fund, said Fred Brown, who founded the citizens’ group in 1981 with two other Anaheim residents, Frank E. Feldhaus and Al Long.

The group offered its first reward in the killing of Jeffrey Vargo, a 6-year-old Anaheim Hills youth who was found dead two days after his 1981 disappearance. The reward fund of more than $12,000 eventually was given to charities.

Other cases in which rewards have been offered but never claimed include:

- A 1984 liquor store holdup in which Eugene Brown was robbed and shot to death in the parking lot of Hanshaw’s Liquor in Anaheim. The case remains unsolved. The reward is $10,000.

- The killing of Bridgette La Mon, 19, who was bludgeoned to death. Her body was found in Anaheim’s northeast industrial area in the spring of 1985. The reward offered for information leading to a conviction is $10,000.

- The death of James Disney, whose body was found inside his store, A & D Rental, just before Christmas in 1985. The group offered a $10,000 reward in cooperation with the victim’s family.

- Charles Barbu, a clerk working at Brookhouse Liquor in Anaheim, was shot to death during a robbery last April. The group joined with the store’s owners to offer another $10,000 reward.

Anaheim Citizens Against Violent Crime operates a 24-hour hot line at (714) 999-9410.