Man Slays Woman, Then Is Killed by Officer at Mall

A man armed with a rifle shot a woman to death outside a Canoga Park shopping mall Saturday and moments later was killed by an off-duty Los Angeles police officer who works part time as a mall security guard, Los Angeles police reported.

The double killing occurred about 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the Topanga Plaza shopping center, where the woman--identified by the coroner’s office as Jan Lisa Golden, 26, of Canoga Park--worked at a May Co. department store, said Lt. Charles Higbie.

Higbie said the motive for the shooting is not known, but that Golden and the man apparently knew each other. The coroner’s office identified the man as Frank Wayne Baker, 36, a transient.

Higbie said that Golden left the department store on her lunch break and, while crossing a parking lot on the east side of the mall, began running as Baker chased her in his car.

The assailant got out of his car at the end of a row of parked vehicles, ran up to Golden and beat her over the head with the butt of a .22-caliber rifle, Higbie said.

As she lay on the ground, the man shot Golden at least six times, Higbie said.

Meanwhile, Officer Michael Moore, a five-year LAPD veteran, saw the chase from the entrance of a Montgomery Ward store about 100 yards from the shooting.

Moore, a patrol officer assigned to the Police Department’s Southwest Division, ran to the scene as the man was shooting Golden. Moore, 26, identified himself, and the man turned around and pointed his rifle at the officer, Higbie said. Moore then shot Baker twice, he said.

Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene.