Woman, 88, Slain in Little Tokyo : Retirees’ Sense of Security Broken by Fatal Intrusion

Entrances to the Little Tokyo Towers retirement high-rise are monitored continuously, images of visitors and residents alike projected on flickering black-and-white television screens. Elderly women who fail to pull shut the heavy metal lobby doors are scolded until they finish the job.

Security guards patrol the lobby and corridors, and last week some police officers showed up to teach the retirees how to protect themselves from muggers.

None of that mattered much Sunday night, when someone climbed two outside balconies, crept into 88-year-old Yoshie Mitoma’s apartment, beat her and left her dead.

Calm Amid Danger

On Monday, when the full horror of what happened on the third floor should have hit the 350 residents, there was a calm, as if the killing was just one more thing to expect in a dangerous part of the city.

“I don’t know what to do,” said Mac Sasaki, resident manager at the 16-story building a few blocks east of Los Angeles City Hall and Skid Row. He shrugged. “My wife said to me, ‘Let’s go to Leisure World.’ ”

Word of the slaying filtered through the senior citizens’ complex through the day. Residents gathered in small groups, repeating what they knew in hushed Japanese. Some never found out, shielded by concerned friends from knowledge that could frighten them.

What police reported was sketchy. They believe a middle-aged man seen lurking in the complex’s parking lot off 3rd Street Sunday night climbed onto a second-floor balcony and from there pulled himself to Mrs. Mitoma’s third-floor balcony.

Crime Reconstructed

Once inside, sometime between 10 and 11 p.m., the man confronted Mrs. Mitoma. He is believed to have hit her, homicide Det. John Dunkin said, and she may have slammed into a bookcase. What killed her will not be known until an autopsy is performed, he said.

The man ransacked Mrs. Mitoma’s home for about 30 minutes, police said, then unknowingly set off a silent medical alarm that summoned a security guard to her quarters. The guard’s arrival sent the killer bounding back over the balcony railing.

Investigators sawed off a four-foot length of the balcony railing Monday and took it with them for study. The coroner’s office took Yoshie Mitoma’s body away, and her neighbors were left to contemplate their own safety.

The Little Tokyo Towers had been considered well protected--an “isolated little island” of safety, Police Lt. William Hall called it. Manager Sasaki, after much thought, could recall only one previous break-in four years ago.

Hazards in the Streets

But the outside world has been encroaching. About a year ago, residents began being pestered by transients when they went out to shop. The pesterings led to muggings. There have been as many as two muggings in some recent weeks, Sasaki said. Few victims bothered to report them to police.

“Ah, what’s the use?” the manager asked.

Still, until Sunday, the tower’s residents, who average 80 years of age, still felt safe inside their homes.

Sasaki can only guess when asked what he will do now. He could put fences around the property, he said.

“But that doesn’t solve the problem,” he said. “Even if it’s 12 feet high, they figure out a way to get over it. I don’t know how we are going to solve that one.”