Hundreds Mourn Slain 9-Year-Old : Family, Friends Crowd Church

Hundreds of grieving family members and friends attended funeral services Thursday for Patricia Lopez, the 9-year-old girl who disappeared after school June 3 and was found dead in a Santa Ana River drainpipe two days later.

Mourners packed Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Santa Ana and spilled into the churchyard and onto West 16th Street. Funeral director Robin Marquez of the McDougall Family Mortuary estimated that more than 500 attended the closed-casket funeral for the Monte Vista Elementary School third-grader.

During the 45-minute Mass at the small Catholic church, women, men and small children, some of them Patricia’s former schoolmates, listened quietly as Archbishop Tomas Clavel spoke to them in Spanish.

‘An Angel Now’

“She is an angel now,” Clavel said. “She will keep her family happy from heaven.”

He warned mourners of the dangers in the world and noted the irony of the Lopez family fleeing Mexico to seek wealth and opportunity in the United States, only to encounter tragedy. Life is uncertain, he said, and it is often beyond human control.

At Holy Sepulcher Cemetery in Orange, more than 200 people surrounded the coffin. Onlookers began to weep and wail as Patricia’s mother, Modesta, wearing a black scarf and a pink dress, pressed her arms and face to the casket and sobbed.

Among the mourners were several Santa Ana police officers, City Councilman Dan Griset and Monte Vista Principal Don Tibbetts.

Patricia was last seen alive on her way home from school last Wednesday. She usually met her mother at the corner of Center Street and McFadden Avenue, but Patricia never showed up. Searches by family members and police were fruitless. On June 5, 10 children playing in the dry bed of the Santa Ana River two miles from the school found the body.

Not Linked to Shooting

Police no longer think Patricia’s death was linked with an incident involving her 19-year-old brother, Hector Lopez. A bullet grazed his forehead during what police said was a gang-related shooting on Feb. 8, and he later testified at the preliminary hearing of the man accused in the assault.

There were no new developments Thursday in efforts to find the killer, police said. They are still looking for a suspect described as a Latino man in his 30s with a mustache and a stocky build, said Maureen Thomas, a police spokeswoman.

On Wednesday, police arrested an elderly man on suspicion of making obscene phone calls to Santa Ana residents and Monte Vista students. But police said the man, Milton Chemers, 63, was not a suspect in the Lopez killing.

Chemers, a retired Santa Ana electrician, was arrested about 5:20 p.m. after police investigators received information that he would call a Santa Ana resident at 3 p.m. that day, Thomas said.

In at least 30 calls, the suspect had identified himself as a doctor from the school district, Thomas said. He used several last names and asked sexually explicit questions of the 9- to 12-year-old students, she said. Thomas said she didn’t know exactly how many students were phoned.

An officer monitored incoming calls after the tip, and investigators later arrested Chemers at his home, she said.