Girl Gives Description of Man Who Killed Friend

From her hospital bed Sunday, a 13-year-old girl who was shot and left for dead described the assailant who wounded her and killed her 14-year-old companion in a remote Chatsworth canyon.

The resulting drawing by a police artist showed a graying, middle-aged man who, with a woman companion, abducted the two Chatsworth girls near midnight Friday and shot them about an hour later, Los Angeles police said.

Calling the crime “brutal and extremely senseless,” Detective Lt. Warren Knowles said investigators hope to have a similar sketch of the woman sometime today.

The dead girl was identified as Wendy Masuhara, a ninth-grade student at Lawrence Junior High School. Police withheld the 13-year-old’s identity because of concern for her safety, Knowles said. She is under 24-hour police guard at an undisclosed hospital. Her condition is listed as stable, Knowles said.

Left for Dead

Both girls were shot in the head and left for dead inside an abandoned car along remote Woolsley Canyon Road near Chatsworth Reservoir about an hour after their abduction from a quiet residential street in their upper-middle-class suburban neighborhood.

Wendy Masuhara’s father, Allen Masuhara, a teacher at Castlebay Lane Elementary School in Northridge, said the girls had been watching television at his home before they decided to go for a walk.

“It was a route they had taken many times before,” Knowles said.

The victim’s mother, Lynn Masuhara, is a nurse with the Los Angeles Unified School District. The couple also have a son, Glen, 16.

“She was a very popular girl,” Allen Masuhara said of his daughter. “The whole family is in mourning.”

‘A Safe Neighborhood’

The girls lived a block from each other in what Knowles said was considered “a safe neighborhood.”

Neighbors said the girls had been best friends for several years.

“They walked to school together,” said a neighbor of the Masuharas, who asked that his name not be used. “What happened is just so shocking. You’d swear in this neighborhood anybody would be safe. I guess we’re all going to have to rethink our activities. We’re going to have to be more cautious, more observant.”

The survivor told police that she and her friend were approached by a woman seeking assistance because her motor home would not start. They agreed to help the woman and entered the motor home, where a man was waiting, Knowles said.

The girls were driven to the remote mountainous area, placed inside an abandoned 1976 Mercury station wagon, shot and left for dead.

The 13-year-old victim, although dazed and bleeding, walked a mile to summon help, police said. The girl apparently “saw the bullet coming,” Knowles said, and held her hand to the back of her head. “That saved her life.”

“We have no indication that the abduction was planned,” Knowles said.

Police said they have received dozens of calls from the public regarding the case.

Following All Tips

“We’re following up on all of them,” Knowles said. “But they’re coming in so fast we don’t have time to keep up.”

Residents said they had seen the motor home parked in the neighborhood eight or nine hours before the girls were abducted.

Meanwhile, Wendy Masuhara’s neighbors were talking Sunday of starting a scholarship fund in the dead girl’s name.

“Everybody wants to do something but nobody knows what to do,” one neighbor said. “The whole neighborhood is in shock right now.”