Police Search Remote Canyon for Clues in Slaying of 14-Year-Old

Homicide detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s headquarters on Monday searched a remote canyon where a 14-year-old Chatsworth girl was shot to death and her 13-year-old companion was wounded and left for dead.

Wendy Masuhara, 14, died early Saturday from a bullet wound to the head after she and her friend were abducted as they walked on a quiet residential street in their upper middle-class neighborhood.

A team of experts from the LAPD’s downtown Robbery-Homicide Division on Monday was placed in charge of the search for a man and woman in a motor home who kidnaped and shot the teenagers, leaving both for dead in an abandoned car.

Devonshire Division detectives, who conducted the investigation over the weekend, are assisting in the case, Lt. John Zorn said.

Zorn, who is heading the investigation team, said detectives again interviewed the surviving teen-ager, but discovered little new information. The girl is under 24-hour police guard at an undisclosed hospital, Zorn said, because police fear for her safety. They have also withheld her identity.

Assailant Described

Sunday, the teen-ager was able to describe one of her assailants in detail. The resulting drawing by a police artist, showing a thin-faced, graying, middle-aged man, has been circulated to police agencies throughout the state.

Police hoped the girl could describe the man’s female companion so that a drawing of her could be made on Monday. But, Zorn said, the girl was unable to do so.

“We couldn’t intrude on her treatment,” he said.

A police spokesman said earlier that the girl was scheduled to have the bullet that lodged in the back of her neck surgically removed on Monday. However, Zorn refused comment on the statement, saying only that she was in serious condition and in “a lot of pain.”

“She’s a plucky young gal,” Zorn said. The teen-ager was able to walk about a mile to summon help after she and her friend were shot.

He said the team of 10 detectives will try to get as much information from the teen-ager as possible.

Zorn refused to say what, if anything, detectives learned at the death scene in Woolsey Canyon. He also would not disclose whether the girls had been molested.

Zorn said investigators are following up on hundreds of calls from people who believe they have seen the couple or their motor home. One officer has been assigned to do nothing but take the calls, he said.

Meanwhile, at Lawrence Junior High School, which Wendy Masuhara and her friend attended, a crisis-intervention team of counselors, a school psychologist, a nurse and the assistant principal was formed. Principal Tony Ventresca said the team met Monday with 18 to 20 “close friends who were overwhelmed” by their classmate’s death.

Homeroom teachers discussed the incident with their students, and PTA members were scheduled to meet Monday night to determine what assistance they could offer to the Masuhara family.

Today, he said, the school will observe a moment of silence and lower its flag to half-staff in Wendy’s memory.

Wendy, a ninth-grader, was in the school’s program for gifted students, Ventresca said. She had attended the school since she was in the seventh grade.

A memorial service for the slain teen-ager is scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at Chatsworth United Methodist Church.