Buena Park Father Finds Daughter, 18, Slain in Bedroom

A young woman was found slain Monday in a bedroom of her father’s $300,000 Buena Park house, and police said they had no suspects or leads in the case.

Gehmine Chandler, 18, was discovered in nightclothes on her bed at 5:30 a.m. when her father came to wake her, said Mike Borregard, Buena Park police spokesman. She apparently had been strangled, one police officer said, and the bedroom showed signs of a struggle.

The exact cause of death and whether Chandler might have been sexually assaulted will not be known until a coroner’s examination, Borregard said.

Thomas Edward Patraw, 41, last saw his daughter alive at 10:30 p.m., after an evening of watching television, police said. Authorities have ruled out Patraw as a suspect.

Police said nothing was taken from the house, which is set in a neighborhood of $250,000 homes in the 8700 block of Vestavia Avenue on a hill overlooking corn and strawberry fields.

Police also found no signs of forced entry to the home, although several doors were unlocked. The only thing apparently amiss was a neighbor’s unlocked Nissan car, parked nearby. It had been burglarized during the night of the killing, and a radio was taken, police said.

Chandler was described by neighbors as an outgoing and friendly young woman who was fond of country music. She moved to California in 1986 from her mother’s home in Texas to live with her father and finish high school in Fullerton.

She and her father “got along great,” said next-door neighbor Tom Douglas. “They were a very nice, quiet family.”

After graduating from Sunny Hills High School, Chandler settled into her own apartment in Fullerton before moving back in with her father three weeks ago for the holidays, Douglas said. The young woman planned to leave California and return to her mother and grandmother in Texas later this week, he said.

Chandler’s gray Volkswagen Scirroco was parked Monday on the street outside her father’s single-story, flagstone house, Gucci luggage and a television set in the back seat.

“This kind of stuff doesn’t happen around here,” a shaken Douglas said as police stood behind yellow tape to keep curious onlookers away from the driveway. A pickup truck and a Corvette were parked in the garage.

Douglas also can’t understand why his dogs failed to bark during the night when Chandler was attacked. He keeps two pit bullterriers--Brindle and Douglas--in a fenced back yard less than 50 feet from Chandler’s bedroom window.

“I’m surprised my dogs didn’t go crazy,” he said.

According to Douglas, Chandler’s father didn’t know her boyfriend well, but the two got along.

Douglas said he and Patraw became friends shortly after the stonemason moved into the neighborhood three years ago. “He’s the ideal neighbor,” Douglas said. “Whenever I needed help, he’d pitch in.”

Patraw walked over to his house after calling police, and the two tried without success to make some sense of the slaying, Douglas said.

The case has baffled police, who compared it to a detective novel.

Said Borregard: “It’s like an Agatha Christie mystery.”