Preliminary Hearing : 14-Year-Old Describes Attack, Friend’s Death

A 14-year-old girl testified Monday that she and a friend thought they were helping a woman in distress by entering a disabled camper and trying to start its engine when a man appeared from behind and threatened to kill them if they did not obey his commands.

The girl’s testimony came during the first day of a preliminary hearing in San Fernando Municipal Court for Roland Norman Comtois, 58, and Marsha Lynn Ramos, 34, on charges that they abducted the girls Sept. 18, killed 14-year-old Wendy Masuhara and shot the other teen-ager, leaving her for dead.

Comtois and Ramos have pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder, two counts of kidnaping, attempted sodomy, forcible oral copulation, a forcible lewd act upon a child and injecting a child with cocaine.

The surviving teen-ager testified Monday that she and Masuhara were waiting for a friend about 11:15 p.m. Sept. 18 at Devonshire Street and Lurline Avenue in Chatsworth when Ramos lured them to the motor home by telling them that its engine would not start and asking for help. The girl said Ramos was holding jumper cables.

The girl testified that she and Masuhara were inside the unlighted camper trying to start the engine when Comtois appeared from the rear of the vehicle with a gun and told them to lie face down on a bed in the camper or he would kill them.

The girl said that after they were on the bed, Comtois gagged them and tied their hands and feet with tape. He drove about five minutes before stopping and putting Masuhara and Ramos into a small room in the camper, the girl testified. She said she could not remember if Comtois had trouble starting the vehicle.

Comtois undressed her and himself and forced her to orally copulate him, she said. He also attempted to force her to engage in other sex acts, but was unsuccessful, she testified. He then asked Ramos to get a syringe, which he told her held cocaine, she said.

Shot From Back Seat

After Ramos injected her, the girl said she dressed herself and Comtois drove to Woolsey Canyon. He placed both teen-agers in the front seat of an abandoned station wagon and, without saying a word, shot them both in the head from where he was kneeling in the back seat, she testified.

Masuhara died. The other girl, who put up her left hand to deflect the bullet, was wounded in the hand and neck, authorities said.

After she awoke to find Comtois and Ramos gone, the girl said she sought help from passing motorists.

Four days after the abduction, police officers shot Comtois in the back and leg after he ran away from them and climbed over a wall in the 2800 block of Newell Street in the Elysian Park area. His whereabouts were reported by an anonymous phone caller, police said. Comtois is being held without bail in County Jail.

Ramos was arrested Dec. 27. She is being held without bail at Sybil Brand Institute.