Grieving Friends Emerge as Suspects in Girl’s Drowning

After her best friend, Michele Avila, was murdered in October, 1985, Karen Severson moved in with Avila’s family in Arleta to console them.

“She was there to comfort me,” said Michele’s mother, Irene Avila.

The body of 17-year-old “Missy,” as she was known to friends and family, was found in a creek in Angeles National Forest on Oct. 4, 1985. Her long, brown hair had been cut off and her head held under a few inches of water until she drowned, authorities said.

The death seemed to affect Severson deeply. Often, she would go to the cemetery with flowers. She wrote letters to Missy and even took a Christmas tree to the grave.

Another close friend, Laura Doyle, attended Missy’s funeral and sent Irene Avila a sympathy card “that said she was so heartbroken about what happened to my daughter. That not only was I Missy’s mother but hers too,” Avila recalled.

Together, the two girls cooperated with authorities, giving them leads and accompanying Irene Avila to the police station. But it was not until nearly three years after Missy’s murder that Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators finally arrested two suspects: Karen Severson, 20, and Laura Doyle, 21.

The motive for the killing, according to authorities, was jealousy over a boyfriend.

When Irene Avila, 47, found out about the arrests, she said, “It was like somebody punched me in the stomach. I was shocked. I walked toward my room and passed out.”

Pleaded Innocent

Both Severson and Doyle have pleaded not guilty to one count of murder apiece. Severson has also pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnaping, false imprisonment and aiding in the commission of a felony after the fact. Both declined to talk about the charges.

What puzzles those familiar with the case is not only the extent of the girls’ apparent charade, but whether others might have known of their alleged involvement and kept silent about it for nearly three years.

Most of all, however, Missy’s surviving family members say they were floored by the turn of events.

“I trusted Karen so much,” Irene Avila said. “We all trusted her. She was my daughter’s best friend. They grew up together. That girl was part of this family.”

The closeness they shared never seemed more apparent than after Missy’s death, when Severson moved in with the Avila family. “Karen used to see me every day and saw the hell I was going through,” said Irene Avila, who was recently divorced and living with two of her three sons, Mark and Christopher Avila.

Mark Avila, 23, said Severson joined the family for Thanksgiving dinner. “She knew what the whole family was going through, and it didn’t faze her,” he said.

“I think Karen wanted to be part of the family,” he said. “She wanted to be Missy. She wanted to take her place.”

Physically, Missy and Severson were exact opposites.

Missy stood at 5 feet, 2 inches tall and weighed about 90 pounds at the time of her death. “She was very pretty,” her mother said. “A lot of boys used to come and see her.”

Severson, on the other hand, was slightly taller and was described by friends as always overweight. At the time of her arrest, Severson weighed more than 200 pounds.

Missy Defended Karen

“People would always make fun of Karen,” Mark Avila said. Missy, he said, would always defend her.

Irene Avila said Severson put on more weight after Missy’s death. “She started drinking a lot,” the mother said. “I’d ask her, ‘Why are you drinking so much?’ And she would say, ‘Because I lost my best friend.’ ”

Doyle also appeared to have trouble accepting the loss of her friend, Irene Avila said. “She came over here a couple of times all depressed. She said she wanted to commit suicide because she was the last person to see Missy alive.”

At the time, Doyle told investigators she had dropped Missy off at Branford Park in Arleta on Oct. 1, 1985, while she went to get gas. When she left Missy, Doyle said, her friend had been talking to two young men in a blue Chevrolet Camaro. Upon her return a short time later, Doyle noticed that Missy, the two men and the car were gone.

Sgt. Bill Patterson of the Sheriff’s Department and one of the investigators in the case said Doyle changed her story two years later, saying she had dropped Missy off at a neighborhood church and not Branford Park. Doyle told sheriff’s investigators she had lied before to cover up a drug deal in which the girls were involved.

“The stories never fit,” Patterson said, adding that officials were suspicious of Doyle and Severson. “We felt they knew something but didn’t think they were involved” in Missy’s murder, he said.

‘They Were Laughing’

Irene Avila recalled the last time she saw her daughter. “Laura picked her up about 3:30 in the afternoon. They were laughing and joking. My daughter ran out of here in a real good mood. She said, ‘Laura and I are gonna go to the park.’ She told me, ‘I’ll call you at 8.’ ”

At 6 p.m., Laura called Irene Avila and asked to speak to Michele. “I said, ‘What are you talking about? She’s with you.’ She said, ‘No, I left her at the park,’ ” Avila said.

“The phone call hit me kind of funny,” Avila said. She began to worry at 8 p.m. when Missy did not call. “I stayed up all night with that front door open to see if my daughter was coming home, and she never did.”

Michele Avila, Karen Severson and Laura Doyle had known each other all their lives. They went to the same schools and lived in the same quiet middle-class Arleta neighborhood. “They were always together,” according to one friend. “They were a lot like sisters.”

After the sixth grade, Missy and her friends started using drugs and often missed school, Mark Avila said. “She fell in with a bad crowd. She had to have a low self-esteem to hang around with people like that.”

A friend of Missy’s, who asked not to be identified, agreed. “I know all these people,” she said. “They partied all the time. That was their life.”

She described Doyle as having an “explosive personality,” a girl who in junior high would use a pen knife or the sharp end of a paper clip to carve boyfriends’ initials into the palm of her hand.

Severson, she said, was “loud and obnoxious. Karen used to start trouble with me. I was scared of her.”

Mark Avila said he tried to warn his sister about using drugs and “partying with the wrong people.” He said they got into a big fight and were not talking at the time of Missy’s death.

In elementary school, Missy was in a class for gifted children, but her grades started to fall in high school when she and Severson would skip class, Irene Avila said.

Both Missy and Severson were transferred from San Fernando High School to San Fernando Mission, a continuation school for students having trouble keeping up with their schoolwork.

When the girls wanted to be alone, they often would drive up a one-lane road to a remote and heavily wooded area of Colby Canyon in the Angeles National Forest.

About 100 yards east of the Colby Bridge--accessible only by foot--is a small clearing with large rocks scattered around a trickling creek. It is littered with beer bottles, cigarette butts and other debris.

It was a place where the girls went to party, drink beer and, like many others, carve their names and the names of their boyfriends into the trunks of the quaking aspen trees that line the creek.

It was also the place where Missy was killed.

Jealous Argument

According to prosecutors, Missy drove with Doyle to the forest on Oct. 1, 1985. They were followed in another car by Severson and a fourth friend, Eva Chirumbolo, who has not been charged.

The four parked near the creek and walked down an embankment to the water, said Deputy Dist. Atty. John Paul Bernardi. At some point a jealous argument over a boyfriend broke out among the girls, he said.

Next, Missy’s long, brown hair was cut off, apparently to terrorize her or frighten her, he said. Irene Avila said later: “They did that to make her look ugly. That was their way of torturing her.”

Missy’s head was then held under about 8 inches of water until she drowned, Bernardi said.

Before the killing, Chirumbolo left the clearing and walked back to the cars to wait, Bernardi said. She is not expected to be charged, he said, declining to say whether she gave authorities information that led to the arrests.

Two days after her family had reported her missing, two hikers found Missy’s body pinned under a log in the creek.

Patterson said Severson and Doyle always cooperated with investigators. “Whenever we called, they were right there,” he said.

Both girls also helped Irene Avila with her own search for the killer. Severson, for example, accompanied her in a hunt for blue Camaros, Irene Avila said. “I would stop guys in the street at 11 o’clock at night and make them get out of their cars. And Karen would be right there next to me the whole time. I feel bad. I hassled innocent people.”

Another time, the mother said, “I went to Los Angeles with both Laura and Karen by myself. We wanted to talk to Sgt. Patterson. Little did I know. . . .”

Wasn’t Worried

Irene Avila said she had known about an argument between her daughter and Severson, but she didn’t think it was anything to worry about. The two had arguments before, she said, “mostly about boys.”

The disagreement this time seemed no different.

“Karen and my daughter were not talking at that time,” she said. “They hadn’t been talking for at least a month. They had an argument over this guy Karen was living with. Randy Fernandez. My daughter used to go out with him before Karen did.”

Irene Avila said Severson and Chirumbolo had visited her house to talk about the matter two weeks before Missy was killed. “Karen started telling me a bunch of dirty things about my daughter.

“She said my daughter took everybody’s boyfriend away and that she was a big flirt,” Avila said. “I just told her, ‘If you’re not going to talk right, just get out.’ ”

John Arnold, 20, said he knew all three girls since 1980 when they attended Byrd Junior High School in Sun Valley.

“Karen was definitely jealous” of Missy, he said. “Missy was prettier, and she had a lot of friends. Karen was always fighting. She always had to prove something. Missy just had to be herself.”

Almost everyone who knows Severson, including Irene Avila, says she had a strange obsession with Missy. “If another girl would want to be Missy’s friend, Karen would make sure that that girl did not get close to her,” Irene Avila said. “She was very possessive of my daughter.”

Companion’s Rivalry

Ryan Augustine, 20, a longtime friend of all three girls, agreed. “If Karen didn’t go anywhere, she didn’t want Missy to go anywhere. She didn’t want her to have other friends.”

Augustine said Severson had a “big mouth” and got into a lot of fights, including one with Missy two weeks before her death.

He said he had been at a park with Karen and several others when Missy drove up. “Karen started yelling at Missy and pushed her a couple of times and slapped her,” he said. The fight was quickly broken up, Augustine said.

Irene Avila said Severson talked often about avenging Missy’s death. “Karen would always tell me, ‘Oh, the minute we find this animal who did this to her. . . . I will be sitting right by you in the courtroom.’

“Now I know why Karen was here so much. She wanted to be one step ahead of everybody else.”

Since the arrests of Severson and Doyle, Irene Avila said: “I don’t trust anybody. My nerves are so bad. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I haven’t even mourned my daughter. I haven’t even got to the point where I can completely let go.”

She said both she and her son Mark have been subpoenaed to testify today at a fitness hearing for Severson in Pasadena Juvenile Court. Because Severson was 17 at the time of Missy’s killing, the hearing will determine whether she will stand trial as an adult.

A hearing to set a date for Doyle’s preliminary hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in Glendale Municipal Court.

Severson is being held without bail and Doyle is being held in lieu of $1 million bail at Sybil Brand Institute for Women.

Patterson said the investigation that followed Missy’s slaying was among the most frustrating he had endured. “We talked to everybody that ever had anything to do with Missy,” he said. “We’ve pissed off so many people talking to them. In all the cases I’ve had in five years investigating homicides, I’ve spent more hours talking to more people than any other case.”

Bernardi said he believed others might have known about the murder in the past three years.

“It’s hard for me to believe that over a three-year period, these girls didn’t reveal some or all of what occurred” to others, he said.

Considering all the evidence he has seen “it leads me to believe they haven’t kept it a complete secret,” Bernardi said, declining to elaborate.

If anyone else knew about Missy’s murder, he said, they may have kept it a secret out of fear or friendship.

On a tree near the creek where Missy was murdered is a reminder of another friendship. Carved deep into the side of the tree’s white trunk are the names of Missy, Karen and Randy, the boyfriend the two had argued over.

The message “We love you Missy” is carved high on the tree trunk. Below that is another message, “ ‘85, Randy + Karen.” And directly below that is a final note, one that is barely readable because someone has tried to cross out the first name.

It reads: “Missy + Karen 4 Ever.”