Couple Share Painful Recovery After Attack

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in July, teen-age sweethearts Kelly McClure and Jack Utley sat idly on a curb near her family home in Granada Hills. Holding hands, they talked lazily about “the big picture of life.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Utley saw a 30ish, dark-haired stranger walking in his direction. As he drew closer, Utley turned to look.

Then everything went black.

The man struck Utley in the head with a claw hammer four or five times and then lunged at McClure, delivering blows that tore a hole in her skull. “He didn’t say anything,” Utley said. “He was just nuts and he just came after us and that was it.”

Victims Partially Disabled

Five days after the attack, police arrested Rodolfo Aguero, 33, of Granada Hills, a former mental patient, on charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Aguero has pleaded not guilty and is being held in County Jail awaiting trial.

Utley, 17, and McClure, 18, suffered skull fractures and were partially paralyzed for several weeks after the accident. Today, they remain partially disabled and doctors do not know if they ever again will lead normal lives.

The blows caused their brains to swell, which restricted the flow of messages to the extremities, impairing their motor activities, cognitive skills and memories. Both were near death.

“The whole time I knew that we could die,” Utley said, “I thought there’s no way I’m going to die like this.”

The doctor who examined McClure after the attack said that “if she did not have surgery immediately to remove the pressure caused by the indentation to her skull, she would most surely die,” said her father, David McClure. She was given only a 50% chance of surviving surgery.

Afterward, she was paralyzed from the waist down and for a time could only lie in her hospital bed, curled on her side in the fetal position, he said.

Today, Kelly McClure frequently suffers severe headaches. Since the assault, she lost a part-time job at a department store although she still attends Kennedy High School. She has also been forced to give up her three favorite pastimes--baby-sitting, playing the piano and softball.

“I want to ride my bike, I want to run around the block, I want to go out with just Jack and not have people drive us,” she said.

Utley lives in Beverly Hills with his mother. When school began in late summer, Utley, a senior at Huntington Beach High School, had a hard time concentrating and had to drop out. “I would overload,” he said. “It was hard to pay attention, to keep track of what was going on.”

Although he still looks forward to going to college someday and pursuing his dream of being a studio musician, he must often search for words when speaking. He worries about the damage to his cognitive skills.

“I’ll always be a little bit dumb because a part of my brain is killed,” he said.

Although his hands often become numb, he still manages to play guitar. But his 19-year-old brother, Jim, said Jack “has lost his flair” and doesn’t remember songs he had written himself.

Mall Dazes Victim

A visit to a shopping mall last week left him dazed and confused by the activity, crowds and buzzing noise. He and McClure were driven there, but Utley had to sit and rest just after arriving “and stare at the ground,” he said.

“There were all these people and colors and noise and action,” Utley said. “It seemed really hectic. I just started getting mad.”

When talking about the accident, Utley grows visibly agitated. “I think about it all the time,” he said. “I wanted to kill him. I mean, who is this person to just come along and basically ruin my life?”

Details about Aguero’s mental history were not available, and neither his family nor his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Nelda Barretti, would comment.

Utley and McClure are undergoing extensive physical therapy. Warned initially that it might take 2 years to regain the ability to walk, both began taking tentative steps within weeks of the assault.

Utley now walks slowly, with a limp, often clinging to the hand of McClure, who makes her way haltingly with the help of a cane. McClure finds it hard to do the simple things--like getting ready in the morning for classes. She wobbles her way around the house.

“I look kind of like the scarecrow in the ‘Wizard of Oz,’ ” she said with a quick laugh.

“She had been thinking about what to do with her life after high school,” said David McClure.

“She now has to focus on learning how to take a better step, manipulate her way through crowds with canes and how to get up a flight of stairs with both hands full of stuff--things that an 18-year-old kid shouldn’t have to be even aware of.”

Both teen-agers spend a great deal more time with their families these days than they did before the attacks.

“The biggest thing in this whole ordeal was the support our families have given us,” Kelly McClure said. “They never gave up. They didn’t lose hope.”

Although it has shaken their well-being, both families said their children’s ordeal has brought them closer.

Family members, who have filed lawsuits against Aguero’s family, plan to attend the preliminary hearing in the criminal case, scheduled Nov. 23.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Greller, who is prosecuting Aguero, said the attack “was one of the most frightening urban nightmare-type crimes. It was obviously very random and very strange. There’s no defense to it. There’s no warning. There’s no rhyme nor reason.”

“This guy should not be allowed back on the streets,” David McClure said. “I’m convinced that if he does get loose again, neither he nor the public is going to be safe, and there could be a whole lot more blood spattered on the sidewalk than there was on the night I helped pick my daughter up off the curb.”

Although their families and friends predicted that the ordeal would put a strain on their youthful romance, Utley and McClure credit their 16-month relationship with providing the strength to persevere.

“We’re going through the same thing,” McClure said. “It’s like we support each other all the time--even if we’re mad or bummed out.”

“We kind of unload on each other,” Utley said. “I yell out my anger and Kelly understands.”