Local News in Brief : Woman to Be Tried as Adult in ’85 Drowning
A Pasadena Superior Court judge Tuesday ordered a 21-year-old Arleta woman to stand trial as an adult in the 1985 slaying of a teen-age friend.
Judge Rose Hom ordered Karen Severson held for trial in Superior Court in the drowning of Michele (Missy) Avila, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen H. Mazur. Severson was 17 at the time of the killing.
Two hikers found Avila’s body pinned under a log in a creek in the Angeles National Forest on Oct. 4, 1985.
Severson and Laura Doyle were arrested in the killing on June 27 after Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators received information from a witness, Eva Chirumbolo.
Chirumbolo testified at Doyle’s preliminary hearing in Glendale Municipal Court on Friday that she had accompanied Doyle, Severson and Avila to the forest on Oct. 1, 1985. Chirumbolo, who has not been charged, said she was not present when the killing took place. Chirumbolo testified that Doyle admitted that she and Severson had killed Avila, 17.
Doyle, who was 18 at the time of Avila’s death, is scheduled to be arraigned in Pasadena Superior Court on Dec. 2.
No arraignment has been set for Severson, Mazur said.
If convicted, Severson and Doyle could each be sentenced from 25 years to life in prison. Each is being held without bail.
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