Local News in Brief : La Habra : Woman Pleads Guilty in Slaying of Official’s Niece

A La Habra woman pleaded guilty Tuesday to first-degree murder for being an accomplice in the stabbing death of a niece of Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn during a residential robbery.

Michele Molina, 22, also pleaded guilty in Norwalk Superior Court to premeditated attempted murder for trying to kill a 19-year-old neighbor of Hahn’s niece during the same robbery in May, 1987, in La Habra Heights.

Molina remains in custody pending sentencing June 2, when she will be sent to state prison for 25 years to life, Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Rugnetta said.

Molina was not the actual killer of Hahn’s niece, Ramona Gayton, who was in her 40s.

Rugnetta said Molina’s accomplice, Jose E. Ulivarri, was the person who stabbed Gayton to death during the robbery of the home she shared with her psychiatrist husband. Ulivarri faces a pretrial conference today.

The prosecutor said Ulivarri, who was armed with a gun, and Molina also tried to strangle Juliette Pecorano, 19, a neighbor who was at Gayton’s home during the robbery. Pecorano survived.

Pecorano told officials she remembers hearing Gayton screaming, “Run Juliette, run for your life,” before the two suspects tried to strangle her.