Daughter Says Suspect in Slaying of Newport Beach Lawyer Had Breakdown

The daughter of Pamela Ayers, the Newport Beach woman arrested in the shooting death of Los Angeles attorney Gerald Goldfarb, said Friday that Goldfarb and her mother once enjoyed a romantic relationship and were trying to have a child until her mother suffered a mental collapse earlier this year.

“They have been boyfriend and girlfriend for eight years. She’s been living with him for two years in Los Angeles,” said Christa Irwin, 27, Ayers’ only child. “I believe he was trying to help her the day he went to see her. I regret this tragedy. I miss him. It’s a horrible thing.”

Police said Ayers, 45, shot and killed Goldfarb in her Newport Beach townhouse Wednesday night and then turned a shotgun on herself. She remains in stable but serious condition at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center with gunshot wounds to the abdomen.

Police have said little about their investigation into the shooting, but friends of Ayers have said that she may have mistaken Goldfarb’s overtures of friendship for love. Other acquaintances said Goldfarb and Ayers had enjoyed a long friendship but not necessarily a romantic one.

Goldfarb, 49, a Harvard-educated attorney, was an author and at one time hosted a cable television program on legal matters.

Irwin maintained that her mother loved Goldfarb and in fact had lived with him for several years.

“She loved him very, very much,” Irwin said in a telephone interview. “It’s sad. Gerald was a good man and deserves all the good things that have been said about him.”

According to Irwin, her mother sold her waterfront home in the East Bluff area of Newport Beach two years ago to move to Westwood and live with Goldfarb. Ayers converted to Judaism and wanted to have a child with Goldfarb, Irwin said.

“She read all the baby books in the world about how to get pregnant after 40,” Irwin said.

Earlier this year, Irwin said, her mother suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for a short period. She later went to live with her parents, but Goldfarb continued to call to check on her condition, Irwin said.

In March, Irwin said, her mother learned that Goldfarb planned to marry another woman. The wedding took place April 16.

Irwin said she tried to take care of her mother for three weeks, but by then Ayers was impossible to deal with. “My husband and I had had it. . . . No one listened to me when I said she needed professional help,” Irwin said.

At one point, Irwin said, her mother told her she was considering suicide but did not think she could go through with it.

Goldfarb, meanwhile, remained concerned and offered his help, Irwin said.

“I told him she was angry, didn’t want to see him and was possibly dangerous,” Irwin said. “I think he felt a moral obligation to go down and try to help her.”