Homicides Set Record in County

From a 4-year-old boy slain in a hail of gang gunfire to a topless bar owner ambushed inside his limousine, a record number of people became homicide victims in Orange County during 1989.

The 155 killings recorded for the year by the Orange County coroner’s office up to New Year’s Eve, far surpassed the previous record of 131 homicides set in 1985. The 1989 total easily topped the 129 slayings in 1988, 98 in 1987 and 112 in 1986.

Law enforcement officials studying the grim statistics say they cannot pinpoint any specific causes for the nearly 18% rise in the number of people who died at the hands of others in 1989. They can only note a general increase in violence in society and evidence that a growing number of people carry guns.

“Homicides are just one of those things (for which) there are no explanations,” Garden Grove Lt. Chuck Gibbs said.

Certainly it is difficult to find a satisfying explanation for the death of 4-year-old Frank Fernandez Jr., caught in the gang cross-fire in September as he stood in his family’s driveway in Garden Grove. Or for the kidnap and murder of 9-year-old Nadia Puente of Santa Ana in March. Or for the slaying of 12-year-old Jacalyn Calabrese, who was shot and killed in the Mall of Orange last month as a schoolmate showed off his .25-caliber pistol.

While many of last year’s murders seem particularly senseless, others were carried out with the precision of a gangland murder.

Horace Joseph McKenna--known as “Big Mac”--was shot through the rear passenger window of his limousine as it pulled up to the gate of his expansive estate in Brea’s Carbon Canyon. McKenna, a former California Highway Patrol officer and a 6-foot, 6-inch bodybuilder, was under investigation for hidden ownership in several nude and topless bars at the time of his death. No arrests have been made.

While no tally was available for each city, Anaheim appeared to have posted one of the largest increases in homicides. There were 28 killings in 1989, an increase of 10 over the previous year.

Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy said that little changed in his city last year in terms of the provocation for homicide. Fights between family members and drunken brawls were again the most common situations that led to homicide in the county’s most populous city.

“In a lot of the homicides we’re investigating, the victim and suspect knew each other,” he said.

For all the concern and publicity about drugs and gangs, only four of the killings appeared to be directly linked to the narcotics trade, he said. And echoing the comments of police officials in other cities, Molloy added that gang activity accounts for relatively few killings around the county.

While Anaheim, the Sheriff’s Department and Santa Ana report an upswing in homicides, Garden Grove actually experienced a reduction. Gibbs said the city had four fewer homicides in 1989, recording eight as the year drew to a close.

But just as no one has a good answer for why the county’s homicide rate surged last year, Gibbs is at a loss to explain the good news in his city.

“We’ve been real fortunate,” Gibbs said. “I don’t know why. (There’s) no way to track this stuff or predict it.”