Grieving Mother Hopes Trial Will End Nightmare of Girl’s Slaying : Crime: Two women go on trial this week in the 1985 murder of a childhood friend. Michele Avila’s mother hopes to lay painful memories to rest when she leaves the courtroom.

More than four years ago, Irene Avila faced every parent’s worst nightmare: the violent death of one of her children.

Beginning this week, Avila must relive the horror surrounding the slaying of her 17-year-old daughter. She hopes that this time the nightmare finally will be laid to rest.

In Pasadena Superior Court this week, Karen Severson and Laura Doyle, both 22, will go on trial for the slaying of their childhood friend, Michele (Missy) Avila.

Severson and Doyle, both of Arleta, are suspected of drowning Avila in a creek in the Angeles National Forest on Oct. 1, 1985, after a jealous argument over a boyfriend, authorities said. The two women have pleaded not guilty to one count of murder and have declined to talk about the case.

“It was like a bad dream, and I kept hoping I would wake up,” Irene Avila said last week, recalling the events surrounding her daughter’s death.

Avila, 48, said it is still difficult to accept that Missy is gone.

“It was really rough at Christmas because I’d go to the mall, and I’d see the back of a girl that looked like her . . . and I’d think, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” Avila said. “For the past four years I’ve kept her alive, and now I really have to let her go.”

Avila said she hopes that the trial will at last bring an end to her family’s suffering.

“I’m going to feel good that finally my family can get on with their lives,” said Avila, who is divorced and has three sons. “We won’t have this hanging over us, we won’t have to go to court anymore. I won’t have to see my sons and my daughter-in-laws suffer anymore.”

Barbara Doyle, Laura’s mother, said her family has also suffered and wants to get the trial over with.

“It’s been a hardship on all of us,” she said. “But you have to feel what other people are going through. I just wish they understood too.”

She said she believes her daughter is innocent. “I wouldn’t be a mother if I didn’t,” she said. “Like the Avilas--they love their daughter--I love my daughter too. But no matter if she’s found innocent or guilty, there has been a lot lost already.”

Severson’s attorney, Harold S. Vites, declined to comment on specifics of the case but said his client’s family is “very supportive of her. Obviously, they are right behind her 1,000%.”

Avila said she last saw her daughter on the afternoon of Oct. 1, 1985. She told her mother that she was going to a neighborhood park with her friend Laura Doyle and would be back early that evening.

But Michele Avila failed to return home by 8 p.m. as promised, and Irene Avila said she waited up all night for her to come home.

“At 2 o’clock in the morning, I thought, ‘Boy, are you going to get it.’ But I was so scared, though. I knew something had happened to her. I knew it.”

Three days later, Michele’s body was found by two hikers in a creek near Colby Canyon Road in the Angeles National Forest. Clumps of her long, brown hair had been sheared off and her head held under a few inches of water until she drowned, authorities said.

Doyle told investigators that she had dropped Michele off at Branford Park in Arleta before going to get gas. When she returned, Doyle said, Michele was gone.

It was not until nearly three years later that a witness came forward. Eva Chirumbolo, who has not been charged in connection with the death, told authorities that she accompanied the girls to the creek near Colby Canyon Road but was not present when Michele’s death occurred.

At a preliminary hearing, Chirumbolo testified that on the day of Michele’s death she drove with Severson to Stonehurst Park in Sun Valley where they met Doyle and Michele. She said the four drove to the forest, with Doyle and Michele in one car and Severson and Chirumbolo in another.

During the drive, Severson said she and Doyle planned to scare Michele, Chirumbolo testified.

Once the girls arrived at the creek, Chirumbolo said, Doyle and Severson began taunting Michele about sleeping with different boys.

At one point, Doyle grabbed Michele by the hair and accused her of having slept with Doyle’s boyfriend, Chirumbolo said.

Doyle stepped into the creek and Severson pushed Michele toward Doyle, who grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her into the water, according to Chirumbolo.

Chirumbolo said she became frightened and ran back to where the cars were parked. A few minutes later, Doyle and Severson joined her, and Severson jumped into her car and drove off. Chirumbolo said that when she got into the car with Doyle, Doyle told her that she and Severson had killed Michele.

Chirumbolo said she did not come forward sooner because she was afraid for her life.

“I think she’s telling the truth,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Tamia L. Hope, who is handling the case. “There wasn’t a case until Eva came forward.”

But Vites, Severson’s attorney, said that in the trial “there are going to be things that come out that didn’t come out before.”

“The prosecution has taken the view that Eva has had nothing to do with any of this. If Karen and Laura had this big elaborate plan to kill Missy, why would they take Eva along if she was not part of the plan? That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

For her part, Irene Avila says that now she wishes she had never known who the alleged killers were. Severson, Doyle and Michele had known each other all their lives. They went to the same schools and lived in the same neighborhood.

After Michele’s funeral, Severson moved in with the Avila family to try to comfort them. Severson and Doyle also assisted Irene Avila and sheriff’s detectives in trying to find the killer.

“They made fools out of all of us,” Avila said.

After the trial, Avila said, she plans to move. “There are too many memories here,” she said, noting that Severson’s parents still live on the same street, while Doyle’s parents live just a few blocks away.

“It’s been so long,” Avila said of her daughter’s death. “I keep thinking finally, finally, she’ll be able to rest. Finally, something will be resolved. But for me, it will never be over. You can’t get over losing a child. That just doesn’t happen.”