2 Women Get Prison for Killing Classmate

Two young Arleta women were sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in state prison Friday for the drowning of a 17-year-old high school classmate they had accused of having an affair with their boyfriends.

Karen Severson and Laura Doyle, both 22, stared straight ahead, showing no emotion, as Pasadena Superior Court Judge Jack B. Tso sentenced them to the maximum penalty for second-degree murder.

A jury found the women guilty Jan. 31 of murdering Michele (Missy) Avila, who was drowned Oct. 1, 1985, in a shallow stream in the remote Big Tujunga Canyon area of Angeles National Forest.

With credit for the time they have already served in Los Angeles County Jail, the women will be eligible for parole in about seven years. Attorneys for the women said they will appeal the case.

Avila’s body was found by hikers two days after she died. But Severson and Doyle, who were teen-agers at the time of the killing, were not arrested until almost three years later when Eva Chirumbolo, a witness to the slaying, finally came forward.

Shortly after Avila’s death, Severson moved in with the Avila family to console them, even joining them for Thanksgiving dinner that year. At that time, Irene Avila, the victim’s mother, said Severson was her daughter’s best friend and like a second daughter to her.

Tso said the maximum sentence was warranted because of the violent nature of the crime. During the two-week trial, several witnesses testified that the women quarreled with Avila and angrily accused her of having sex with their boyfriends. Chirumbolo testified that the two held their struggling friend’s face down in six inches of water until she died.

Witnesses also testified that both women were jealous of Avila because of her petite stature, good looks and popularity with boys.

Before the sentence was announced, members of the Avila family urged the judge to give Michele Avila’s killers the maximum penalty.

“My life has been shattered forever because of this cold-blooded and senseless act,” said Irene Avila. “They left my daughter to die in the woods like an animal.”

“Thank God, justice has been served,” she said afterward, clutching a framed photograph of her daughter.

The victim’s brother, Mark Avila, 24, said Severson and Doyle not only killed his sister but “a part of all our lives as well.”

Doyle’s attorney, Charles Lloyd, and Harold S. Vites, the attorney who defended Severson, called for leniency because of the women’s age and because they said their childhoods had been troubled.

Vites said Severson “at some point” wants to rebuild her life. “For the rest of her days, she will live with the memory of this crime,” he said.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Tamia Hope said people “are still waiting for Laura Doyle and Karen Severson to show some remorse. When are they going to face the seriousness of this crime?”

Bruce Campbell, 43, of South Pasadena was foreman of the jury that convicted Doyle and Severson, and he returned to the courtroom for the sentencing. “I just had to see this through,” he said. “I now think justice has been served.”