Boy Found Slain; Man Arrested : Crime: Burned and gagged body found near Simi Valley. Suspect had worked in PTA program at boy’s school.

A former PTA employee at a Northridge elementary school was arrested Saturday in the death of an 8-year-old pupil, whose body was found gagged and burned beyond recognition in a field south of Simi Valley.

Investigators are calling the death of Paul Bailly, who had apparently been handcuffed before he was set on fire, one of the most “disturbing and violent” homicides in recent memory in Ventura County.

The suspect, Greg Smith, 21, of Canoga Park, was arrested on suspicion of murder and held without bond in the Ventura County Jail on Saturday after sheriff’s investigators said they found evidence linking him to the crime.

Smith was fired March 6 for “inappropriate behavior” from his job supervising “latchkey” children for a program operated by the PTA at Darby Avenue Elementary School in Northridge, homicide investigators said.

Darby Principal Sidney L. Yukelson, who has worked at the school since August, said he did not know the boy personally.

“I’m just horrified. Absolutely devastated,” he said. “When I woke up this morning, I wanted to find out what the disposition was and the person at the Devonshire police station said I should come in in person because they had things they couldn’t reveal by phone. That was an indication that a tragedy had occurred.”

The Northridge boy had been set ablaze with a flammable liquid, investigators said. A pair of handcuffs, which appeared to have been used on the youngster, was found near the body in the Santa Susana Knolls area near Simi Valley about noon Friday.

The coroner’s office said it will take several weeks to determine whether the boy was dead when his body was set afire. A motive for the crime has not been established, detectives said.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’ve never had one of this nature,” said Dr. Warren Lovell, chief medical examiner for Ventura County. “People think that I’d be used to it, but you never get used to something like this.”

Investigators said the boy disappeared about 7 a.m. Friday after his mother, Mary Bailly, dropped him off at Darby Elementary, where he was enrolled in the school-sponsored child-care program.

When she returned at 5 p.m. to pick him up, the youngster was gone. School officials said the boy never showed up for class that day, investigators said.

Los Angeles police called Ventura County investigators Friday night to report that they thought the body of the youngster found in the field was the same child missing from the school, according to Ventura Sheriff’s Lt. Joe F. Harwell.

Weary investigators worked throughout the night searching for clues and questioning school officials in Northridge.

Harwell said investigators learned that Smith had been seen “around the school” after he had been fired and identified him as their prime suspect. They said they staked out his house until about 5:30 a.m., when he came out and got into his car.

“He saw the officers and he ran several stop signs,” Harwell said. “He was then taken into custody.”

Ventura County investigators say this is the worst homicide they have seen since 2-year-old Amy Sue Sietz, of Camarillo, was found strangled and sexually molested in the driveway of a Topanga Canyon home in 1978. Theodore Frank was convicted of murdering the child and sentenced to death. He is on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.

“There’s a lot of people very shaken up,” said Vincent W. France, a Ventura County Sheriff’s Department commander who is overseeing the investigation of the Bailly killing. “You think you’ve seen everything, and then you learn you haven’t. This is one of those crimes that hits home to everyone who has children. It’s a horrible crime.”

France said authorities found the boy after two motorists reported a brush fire near Black Canyon Road south of Santa Susana Pass about 11:50 a.m. Friday.

A car matching the description of Smith’s was also seen in the area, Harwell said.

When fire investigators arrived on the scene, they found the child face up near a small tree not far from the road, investigators said.

“It was apparent that he was brought there against his will,” Harwell said.

“Anytime you’re dealing with the death of an 8-year-old, it’s hard not to become affected emotionally,” he said. “In this case especially because of the nature of the death. It’s a terrible catastrophe for the family.”

On Saturday afternoon, two investigators from the Ventura County district attorney’s office were escorted through the Darby Avenue School complex. They declined to discuss the case.

Smith was employed at the school as a teacher’s assistant for the Latchkey Project of the San Fernando Valley’s 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn., a nonprofit group that recently was named as one of 13 exemplary volunteer programs nationwide by the National Research Council.

Harold Kuhn, the program’s executive director, said the same type of inappropriate behavior that cost Smith his job at Darby had prompted program administrators to fire him from the latchkey project at nearby Chatsworth Park School several months earlier. Afterward, Smith was allowed to work at Darby “to prove himself,” Kuhn said.

“We had terminated him for inappropriate behavior at a day-care program,” Kuhn said. “But it was nothing remotely like this thing that happened. We never saw violence. We would have terminated him immediately for violence.”

Kuhn would not describe what kind of inappropriate behavior Smith exhibited, but said he was fired “for things that we don’t want youngsters exposed to, but nothing that would have endangered them.”

He added that the behavior did not involve sexual abuse or other criminal activities.

Kuhn said Smith, like all latchkey program employees, had passed a California Department of Social Services background check when he applied for the job. The review, which included a fingerprint check, showed he had no prior criminal history, the administrator said.

Kuhn said Smith appeared angry when he fired him March 6.

“He was upset at me when I terminated him,” Kuhn said. “He disagreed with our reason for letting him go.”

A resident at the Northridge apartment complex in the 9500 block of Reseda Boulevard where the slain boy lived with his mother--the boy’s father lives in Palmdale--said she had talked to the boy and his mother on a few occasions. The woman asked not to be identified.

“She was always picking him up at school. I used to see him at 3 o’clock every single day,” she said. “She was always with him. I never saw her without him. She picked him up religiously every day.

“I swam with him,” she added. “He used to come and put his foot in the water and I’d laugh. All I used to say to him was, ‘I’m glad school is over today for you.’ He was a lovely boy. Oh, my God. I feel really bad.”

The woman said that when she took out her trash at 11:30 p.m. Friday she saw a police officer walking through the apartment complex.

“Why would they take a little boy like that or any child? Oh, my God,” she said.

Another resident of the complex, Gary Horn, also expressed dismay at the tragedy.

“It just horrifies me,” said Horn, who was playing miniature golf with his 7-year-old son at the complex. “You think of Northridge as a pretty safe neighborhood. I guess it’s a sign of the times. You never know when anybody’s safe. It can happen anywhere.”

A resident of Black Canyon Road, where the body was found in Ventura County, said Saturday she was still in shock over the brutal murder.

“Living up here with nobody around, you definitely get frightened,” said Susan Vincent, who lives on a ranch near where the boy’s body was found.

Vincent, 31, said she has lived in the area for several years.

“It makes me sick to my stomach . . . especially a little kid like that. I mean that’s really unbelievable that they’d take a little kid and light him on fire . . . that’s sickening. Just to think that somebody would do that to a kid gives you the creeps just being up here.”

Several area residents attending a youngsters’ baseball game at Knolls Park, located at the foot of Black Canyon Road, also expressed concern and fear for the safety of their own children.

“It’s scary; I’m horrified,” said April Helvig, who came to the park to watch one of her three sons play baseball. “I’ve lived up here six years. I always felt safe. I got a little 7-year-old. I would always let him walk down to the park by himself for practice. Now I wouldn’t let him do that again.”

Times staff writer Philipp Gollner also contributed to this story.

Paul Bailly