Man Arrested in Hit-and-Run Case

Los Angeles police said Friday that a month of hard work and a stroke of good luck allowed them to arrest an accused hit-and-run driver whose car allegedly struck and killed a woman and her uncle on Burbank Boulevard in Reseda last month.

Police had only sketchy information when they began investigating the Feb. 25 accident that killed Claudia Jean Schwartz, 37, of Reseda and her uncle, Arnold Feldman, 61, of Santa Maria.

“With the initial information, it was almost an impossible case. The car was described as possibly a tired old Chevy Camaro, and that was it,” said Detective Dennis Ulick.

Ulick and his partner, Wayne Dufort, stopped and interviewed more than a dozen Camaro drivers and followed numerous tips from residents with little result.

They followed another such tip this week regarding a Camaro parked near Tampa Avenue and Oxnard Street in Tarzana and diligently canvassed the area. After several hours, they spotted the car and linked it to Michael Richard Morse, 28, Ulick said.

Morse, who Ulick said had repainted his car and taken out the engine, was arrested Thursday at the Tarzana house where he lived with his girlfriend, Pamela Lewis, 26. She was also taken into custody on suspicion of being an accessory to the crime, Ulick said.

“We got very, very lucky,” Ulick said. “It was very frustrating work.”

Ulick said Morse admitted that he was the driver of the car that struck Schwartz and her uncle. In February, 1989, Morse fled from a halfway house where he had been serving a prison sentence for drug possession, Ulick said.