CAMARILLO : Injured Woman Found Beside Road

A 34-year-old woman with severe head injuries was found on the side of a road near a Camarillo neighborhood early Friday.

Rita Calloway, a transient from the Oxnard area, was listed in serious condition with a skull fracture at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard on Friday evening, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Detectives believe that Calloway either was pushed from a moving car or struck with an object on Santa Rosa Road near Morongo Drive, said Lt. Gary Backman of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

A real estate agent taking down signs in the area about 1 a.m. found the woman, who was semiconscious and bleeding profusely from a head wound, Backman said.

The agent called the Sheriff’s Department and showed deputies where she had found the woman, a site about 80 yards from the back yard of a large house, said Sgt. Paul Oechsle of the Sheriff’s Department.

The woman was taken to Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo and later transferred to St. John’s Regional Medical Center, Backman said.

No one heard or saw any vehicles or disturbances, Oechsle said.

Detectives investigating the case are not releasing information about possible motives or specifics of the attack, Backman said.

But they have not ruled out the possibility that the attack might be linked to the beating of Michelle Green in Ventura on May 5, said Cmdr. Raymond Abbott of the Sheriff’s Department.

Green was found unconscious behind a large dumpster in the 800 block of Poinsettia Place.

“I don’t think we can ignore any possibilities,” Abbott said.

The Ventura Police Department has investigated many leads in the Green case but is not close to finding a suspect, Lt. Jay Wilson of the Police Department said.

Green remains in guarded condition at the Ventura County Medical Center, where she occasionally opens her eyes but is unable to communicate, a hospital spokeswoman said.