Anaheim Youth Held in Shooting of Little Sister

A 14-year-old boy shot his younger sister in the head with a rifle in the upstairs bedroom of their Anaheim Shores home, police said Thursday after arresting the youth on suspicion of attempted murder.

Gema Marie Hubler, 12, was in critical condition at UCI Medical Center in Orange, where she underwent surgery for a single gunshot wound to the head. Her brother, who was taken to Orange County Juvenile Hall after the shooting, was not identified because of his age.

Police said the shooting took place at the family’s two-story, beige stucco home around 12:30 p.m. Initially, police said, the boy told them that his sister was shot by three armed robbers who broke into the house and fled.

But according to Anaheim Police Lt. John Cross, an investigation “determined that the boy was alone with his sister” at the time of the shooting and he was taken into custody. Cross said that minutes before Gema was shot, the boy apparently had been in his back yard firing the weapon.

The shooting marked the second time in less than three weeks that a juvenile was shot in the head by a teen-ager in Anaheim. On May 24, Christian Wiedepuhl, 17, was fatally shot with a .38-caliber pistol by a classmate, again in the upstairs bedroom of a home.

The Orange County district attorney is reviewing the Wiedepuhl case to determine if manslaughter charges should be filed.

Investigators on Thursday declined to speculate on the motive behind the shooting of Gema Hubler. But Lt. Marc Hedgpeth, an Anaheim police spokesman, said the boy was arrested after investigators uncovered a number of inconsistencies in his original story of how his sister had been shot by three intruders.

Hedgpeth noted, for example, that “there was a substantial delay” between the time the girl was shot and her brother called police for help.”

“That caused us to have a lot of concern about the boy’s story,” he said. Hedgpeth said police also interviewed neighbors and found physical evidence linking the boy to the shooting. He declined to elaborate.

A resident who lives near the Hubler home in the 1900 block of West Bayshore Drive said his wife heard three gunshots, went outside but saw nothing.

“There was one shot, and then another about five minutes later, and then one about 15 minutes later,” said the resident, who asked not to be identified.

Neighbors said the family had lived in the middle-income residential area just south of the Riverside Freeway for about 12 years. The Hubler home sits near John Marshall Park, which is near the John Marshall Elementary School, where Gema Hubler is a sixth-grader.

Janet Grant, principal at John Marshall, said Gema was president of the student council last semester and is currently serving on the council.

“She is a very good student,” Grant said.

Eleven-year-old Albert Monzon attended classes with the victim and called her a good friend.

“I knew her since first grade,” he said. “She’s cool. Her brother is cool too. I wouldn’t think he would do this.”

Neighbors said the boy had attended Brookhurst Junior High School, and a teacher there said that he did not “stand out in any way.”

“He might not have done all his homework all the time, but he wasn’t disrespectful and didn’t talk back,” said Linda Barnett, a Brookhurst English teacher. She said it was her impression that “he just didn’t fit in with the other kids.”

Times staff writers Shannon Sands, Ted Johnson, Jeffrey A. Perlman and Tom McQueeney contributed to this report.