9-Year-Old Is Slain in Anaheim During Apparent Burglary

A 9-year-old girl, alone at home waiting for her mother to return from work, was beaten to death Friday, apparently during a burglary in which a TV and other items were stolen, authorities said.

The victim was identified as Autumn Wallace, last seen by neighbors playing in her front yard on Hedlund Drive in an unincorporated area north of Katella Avenue between Stanton and Anaheim. Her body was found in a bathroom in the rear of the single-level home.

“There was trauma to the body,” said Lt. Richard J. Olson, Sheriff’s Department spokesman. “But we’re not going to know the cause of death until we have an autopsy.”

Olson said investigators suspect that Autumn was killed when an intruder or intruders broke into the Wallace home in the afternoon, while she was alone.

Her 18-year-old sister, April, said she arrived home from work about 5:20 p.m. and entered the house through a garage door. She said she immediately noticed that things were missing from the house and from her room. She said a TV, videotape recorder, microwave oven, a mirror and some personal belongings were gone.

“I walked right in and went down the hallway, and I noticed that the house looked like a mess. . . . It didn’t look normal,” she said. “I didn’t want to think that she (Autumn) was in the house, and I didn’t want to go back in the house.”

She said she noticed that the bathroom light was on but didn’t think anything of it.

Frightened, she said she went across the street to a neighbor’s home and asked whether they had seen anything unusual. Olson said the mother, Linda Wallace, 42, came home from her job as a clerk at the Orange County Courthouse about 20 minutes later, began searching the house and “that’s when the mother found the girl.”

The Sheriff’s Department was called about 5:55 p.m., Olson said. Officers sealed off the area and set up a command post. Neighbors were questioned about what they saw and heard.

April Wallace noted later that the front door of the house had been locked when she arrived and speculated that whoever had been inside and killed Autumn had fled through a rear entrance.

The victim’s aunt, Joyce Wallace, who works with the mother at the courthouse, described Autumn as having “long blond hair and big brown eyes, and she smiled all the time. She was very mature for her age. She was an A student at Dr. Jonas E. Salk Elementary School in Anaheim. She loved Nintendo, and she liked going to Chuck E. Cheese a lot, but hated pizza.”

Linda Wallace has supported the family since her husband died of cancer three years ago, the aunt said.

Olson said sheriff’s deputies consider the quiet, older residential street relatively safe, with no recent reports of burglaries or break-ins.

“We canvassed the area, and nobody saw anything or heard anything,” Olson said.

The neighbors’ children, who were Autumn’s friends, had told April Wallace earlier in the day that Autumn did not want to come out and play, the victim’s sister said.

“She did that sometimes, where she didn’t go out to play but stayed inside,” April said.

She said her sister liked to draw: “She had been cutting paper into shapes with a pair of scissors.”