Death of a Dream : Woman Kidnaped at Disco Is Removed From Life-Support System

She had been an A student, her mother said, but when the baby came, she dropped out of school. Still, 19-year-old Karen Eickholdt had plans. Someday, she would tell her mother, she would get out of Compton and manage a big hotel--one in Hawaii, perhaps.

Her dream ended at 4:20 p.m. Tuesday when she was removed from a life-support system at Greater El Monte Community Hospital. There was no chance, doctors concluded, that Eickholdt would recover from massive head injuries suffered during a brief abduction outside a popular El Monte disco early Monday morning.

As family and friends remembered Eickholdt, El Monte police and sheriff’s homicide detectives reported little progress Wednesday in the hunt for her killers.

Eickholdt, several witnesses told detectives, had been accosted by two men outside Mr. J’s disco and dragged halfway into the cab of a gray pickup that then sped away. After traveling about one block, Eickholdt was either thrown to the pavement or struggled free and fell, suffering the fatal injuries.

Doctors determined her to be brain dead Monday, and a Catholic priest administered last rites. Her mother, Ursula Garcia, said family members and friends gathered in her room Tuesday afternoon and prayed for her once again.

“When we were praying, several of us saw her hand move, like she was in relief,” Ursula Garcia said. A short time later, Garcia gave permission for the life-support system to be detached.

The oldest of Ursula Garcia’s five children, Eickholdt had a 4-year-old son, Sergio, as well as three brothers, a sister and a stepfather. She is also survived by her father, a resident of Atascadero.

Born in West Germany, where her father was stationed in the Army, Karen Eickholdt had spent her early years in Michigan and California’s central coast. For the last 11 years she had lived in Paramount and Compton, and had attended Dominguez High School before dropping out.

Recently, her mother said, she had been attending night school to earn a high school diploma. She had talked of joining the National Guard and eventually entering the hotel business.

“She had big plans. She wanted to get into management,” her mother said. “She was telling me she’d get a home for me and home for herself--a big one in front, and a small one in back for her and Sergio.”

Her daughter loved to dance and on nights when she wasn’t attending class, would go with friends to Mr. J’s disco 20 miles away in El Monte, Garcia said.

“She went to El Monte because she felt Compton was too rowdy, too dangerous,” Eickholdt’s godmother, Christina Mercado, said.

“She was a very fun person,” Mercado said. “Always there to help people who needed help. A kind person.”

Mercado said she is attempting to establish a trust fund for Sergio.

El Monte Police Detective Butch Reyburn said a reward of a still unspecified amount is being offered for information leading to the arrest of the killers. They were described as Latino men, about 20 years of age. The truck was described as a 1964 to 1966 gray step-side pickup with a black left front fender, and an old California license plate with yellow numbers and letters against a black background.

Investigators asked anyone with information to call El Monte police at (818) 580-1200 or the sheriff’s detectives at (213) 974-4341.

Detectives are planning to pass out flyers soliciting information at Mr. J’s, Reyburn said. It is believed the two suspects may have been patrons.

“Other than that,” Reyburn said, “we haven’t got anything going.”