Parents of Girl Killed by Boy in Mall File Lawsuit

The parents of Jacalyn Calabrese, a 12-year-old girl shot to death a year ago by a 12-year-old schoolmate in a mall jammed with Christmas shoppers, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the boy’s parents and the mall.

“It’s a very sad time for us,” Gloria Calabrese said Thursday, noting that she had just decorated her daughter’s grave with poinsettias. “It’s been a very difficult year. It’s just a great loss when you lose a child, and how senselessly it happened.

“I probably will live the rest of my life not knowing why.”

Jacalyn Calabrese was shot to death on Dec. 18, 1989, in the Mall of Orange by Juan M. Cardenas Jr. during horseplay with a loaded gun. Cardenas pleaded guilty to one count of involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced in February to one year in Juvenile Hall.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court by Gloria and Alfred Calabrese, alleges that the Cardenases were negligent in supervising their son, and negligently allowed him to keep a loaded firearm in their house, thereby failing to prevent their son from killing Jacalyn.

The suit also names Mall of Orange Shopping Center and Newman Properties, alleging that they “negligently, carelessly and inattentively allowed a dangerous situation to develop and exit on their property by failing to provide adequate security at the place of the shooting.”

The suit does not specify the damages sought. Juan’s parents, Juan and Maria Cardenas of Orange, could not be reached for comment Thursday evening.

In a letter written to then Juvenile Court Judge C. Robert Jameson in January, Juan M. Cardenas Sr. begged the judge for mercy and blamed the shooting on himself.

“I am the one who should be incarcerated and not my son,” the senior Cardenas wrote. “Because my error is not having educated him properly. Because I never spoke with my son about the dangers of a firearm . . . because if I had not permitted this firearm to be brought to my house, none of this would have happened.”

The father said the pistol belonged to his brother, and that he allowed his brother to store it in the garage but told him to hide it in a pile of old clothes. The boy apparently stumbled across the pistol and took it, the father said.

Gloria Calabrese said that she has “been thinking more about my daughter than I have the lawsuit” but had filed the suit after her attorney informed her that the statute of limitations was running out.

She said she had not spoken to the Cardenas family since the funeral.

“I’m sure his mother has her grief in another way,” she said.

The victim’s mother said that she has been following with distress the number of murders by children in Orange County last year.

“Christmas is a time of peace and love, but instead it’s just murder and more murder,” she said.

“I wish there was something I could do to put an end to the reckless, careless violence that is going on around us, especially with our children,” she added.