Three Young Women Slain in Pasadena

Three young women were found shot to death early Friday in a home in the Annandale section of Pasadena, an affluent neighborhood overlooking the Rose Bowl.

Police discovered the bodies of the victims--two of them 18, one 17--in the pool house of a home on Fairlawn Way, on a ridge above Annandale Country Club. Officers had received an anonymous call asking them to check on the welfare of residents at the house, said Lt. Van B. Anthony.

Police identified three teen-age boys as suspects. Late Friday, Pasadena police said two of them had been arrested by police in Salem, Ore. Police described them as acquaintances of the girls. Two of the victims and at least one of the boys are current or former students at South Pasadena High School.

The killings--the first multiple murders in Pasadena since two people were slain in a religious sect dispute in 1973--jarred the calm of the hillside neighborhood of homes set behind gates on large, tree-shaded lots.

When police arrived at Fairlawn Way at 3:30 a.m., they found the three dead women, all fully clothed, Anthony said. There was no evidence of a struggle or break-in, he said.

Police identified the victims as Katherine Macaulay, 18, of the Fairlawn Way address; Heather Goodwin, 18, of San Marino, and Danae Palermo, 17, of Alhambra. All had been shot at least once in the head, Anthony said. Police believe that more than one person fired shots at the victims, he said.

Late Friday, police issued a bulletin for the three suspects. They are David Ressell Adkins, 16, Burt Vinny Hebrock, 17, and Cayle Matthew Fielder, 16.

Pasadena Police Detective Thomas Delgado said Salem police had arrested Adkins and Hebrock about 9:30 p.m. at a bus stop. Delgado said police had learned that the suspects had family and friends in the Salem area, adding that the third suspect had not yet been located.

Earlier, Anthony had said police viewed them as dangerous, adding: “The public needs to know what they look like and to be on the lookout for them.” He said police had received permission from Los Angeles County Juvenile Court to release the suspects’ names.

Adkins and Hebrock are from South Pasadena; Fielder, who was described as 5-foot-8, 220 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes, is from Alhambra.

Anthony would not say if the suspects had criminal records, but he said pictures released to news gathering organizations came from “other agencies.”

Police said they had not established a motive for the murders. “It’s totally up to speculation,” Anthony said. “It could be anything from an argument to a party that went awry.”

As of late Friday, police had found no evidence of drugs at the scene, he said.

Earlier, police had issued an alert for a 1986 maroon Mercedes-Benz, which may have been stolen from the house where the murders occurred. Anthony identified the car as a 300D sedan, with California license plate number 2CVN785.

Macaulay was a senior at South Pasadena High, and Goodwin, Palermo and Adkins were students there last year.

Macaulay’s mother, Linda K. Macaulay, and stepfather Michael N. Koss, a Pasadena physician, were out of town when the murders occurred. They were returning Friday from a trip to Chicago, Anthony said.

Wayne Macaulay, father of the slain woman, was flying to California from Bangkok, Thailand, where he is stationed as a Marine.

Goodwin’s mother, Mimi, would comment only briefly. “All I can say is that we received a phone call and we went to the (Macaulay) house,” she said. “Three girls were found shot to death. My husband went in to identify the body.” The father, Glendale insurance lawyer Darrell Goodwin, would not speak to a reporter.

Palermo’s family could not be reached.

The gated home where the murders occurred is on a cul-de-sac in an exclusive wooded area, more than two miles from any major road. It is a sprawling stucco ranch house with balconies off the living room and an oval pool. The house is still known in the neighborhood, where homes reportedly start at $500,000, as the “Kellogg house” because its original owner reportedly was a member of the cereal-maker’s family.

The Macaulay-Koss family moved into the $685,000 home surrounded by pines, cedars and eucalyptus trees in 1989, but Katherine Macaulay continued to attend South Pasadena High.

Friends described her as a young woman who led a distinctively affluent life. They referred to the apartment behind the family’s home where the three victims were found and where Macaulay lived by herself as “Kathy’s house.”

“Ask my daughter how much money she has on her, and she’ll probably tell you about 10 cents,” said Tom Biesek, a former South Pasadena police officer whose 17-year-old daughter, Theresa, was one of Macaulay’s best friends. “But Kathy always had maybe $40 or $100 on her.”

Macaulay often accompanied the Biesek family on vacations, such as a one-week trip to the Grand Canyon last year, Biesek said.

Those who knew her best described Macaulay as protective of her friends. “She was a very friendly, warm person,” Theresa Biesek said. “She really gave a lot. She always treated me like her kid.”

South Pasadena High Principal Ben Ramirez called Macaulay a “charming, nice, young lady,” but not an outstanding student.

The triple shooting brings to eight the number of murders this year in Pasadena, which recorded 13 homicides last year. The affluent area has had its share of burglaries, leading next-door neighbor Nadine Russek to speculate that the killings were a foiled robbery attempt.

Russek said she knew the Macaulay-Koss family only well enough to wave to them as they drove by. She said she spoke for the first time to Katherine Macaulay last Tuesday, after the Russek home was burglarized. Macaulay stopped her beige minivan and inquired what was the matter, Russek said.

“We’ve been burglarized seven times over the years, and we were robbed at gunpoint a year and a half ago,” Russek said.

Others said that crime has been infrequent since the Linda Vista-Annandale Assn., a neighborhood group, organized residents and lobbied for more police protection.

Times staff writers Penelope McMillan, Nieson Himmel and Denise Hamilton contributed to this story.