Neighbors’ Dispute Ends in 2 Killings

A Burbank man, convicted hours earlier of beating his next-door neighbor in a quarrel over trimming roses, burst into the man’s home with a rifle Wednesday, killing two women and wounding two others, police said.

All of the victims had either testified against the gunman or been involved in the assault case, said Burbank Police Sgt. Bob Brode.

The incident in the 2800 block of North Keystone Street began about 4 p.m. when Thomas Paul Humenik, 25, crashed into his neighbor’s back yard and began firing at several women there, Burbank police said. Humenik pursued the women, all his neighbors, into the house, firing at them, said Burbank Police Lt. Chris Welker.

Welker said Humenik then fled in a 1970s-era white El Camino and was still at large Wednesday night.

“He was seen going into the house with a rifle and then seen leaving with a rifle,” Welker said.

Merle Boyd, 73, was pronounced dead at the scene and Sheila Young, 45, died about 7 p.m. at Holy Cross Hospital, authorities said.

Geraldine Correll, 70, was in good condition at Thompson Memorial Hospital in Burbank with a gunshot wound in a shoulder, authorities said. Elfriede Brauchle, 48, was treated at the scene for cuts from flying glass.

Less than two hours before the shootings, Humenik was convicted in Burbank Municipal Court of one charge of battery and sentenced to three years of probation and fined $830 for attacking Merle Boyd’s husband, Don, police said.

Don Boyd was standing on Humenik’s property Jan. 3 while trimming roses that border the two yards, when Humenik told Boyd to get back on his own property and then struck him, said Bill Vick, a neighbor who witnessed the incident and testified in the trial. Boyd, who is in his 70s, was knocked unconscious and received several cuts from falling into the bushes, Vick said.

After neighbors helped revive him, Boyd called police and filed a report, Vick said, which led to the battery charges.