Purse-Snatching Case May Become Homicide as Victim Dies

Sheriff’s investigators Tuesday launched an investigation into the death of an elderly woman who succumbed Tuesday from injuries she suffered during a purse snatching.

Theresa Bean, 82, of Dana Point died Tuesday at 5:40 a.m. at Laguna Beach’s South Coast Medical Center, Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson said. An autopsy revealed that Bean died of blood clots, which sheriff’s investigators believe she suffered during a fall May 21 as her purse was taken in a Dana Point shopping center.

Because of the woman’s death, Olson said the case is now being treated as a homicide after initially being carried as a purse snatching.

“It’s the first one (case) I’ve seen like this,” he said.

The lieutenant said the elapsed time has given the suspected murderers time to hide or leave the area and “makes it difficult for investigators because there was no one apprehended at the time of the initial incident,” Olson said.

Immediately after the morning robbery at 34099 Doheny Park Road, in which Bean’s purse and $100 were allegedly stolen, she was taken to Samaritan Medical Center-San Clemente. At the hospital, she told investigators that a woman knocked her to the ground, causing a large cut on her right forearm and hand and another laceration on her forehead, Olson said.

Bean apparently suffered many of her injuries after refusing to let go of her purse as the thief tried to wrest it from her grip, said her friend and neighbor, Ruth Segaser, who spoke with Bean several times at the hospital.

After the purse-snatching, witnesses told investigators that a woman with blonde hair, between 20 and 30 years old, and a mustachioed man with reddish-brown hair drove from the shopping center parking lot in a large, white four-door Cadillac, Olson said.

Four days after the robbery, Bean’s purse was recovered near Oceanside after investigators received an anonymous telephone call. The caller told authorities that the purse had been thrown from a car by a man with a mustache. The caller said the man reportedly threw the purse at a road worker.

Segaser, who lives next door to Bean’s El Encanto Avenue home, said her friend’s death was unexpected.

Segaser said Bean’s husband, Ray, “told me she was doing fine and that maybe she could come home in a week. I just don’t believe it.”