Jewelers on Edge After 2 Slayings : Crime: Pasadena police say a merchant in the city’s jewelry center and her 11-year-old son were shot to death after the woman’s husband tried to foil an armed robbery attempt.

Jewelers on Colorado Boulevard huddled in worried groups Friday, a day after robbers shot and killed a 39-year-old jewelry store owner and her 11-year-old son.

“We’re just across the street,” said one woman at the Pasadena Jewelry Mart, a large store with 17 merchants. “We might be the next target.”

Two doors away from City Jewelry, where the killings occurred, store owner Eric Vosgy did business wearing jeweler’s magnifying glasses on his head and a .38-caliber revolver strapped to his hip.

“If you have a gun, they think twice before they come in,” Vosgy said, referring to robbers.

Killed in Thursday night’s robbery was Kim Sieng Yu, 37, known as Ana by her customers and business associates. Yu was shot in the neck and chest.

Her son, Johnny, who was shot in the head, died shortly after 1 p.m. Friday in Huntington Memorial Hospital. Ana Yu and her husband, Ling, were co-owners of the store in the 400 block of East Colorado Boulevard.

Pasadena police are seeking two black men and an Anglo woman who left the crime scene in a four-door, dark-blue or black Mercedes-Benz. The car bore California license plates that began with 2GCZ or 2CGZ.

According to police, a man entered the store about 6 p.m., cased it and left. A second man did the same moments later.

At 6:15 p.m., the first man returned with the woman, pulled out a handgun and fired when Ling Yu pulled out a gun. The shots hit Ana Yu and her son. Ling Yu’s gun did not fire, police said. Officers did not know whether the robbers made off with any jewelry.

The Yus, who are of Chinese-Cambodian descent, had been in business about three years. Formerly, they operated out of the Pasadena Jewelry Mart across the street.

Merchants said Ana Yu, friendly and affable, appeared to run the business and wait on customers while her husband did loading and unloading of supplies. Vosgy said the couple employed a watchmaker and jeweler, neither of whom was harmed during the robbery.

Their three children, including 11-year-old Johnny, often spent time in the store. Johnny and his younger sister, Jennie, had been taking karate lessons for 11 months at Royal Martial Arts, a school down the street.

Johnny had earned a green belt and his sister a yellow, said school manager Larry Cuneo.

“He’d plop down there and watch his sister,” Cuneo said, pointing to a spot on the floor. “He’s a good kid. I really feel bad about it.”

Vosgy said he had urged the Yus to install a security gate similar to his that allows store owners to screen customers before letting them enter. He also had urged them to get a bigger gun.

“They had a small gun,” Vosgy said. “You can’t kill a bird with that gun.”

For downtown Pasadena’s small jewelry center, Thursday night’s shooting capped an increase in violence that merchants say has forced them to do business with one eye on their gems and another on violence in the street.

Vosgy, who has been on Colorado Boulevard for five years, was shot in the shoulder in 1991 and robbed of $70,000 worth of jewelry at gunpoint in 1992. Mart merchants told of an attempted robbery in 1988 and a successful parking lot robbery a few years later. In that robbery, two downtown Los Angeles suppliers who had just left the mart were stopped in a parking lot and two bags of jewelry were taken.

Although Pasadena Police Cmdr. Gary Bennett said the crime rate in that section of Colorado Boulevard is no higher than in other sections of the city, merchants remain worried.

“I put all my money in my business,” said Vincent Dao, 39, a jewelry mart merchant. “That’s why I have to be here all alone; my wife is working. It’s hard, very hard.”

On Friday, the locked doors of City Jewelry bore a red rose and a sympathy card with a pink silk flower, both taped there by sorrowful merchants along Colorado Boulevard.