‘90 Ventura Assault Case Still a Mystrey to Police : Crime: Michelle Green remembers little about an attack that left her brain-damaged. There have been no arrests.

At age 25, Michelle Green is hoping to walk again, and maybe remember the names of people she meets.

Three years ago today, Green was found in a Ventura alley, a wooden stake down her throat and cuts and bruises covering her body. Four months later, she emerged from a coma with permanent brain damage. As a result, she slurs her words, cannot walk and often forgets things she has just heard.

“I don’t remember much because I was hit here,” she said Tuesday, pointing to the scar tissue from the skin graft on her right temple. “Someone will tell me their name and five minutes later I’ll say, ‘Oh, what’s your name?’ ”

Green does remember growing up in Ventura and getting heavily involved in drugs as a teen-ager, sometimes stealing and selling her body to get money for drugs.

“I used to mix both cocaine and heroin, but mostly cocaine,” she said. “I would snort it, smoke it, shoot it.”

Police said Green’s drug background has made the case harder to solve.

“A large percentage of the individuals interviewed in this case have no credibility,” Sgt. Bob Anderson said. “Nobody knows what time it is. Nobody knows anybody’s last name.”

Green’s body was discovered May 5, 1990--a Saturday morning--by a man scavenging for aluminum cans. Naked from the waist down, Green was lying behind a dumpster in the 800 block of Poinsettia Place, an alley that runs behind several residences and two churches near downtown Ventura.

She had severe cuts, swelling and black eyes. The 2-by-4 she had been beaten with was nearby. “It was a weapon of convenience,” Anderson said.

Green said she remembers nothing about the attack or anything else from that night, except for telling someone: “Please stop.”

“Doctors tell me as far as her remembering the attack itself, she probably never will because it was so traumatic,” said Green’s mother, Paula Green.

Police interviewed more than 50 people and went door-to-door with a picture of Green, hoping to find someone who might have seen her that night.

A man whose home is next to the alley told police he heard screams about 2:30 a.m., but other residents said they heard nothing.

Although they have no witnesses, police do have an outline of Green’s activities the night she was attacked. Police learned Green and a male acquaintance checked into the Motel 6 on Harbor Boulevard that Friday evening, hours before the attack.

Paula Green said her daughter called her from there, talking of suicide and saying she wished she could get off drugs.

Later, Michelle Green and the male went to the City Center Motel on Thompson Boulevard hoping to buy drugs from two men there, according to police.

Green and the man got into an argument, and the man dropped her off near the corner of Kalorama Street and Thompson Boulevard, a short distance from the City Center Motel and where Green was found.

Police are unsure what happened from that point, although they have ruled out Green’s male friend as a suspect.

“I don’t believe she was walking that area and was accosted,” Anderson said. “She ran afoul with someone at a nearby location.”

Paula Green, 46, suspects her daughter returned to the motel and ran into trouble. The mother theorized: “I just feel like she took off running and they found her. They stuck a stick up her mouth so she wouldn’t scream.”

Anderson said the two men who were staying at the motel are considered possible suspects but said police lack evidence to make an arrest.

The youngest of three children, Michelle Green was raised by her mother after her father moved away when she was 3 years old. She remembers playing softball, going to the beach and participating in Girls Club activities.

“I had a good life. I was involved in a lot of activities,” she said.

But once she started using cocaine, she couldn’t stop. After graduating from DeAnza Middle School, she attended a continuation high school for several years before dropping out.

Now, Green lives at a convalescent home in the San Fernando Valley where most of the residents are elderly. Medi-Cal pays for her care. Among staff members, Green is known for her outgoing personality.

“She’s got a great sense of humor,” said Darlene Bane, director of admissions for the facility.

“Got to around here,” Green replied.

The room she shares with two other residents is filled with Cabbage Patch dolls, stuffed animals and board games. But Green said she misses Ventura and trips to the beach.

“I’d like to be around people my own age or closer to my age,” she said.

Paula Green thinks of her daughter daily and calls and visits when she can. She also checks with Ventura police several times a month, hoping something will break in the case.

“It’s just really hard,” she said, “knowing somebody could do that and get away with it.”