Investor and Gay Activist Is Slain in Home

A graveside funeral is scheduled Monday for Alan J. Schwalbe, a real estate investor and gay activist who was slain in his home this week.

Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Dick Olson refused to provide details of the killing. He declined to discuss whether police had found a murder weapon or established a possible motive.

Schwalbe’s friends and relatives said his body was discovered late Wednesday afternoon in a pool of blood in the kitchen of his Santa Ana Heights home while the water was running in the sink.

Schwalbe, 61, was an active member of various Democratic and gay organizations.

“He was certainly one of the pillars of the (gay) community when it came to financial support,” said Rus Calisch, a friend and fellow activist. “He extended a helping hand to anyone who needed it.”

Calisch and others said Schwalbe often hired homeless people to do maintenance on the various properties he owned around the county. Once a few years ago, recalled activist Jeff Laterno, Schwalbe offered his home to a stranger who was destitute and dying of AIDS.

Activists said Schwalbe was a fixture at black-tie fund-raising dinners for the Election Committee of Orange County and the Gay and Lesbian Center in Garden Grove. He was also involved in Laguna Outreach, an educational and cultural organization for gays and lesbians; the Eleanor Roosevelt Club for gay Democrats; Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Veterans of America, and Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Schwalbe, a member of the board of the Fair Housing Council of Orange County from 1975 to 1985, had in recent years been earning a living as a landlord of various properties in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

He taught history at Rea Elementary and TeWinkle Middle School in Costa Mesa, and at Corona del Mar High School in Newport Beach, from 1961 until 1974, when he was convicted of 11 counts of child molestation and resigned.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Carl Armbrust, who prosecuted the case, said Schwalbe hired two teen-age boys who were his students to help clean apartments he owned, then showed them pornographic movies and had sex with them at the empty apartments.

“It was a bizarre case, let’s put it that way,” he said. “It was one of the first cases in Orange County where a student and teacher were involved in sexual activity.”

Schwalbe was sentenced to six months in jail.

Graveside funeral services are scheduled for Monday at 1 p.m. in Mount Olive Memorial Park, 1625 Gisler Ave., Costa Mesa.