Girl’s Shooting Called ‘Random Tragic Incident’ : Violence: Police find no motive for slaying of student as she sat in boyfriend’s car.

She was young, popular and not involved with gangs, so authorities figured Tuesday that 16-year-old Angela Lynn Wagner may have been shot to death for utterly no reason as she sat in a car.

“At this point it looks like a very tragic random incident,” said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Dan Martini.

Wagner, of San Clemente, was shot once in the chest about 6:45 p.m. Monday while sitting in the passenger’s side of her boyfriend’s car at an apartment complex in the 25000 block of Domingo Avenue here. At least a dozen deputies searched all night for clues, but Tuesday had made no arrests and knew of no motive, Martini said.

Wagner was the second San Clemente High School student to die violently in two months.

Steve Woods, 17, died last month, several weeks after he was speared through the head with the metal rod of a paint roller during an attack at Calafia County Beach Park, where he and friends had gone to hang out after a high school football game. Six youths, alleged members or associates of a San Clemente gang, face charges of murder and assault in the case.

Many students broke into tears when administrators went from class to class Tuesday morning with news of the latest tragedy. At least 25 classmates met with counselors who were called to the school to help students deal with the killing.

There was remembrance of a friend, a sophomore, who was suddenly gone.

“She was really, really funny,” said one friend, a freshman who asked that her name not be used. “She was always joking around about everything.”

Another student said, “Now we’re all closer together because we don’t know who will be next.”

Principal Christopher Cairns said, “No one should have to be dealing with this kind of thing.”

Distraught family members declined to comment Tuesday.

Investigators said there is nothing to indicate that the girl or her boyfriend, a 17-year-old from Mission Viejo whom authorities would not identify, had any ties to gangs.

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The shooting occurred while Wagner sat in her boyfriend’s 1980 Honda Civic in front of the apartment complex, where the boyfriend had gone to pick up an item from a family friend, Martini said. The window of the car was open, he said.

When the boyfriend, whom authorities called “a critical witness,” returned to his car, a dying Wagner told him she was having trouble breathing and quickly lost consciousness, Martini said.

Wagner was later pronounced dead at Samaritan Medical Center in San Clemente, just down the hill from where she lived with her father and a younger brother.

An autopsy was conducted Tuesday, but coroner’s officials refused to release any findings. Authorities did not reveal whether the girl had been shot at close range or possibly hit by a wayward bullet.

Many residents at the blue, two-story Domingo Apartments near an Interstate 5 off-ramp in Dana Point were at home at the time of the shooting and either heard the shot or saw the girl’s companion frantically running through the 24-unit complex yelling, “Call 911!”

Gwen Kerbs said she looked out the sliding glass door from her second-story apartment and saw the victim lying on the pavement, then being taken to the hospital by paramedics.

“It’s really sad,” said Kerbs, 50, a mother of three and resident of the complex for six years. “You could see her face in the ambulance. I could tell she was really young and I thought, ‘Oh, my God.’ ”

Kerbs said the boyfriend was a former resident of the complex and his mother still babysits for families there.

Sam Romero, property manager of the low-income housing complex operated by the Orange County Community Housing Corp., said that the complex is usually free of crime and that residents are mainly families. An estimated 80 children of all ages live in the apartments, one tenant said.

“The people are very concerned about this,” said Romero, voicing a sentiment that was echoed not only by residents but my law enforcement officers.

“Violence is everywhere, it’s absolutely everywhere,” said Sheriff’s Lt. Paul Ratchford, chief of police services in Dana Point. “It’s just a sad commentary on our society.”