Terror of Wounded Girl Heard on 911 Tape : Crime: 12-year-old was able to call for help after her throat was slashed. Her mother, daughter of an El Segundo city councilman, was killed.

Just as she had been taught, 12-year-old Ashley West called 911.

“I think I’ve been robbed and I have a hole in my neck,” she told a dispatcher, according to a dramatic tape of the frantic telephone conversation.

“I’m 12 years old,” she said softly, her voice trembling. “My mom . . . she has blood all over her.”

Ashley, whose throat had been slashed as she slept, survived and was released Thursday from UCLA Medical Center. But her mother, Tairree Lynne West, 25, the daughter of El Segundo Councilman Alan West, died in the savage attack.

Tairree West’s 6-month-old daughter, Carlie, was gagged by the attackers and left on a living room couch, police said. The officers said the infant, who apparently was not seriously injured, is being cared for by relatives.

Tairree West was remembered Thursday as a generous young woman who adopted Ashley, her best friend’s orphaned child, and who opened her El Segundo home to a homeless woman.

The homeless woman, Erica Olsen, 20, and Olsen’s boyfriend, Robert Brendan Foster, 18, were arrested a few hours after the attack when they drove up to the Hollywood YMCA in Tairree West’s car. Marcus Brewington, 19, and Linette Blocker, 18, were arrested early Thursday after extensive questioning by El Segundo detectives. All four were booked on suspicion of murder.

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A bloody, eight-inch knife was found at the scene, deputies said.

“The blade was in between the box spring and the mattress in Ashley’s bedroom and the handle of the knife was found in Tairree’s room,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy George Ducoulombier. “So they actually tried to conceal it.”

El Segundo police said they received a call about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday and heard the terrified voice of a whimpering child.

“I’ve been . . . been killed . . . I think I’ve been robbed and I have a hole in my neck and I’m 12 years old.”

“You’re 12 years old?” a male dispatcher asked.

“Yeah. And see, my mom . . . she has blood all over.”

A woman dispatcher broke in, speaking in gentle, reassuring tones.

“OK, honey?” the woman asked. “How did you get the hole? Did somebody stab you or shoot you?

“I don’t know.”

“What happened?

“I have no idea. . . . My mom has blood all over her leg. And I remember somebody hurting me. . . . It hurts really bad.”

The woman dispatcher quickly verified the child’s address and phone number and told her that help was on the way. Then she asked Ashley if her mother was breathing.

“I don’t know,” the girl answered. “I’m scared to look. . . . And my baby sister, I don’t know where she is, if she’s OK. Where are you? Hurry!”

“OK,” the dispatcher said, asking Ashley a moment later if she knew what had happened.

“I just, I remember somebody choking me,” Ashley said.

“Do you know who it was?

“I have a feeling it’s Robert, this person my mom knows. . . .”

A moment later, Ashley said she thought she was about to faint.

“Hang on,” the dispatcher said. “Can you do me a favor, sweetie?

“What?”

“I know this is really hard, but can you go check your mom? . . .”

“No. I can’t,” the girl said, beginning to sob.

“You’re gonna be all right,” the dispatcher said. “I’m here with you, all right?”

“OK,” Ashley said.

A few seconds later, the girl could be heard breathing heavily.

The dispatcher talked to her reassuringly, suggesting that she find a clean towel and hold it to her wound, which Ashley did.

“OK. Press on it,” the dispatcher said. “And just keep it there.”

Less than a minute later, police arrived and a man’s voice could be heard in the apartment.

“Is anybody else here?” the man asked.

Ashley began to sob hysterically.

“Is my mama, my mama . . . is she OK?” the girl asked him. “Is she OK?”

Police said they found Tairree West lying in a pool of blood in the ransacked apartment.

Tairree West was taken to Robert F. Kennedy Hospital, where she was pronounced dead about an hour later. Officials said that in addition to having slash wounds across her upper body, she apparently had been strangled.

Ashley, a sixth-grader at El Segundo Middle School, was taken to the hospital with a nine-inch gash from the top of her cheek to the middle of her throat. Police believe that the attackers had left her for dead.

Investigators said robbery was one apparent motive for the crime, and a simmering dispute over Foster’s spending the night at the West apartment was another.

“Ms. West did not want Robert around. She did not like him,” Ducoulombier said.

“Apparently Robert was very upset about that, so they had been having an ongoing dispute about him being around,” the deputy said. “He didn’t like that.”

Police said the four suspects will be formally charged when they appear in Inglewood Municipal Court on Monday.

Olsen had been living at Tairree West’s house in exchange for child care, investigators said. They said Foster and Brewington fit the description of men thought to be in the house at the time of the attack. The officers did not say how Blocker was connected to the crime.

Councilman West said his daughter had been trying to help Olsen--a recent dropout from El Segundo High School--”get back on her feet.”

His daughter was generous, he said, “sometimes to a fault.”

“She was too gentle and too trusting of everyone,” Alan West said. “She saw people down and out and she felt a strong need to help them.”

Ashley and Carlie are now staying with the councilman and his wife, Alene.

Despite her wounds, Ashley is “doing really well,” according to Steve West, Tairree’s brother. “She’s talking and walking around and eating ice cream.”

The girl’s friends at El Segundo Middle School have been undergoing special counseling since the attack, school officials said.

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Times staff writer Shawn Hubler and community correspondent Susan Woodward contributed to this story.