Killers Staked Out Shop of the Victim, Witnesses Believe

The day after a 50-year-old mother of three was slain in a brazen, daylight shooting inside her family’s music store, witnesses said Sunday they believe her killing is linked to two men who seemed to be staking out the business.

Police have so far made no arrests in the death of Piedad Preciado, who was gunned down in her family’s Spanish-language music store near the busy Alpha Beta shopping center on South Bristol Street.

Investigators say two men armed with a handgun walked into the Discoteca Guadalajara at about 10 a.m. Saturday, shot Preciado in the head during an apparent robbery, then fled. After the shooting, Preciado staggered from the store and collapsed in front of Mr. Mel’s barbershop next door in full view of several witnesses. She was taken to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach where she was pronounced dead, police said.

Some witnesses told police that they saw two men running from the store, which has been repeatedly hit by crime in recent years, about the time Preciado was killed.

In interviews Sunday, the same witnesses said they had seen the same two men parked outside the music shop the day before the murder.

Barber Mel Scafferty, who was washing a customer’s hair when Preciado crumpled against his window, said the men appeared to be staking out the businesses in the strip mall.

Scafferty said he grew suspicious when he spotted the two men loitering near a trash bin behind his shop Friday morning. He asked his son, Mark, to investigate.

The men eventually left, and Scafferty said he didn’t bother to call the police because the men weren’t doing anything illegal.

The next day, Saturday, at about 9:15 a.m. he said he recognized the same car--a cream-colored hatchback, a late 1960s or early 1970s model, parked out back.

“She was such a sweet, strong worker,” Mel Scafferty said. “I don’t think she ever took a day off.”

The Preciados owned a video store in the same strip mall and another music store downtown, he said.

But it was the Discoteca Guadalajara that seemed to attract criminals.

“She (Piedad Preciado) was starting to get more and more afraid,” said one woman who said she had known Preciado for several years. “Nowadays, you never know. People will shoot you over $1.”

Five years ago, according to Scafferty, thieves sawed a hole through the roof of the shop and made off with all of the guitars inside. On another occasion, burglars blew a hole in the wall and cleaned out the inventory.

Then once last year, he said, a man robbed one of the clerks at gunpoint.

Authorities said they have had problems tracing suspects, mainly because the physical description of the loiterers varies widely.

Throughout much of the day Sunday, Preciado’s husband, Ruben, and their three adult children sought spiritual comfort at the Preciado’s Catholic church in Anaheim.

Family friends labored somberly at the shop, scrubbing blood-splattered walls and countertops with ammonia.

Family members could not be reached Sunday at their Santa Ana home.