Neighbors Offer Information in Woman’s Death

Neighbors of a 50-year-old woman who was found bludgeoned to death in her bathrobe Friday in her hillside townhouse said the woman might have been killed late Wednesday night.

Police would only say Saturday that Marie Evans Powell had died of “blunt force trauma” to the upper body. She was discovered on the lower level of her two-bedroom townhouse in 22400 block of Caminito Tecate just before noon Friday by relatives alerted by her boss.

But Alice Bean, whose townhouse shares a wall with Powell’s, said she heard a loud thump against the wall shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday. A few moments later she heard the rustling of footsteps through the ivy outside the sliding-glass doors at the back of her home.

“It was a big thump,” Bean said.

But Bean said she didn’t think much of it because Powell was still in the process of fixing up her new place. “I thought maybe she was just moving stuff in.”

Powell, who was not known by any of her neighbors, had lived in the townhouse for about a month, neighbors said. But even in that short time, she had established a pattern that alerted neighbors to the fact that something was not right.

Bean said Powell, like others in the 914-unit complex, put her garbage cans out Wednesday night, then brought them back in Thursday morning.

Bean’s husband said hello to Powell about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday as she was putting the cans out. But when the couple left for work Thursday morning, the cans were still there, as they were that night and Friday morning.

“Usually she brings them in Thursday morning,” said Rob Sullivan, who lived two houses away.

Lorie Fisher said she last saw Powell sitting in her brightly lit living room about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“I saw her through my living room window. She was sitting in a chair,” Fisher said.

The next day, Fisher too wondered about the garbage cans and why Powell had left her garage door open Thursday and Friday, with her brown Mercedes parked inside. On Saturday, sheriff’s investigators were still sifting through the crime scene and were arranging to tow away the Mercedes.

“I’m a little shaken up,” said Fisher, who lived on the other side of Powell from Bean. “I leave my garage door open. I leave this other door open. I won’t anymore.”

Standing on her porch Saturday, Bean said she was a little nervous, especially after seeing a large, jagged rip in the screen on the sliding glass doors leading to Powell’s bedroom.

“It’s a quiet neighborhood--you don’t hear of many break-ins,” she said. “It’s strange.”

Many of Powell’s neighbors said Saturday that they felt sorry they had not known the small, red-haired woman who died in their midst. Most had seldom said little more than hello.

“I didn’t even know her name,” Bean said, standing on her porch. “We feel awful about that now.”