CRIME AND THE ELDERLY OF L.A. : Violence in the Autumn of Life : ARTEMISA GUERRERO : 'People walking down the street, she would open the doors to her apartment to them'

CRIME AND THE ELDERLY OF L.A. : Violence in the Autumn of Life : ARTEMISA GUERRERO : ‘People walking down the street, she would open the doors to her apartment to them’

By JOHN HURST

Oct. 24, 1994 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

The late Cesar Chavez once called her “grandmother to the farm workers.”

Artemisa Guerrero devoted her life to helping the poor, the downtrodden, the despised.

At the age of 68--suffering from arthritis, seizures and a once-broken hip that left her with a limp--she nevertheless made regular rounds to produce markets and food banks, anywhere to scrounge groceries for farm workers, church organizations, poor neighbors and the homeless.

Guerrero had few worldly possessions. She survived on a small pension from work as a retail clerk. Her old car had long since burned out. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment in a dreary complex next to the Pomona Freeway in Monterey Park.

Still, her door was always open to the poor.

“Even homeless people that she saw walking down the street, she would open the doors to her apartment to them,” said Maria Valenzuela, manager of the apartments. “She would let them stay over.” Guerrero often failed to lock her home and ignored warnings of family and friends that, like many elderly people, she was too trusting.

“She would just let anybody in her apartment,” said Rosie Rodriguez, former manager of the complex. “I always told her not to do it.”

Last year, on the morning of June 17, Guerrero was up early as usual. She was supposed to meet a friend who often drove her to pick up food for the poor. When Guerrero didn’t show up, her friend went to the apartment where so many of the needy had been welcomed.

Guerrero lay in a pool of blood in the ransacked bedroom. She had been strangled and repeatedly stabbed. Her body showed evidence of sexual molestation. Sheriff’s detectives have no suspects.

If Guerrero had realized that trustfulness and generosity could lead to death, would she have been more cautious and less giving?

Her daughter, Ruby Medrano, did not hesitate with an answer: “I don’t think she would have changed a thing.”