Man Obsessed With Victim, Friends Say

A Canoga Park man arrested on suspicion of stabbing his former girlfriend--a woman he shot in 1991--was described Sunday by family and friends as a family man with a dark obsession with his victim.

Ronald Dale Harden, 54, who was released from state prison a month ago, is accused of chasing down and stabbing Diane Pierce-Hamrick, 49, Saturday outside her apartment in the 8200 block of Owensmouth Avenue in Canoga Park, said Los Angeles Police Officer Vic Monroe.

Pierce-Hamrick remained in critical condition at a local hospital Sunday, police said.

Harden was arrested Saturday after he showed up at his sister’s house in Fontana covered with blood and with a stab wound to his leg, said Sgt. Terry Boess of the Fontana Police Department.

It was unclear how Harden was injured, Boess added.

Harden was treated and released at a local hospital before being arrested, Boess said. He is being held at Los Angeles County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail, authorities said.

Harden’s sister, Barbara La Clair, said Harden and Pierce-Hamrick had lived together for 20 years and raised Pierce-Hamrick’s three children and Harden’s two daughters.

“He was really a family man,” said La Clair, who added that Harden worked hard to support both his step- and natural children. “But then he just turned into this different personality.”

Don and Jean Smith of Canoga Park, longtime friends of Harden, said the couple’s rocky relationship initially ended in 1991.

Pierce-Hamrick “had a lot of problems and he was always there to help her,” said Jean Smith, a confidant of Harden’s. “They had a rough relationship in the end because she lost a son and her daughter was burned in a car accident.”

After the breakup, Smith said, Harden learned that Pierce-Hamrick was dating another man. Consumed with jealousy, he shot her.

Pierce-Hamrick recovered from her injuries and Harden was sent to prison, said Don Smith. While in prison, Harden kept in touch with the Smiths.

“He said he was tormented,” Jean Smith said. “He was having nightmares and dreaming of her in prison. He was obsessed with her.”

“He loved her and he hated her,” said Don Smith, who rented a room to Harden and worked with him at his construction business. “He just couldn’t let her go.”

Although Harden and Pierce-Hamrick were estranged while he was in prison, they attempted a reconciliation during Thanksgiving--despite a special restriction in Harden’s parole to stay away from Pierce-Hamrick, family and friends said.

“The parole office was very shocked that she would write a letter saying it was OK for him to come around her,” Don Smith said. “She opened the door for him and he took advantage of it.”

Police speculate that Pierce-Hamrick may have tried to end the relationship when Harden attacked her.

“He had another side to him,” Jean Smith said. “A dark side that was violent. I never saw it, but he spoke of it.”

“I loved him,” said Don Smith, “but I don’t condone any kind of violence. We feel responsible because he was here at our home. We had no idea what he was going to do.”