Woman’s Cries Were Ignored : Death: If residents at condo complex had called 911 sooner, 74-year-old may have survived attack, police say.

Neighbors in an exclusive condominium complex ignored a 74-year-old woman’s screams for help, only calling 911 nearly three hours later when the attacker apparently returned to kill her, police said.

By the time the call for help went out Wednesday morning, Helen D. Forkner was only minutes from death, at the hands of a man police identified as a laborer doing earthquake repairs around the Park Northridge development.

Although police didn’t want to blame anyone for the elderly woman’s death, “there’s a possibility the victim might have survived if someone had called the police earlier,” Lt. Kyle Jackson said.

Police said Forkner was attacked after 2 a.m. in what appeared to have been an attempted rape. The call to police came at 5:19 a.m., Jackson said. A short time later, he said, officers arrived at Forkner’s residence, which abuts a steep canyon in the Santa Susana Mountains.

Forkner’s naked body was found lying on the hillside beneath her balcony, Jackson said.

Officers arrested Mario Navarro, 26, as he walked away from the complex with blood on his clothes, Jackson said.

A neighbor in the condominium complex on Thursday admitted hearing screams hours before calling police. The man, a house guest who didn’t know who lived in Forkner’s unit, said he first assumed the screams were part of a domestic dispute between a husband and wife.

The house guest, who would not give his name, said he was awakened around 3 a.m. by a woman’s screams and a man’s shouts. Unable to decipher the exchange, he turned over and went back to sleep, he said.

He was awakened by more screams after 5 a.m., and woke his brother, asking whether the family in the nearby condo fought a lot. “That’s not a domestic dispute,” the house guest said his brother told him. “There’s just an old lady alone in there.”

“No she isn’t,” the house guest said. He heard the screams again and called 911.

“Had I known that it was an old lady by herself, the first time she screamed, I would have called 911,” the man said. “Hindsight’s 20/20. . . . Should I have asked the old lady if she lived there alone in case she was attacked one night? I feel bad enough already.”

Jackson said other neighbors told police they had heard suspicious noises. He said citizens have an obligation to report such noises to police.

“If you hear somebody being beaten . . . you don’t have a right to sit there,” Jackson said. “You have a community responsibility to make that phone call.”

Jackson said Navarro smashed the front window of Forkner’s condominium to get in, beat her with a blunt object and tried to sexually assault her.

Tests to determine whether Forkner was raped are not completed, Jackson said.

Police believe Navarro acted alone, though they have not ruled out the possibility that he was assisted by another man. Another day laborer was led away from the condominium complex Wednesday morning in handcuffs, neighbors said, but police released him after questioning and he was not considered a suspect.

Residents said police told them at a community meeting Wednesday night that it appeared Navarro had left the unit at one point--leaving Forkner alive--only to return around 5 a.m. with a can of paint thinner, possibly to set the building on fire. Jackson would not say why Forkner did not go for help when he left.

The house guest said that after he called 911, he looked outside and saw what looked like a white sheet on the balcony of Forkner’s house. Her body, which police said may have been pushed over the balcony, lay on the hillside for 12 hours until a search-and-rescue crew airlifted it out of the steep, tangled terrain.

Although Forkner was “significantly injured, significantly battered,” Jackson said an autopsy will be required to determine how she died. Police said they found a lot of blood inside her condominium.

The complex contains 195 units with grand views of the canyons and peaks of the Santa Susanas. Forty units are still vacant due to quake damage.

The killing prompted residents to complain about frequent late-night partying by earthquake repair workers who they said drink and take drugs in vacant units near Forkner’s.

One longtime resident, who called the complex a “keep-to-yourself community,” said he and many other dwellers were horrified to hear neighbors ignored Forkner’s screams.

“I think it’s terrible, atrocious,” said the man, who would not give his name. “It shouldn’t happen that way.”