Slain Jogger Mourned as Fear Comes to Safe Haven

Vern Chinen never met his neighbor Jane Carver. Even as he dropped off a sympathy card to her grieving relatives, Chinen wasn’t sure of the name.

But such distinctions mattered little Monday as Chinen joined a parade of strangers who came bearing cards and flowers and tried to shed their disbelief by viewing firsthand the sidewalk where Carver was shot dead Saturday while jogging in broad daylight near her home in this Orange County community.

The Carvers are familiar fixtures within the quiet enclave off Warner Avenue; their house sits prominently just off Mt. Marcus Street, and residents often saw Jane Carver jogging.

“Even though we don’t know them, it’s like you do because you see them every day,” Chinen said.

Just around the corner on Warner Avenue, a string of visitors dropped off bouquets all day at the spot where Carver, a 46-year-old United Airlines flight attendant and mother of two, was gunned down. The shooting has confounded police and residents alike.

Orange County Supervisor Roger Stanton, who lives about half a mile away and whose sons played high school baseball with Carver’s older son, Cliff, said the slaying was painful for a community accustomed to tranquillity.

“Over the years, we have come to believe that we live in an island, untouched by the violence we see on the 11 o’clock news. And it’s heart-wrenching when something like this happens,” Stanton said.

“We are all broken up about this.”

Carver’s family members gathered Monday inside their two-story home. At lunchtime, her son Cliff walked out to the site of his mother’s murder and knelt weeping before the spread of roses, carnations, daffodils and daisies.

Another relative gave thanks for the community’s compassion.

“It’s great, all the support we’ve been getting,” said Jane Carver’s brother-in-law, also named Cliff. “It’d be nice if the police catch the person and maybe there would be closure.”

Police investigators were sorting through more than 100 tips from callers after a sketch of a lone male suspect was released Sunday. About 12 officers have been assigned to work around the clock to solve the killing, said police Lt. Bob Mosley. But detectives still have no motive and no suspects.

“We can’t make any sense of it,” Police Chief Elvin G. Miali said. “We’re trying everything, and we can’t find a rhyme or reason to this.”

The shooting took place as Carver was finishing her jog about 8 a.m. Saturday. She was approached by a motorist as she rounded the turn onto Mt. Marcus Street just a quarter of a block from her house and directly across the street from Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center. Police said she was shot in the face and pronounced dead at the hospital.

Witnesses saw the assailant get into his car, make a U-turn and drive through the neighborhood to Euclid Street, police said. The gunman was described as a black man, 30 to 40 years old, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 145 to 150 pounds.

The killing spread a cloud of unease over a neighborhood where residents keep an eye out for out-of-place cars and the biggest worry about crime had been teen-agers drinking beer at a nearby park.

“It’s like it’s a safe house,” said Mike Simmons, who for 10 years has lived on Heil Avenue not far from where Carver was gunned down.

“Here you have Santa Ana just a couple blocks over and all the violence they have over there. For some reason it hasn’t flowed over here . . . because the community hasn’t let it,” said Simmons, an unemployed medical technician. “The violence is here now.”

Fountain Valley Councilwoman Laurann Cook said she was on her usual morning walk Monday--two miles from where Carver was killed--when she heard a car approach from behind.

“I was nearing home, just as she was,” Cook said. “I felt . . . an uneasy feeling in my stomach until the car passed by. This has certainly made you more cautious when you’re out and about, and that angers me, that residents have to feel that apprehension.”

Lt. Mosley, who commanded police in the area from 1992 to 1994, said typical calls for help are for burglaries and car break-ins.

“People there are just not accustomed to this type of thing happening,” he said. “It’s really a shock to their psyche.”