SIMI VALLEY : 2 Slain by Father Get Legal Name Change

The widow of a Simi Valley man who killed their two children and then himself on Father’s Day won a legal name change Tuesday for herself and her dead son and daughter.

With a stroke of the pen, Ventura County Superior Court Judge William L. Peck removed murderer Larry Sasse’s name from the name of Sasse’s widow, Debra, and restored her maiden name--Forrester.

Then, in an apparently unprecedented ruling, Peck legally changed the names of her dead children to Breanna Forrester and Michael Forrester.

It was the first time a Ventura County judge had legally changed the name of a dead person, said Gary Nevers, the Westlake attorney who represents Debra Forrester.

“I could not find any case [in the law books] in which this has occurred,” Nevers said. “Nor any case which said it could not be done. Judge Peck was willing to sign the order despite the fact that it was very unusual, and we appreciate that.”

The $182 name-change documents will be recorded at the California secretary of state’s office so that Debra Forrester can legally use the Forrester name for herself or her deceased children on any paperwork in the future.

“I’m ecstatic,” Debra Forrester said Tuesday. “I’m glad something has gone my way.”

Forrester was left widowed and childless June 19 when Sasse, apparently distraught over his broken marriage, shot 4-year-old Breanna and 3-year-old Michael in the head, then killed himself.

Within days, she acted to sever herself and her children from the man who she said killed her family in retaliation for her request for a divorce.

“‘When the kids were killed, I was determined to do this. It’s already on the headstone as Forrester,” she said. “I don’t want any reference to their so-called father. I wanted to change that name and forget it ever existed.”