Mother’s Slaying Confirms Neighbors’ Fears : Crime: Woman’s daughter, who was arrested in the case, was often seen in confrontations with victim, Dana Point residents say.

A mother-daughter relationship that neighbors described as combative may have culminated in a killing that Monday seemed to confirm the worst fears of residents in what has been called “the friendliest neighborhood” in Dana Point.

Susann E. Graham, 46, whom Orange County sheriff’s deputies arrested Sunday on suspicion of stabbing to death her roommate and mother, Ruby W. Baer, 76, often fought with her mother in confrontations that neighbors observed.

“As soon as I saw the yellow [police] tape, I knew,” said Claudette Cain, 41, recalling how she witnessed an incident about three years ago in which Graham provoked Baer in a highly visible, verbal confrontation.

“The daughter just went off,” Cain said. “She just started screaming. She said she was going to go sleep in a park, and she did. I told my kids to stay away from her.”

Cain said that a terribly distraught Baer later found her daughter sleeping in the park, adding that the mother “was always bailing her out of situations.”

In what police described as a bizarre twist to the slaying, investigators found Graham at Dana Point Harbor around 4:30 p.m. Sunday, missing the little toe on her right foot, Sheriff’s Lt. Ron Wilkerson said Monday.

Graham’s toe was later found, Wilkerson said, on the floor of her mother’s kitchen.

Sheriff’s deputies had originally responded to a call from the Orange County Fire Authority, whose medical-rescue team had been summoned to the harbor area late Sunday afternoon, Wilkerson said.

The deputies encountered Graham, who had puncture wounds and cuts on her left upper chest. Wilkerson said deputies initially believed she was an assault victim.

“She also indicated to investigators that her mother might be hurt,” Wilkerson said. “Deputies went to their address [in the 32000 block of Danapoplar Street in Dana Point] and found her lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.”

The neighborhood, Dana Woods, is a neatly manicured enclave of about 250 homes that a local newspaper, the Dana Point News, recently described as the “Friendliest Neighborhood in Dana Point.”

Graham was taken to Samaritan Medical Center in San Clemente, where she was treated and released. She was then booked into the Orange County Jail, where Monday she was being held on suspicion of murder on $250,000 bail.

Police had no record of Graham being arrested before, and Wilkerson declined to comment on statements by neighbors that the suspect had a history of strange behavior.

Neighbors described Baer as a “pleasant old lady” who mostly kept to herself except for frequent walks around the block with her small dog. Over the years, Graham lived with her mother off and on, neighbors said, and had only recently moved back in.

“She was somehow psychologically challenged--and that’s probably why they lived together,” neighbor Steve Burns said.

Baer purchased her home in 1988 for $220,000, according to Orange County property records. She was listed as sole owner.