2 Mothers’ Lives Torn by Death

“Gangs exist from lack of parental guidance, they don’t find the confidence or friendship that they need in their father or mother. These kids call this home, being in a gang.”

--From a class essay by Andy Villanueva

*

A wound no bigger than a fingernail killed Andrew Villanueva, the 46th victim of gang violence in the San Fernando Valley this year. He joined more than 50 others killed in 1995--so many deaths that several never made the newspaper or TV news.

Andy, 17, was shot when he accidentally drove onto a North Hollywood street claimed by a gang. The bullet left a small, oval-shaped hole in his back, before piercing his heart and lungs.

In a school assignment found after his death, he argued how the horror of this violence can only be measured by the devastation of those left behind: Their parents are the ones that take it hard. They suffer more than the gangsters because it is hard to lose a son.

And of his attackers, Andy wrote: Society is fed up with these gangsters. Nobody likes them, and most people fear them.

His loss is worth examining on this last day of the year, with gang violence on the rise after a respite during 1994. Andy left behind two women, both of whose lives were changed forever by his death.

One, as he foretold, is his mother. The other, in jail awaiting trial, is charged with his murder.

“There is nothing else that is going to replace her son, ever,” said Debra Ann Rekdahl, a 30-year-old mother of two, accused in the drive-by shooting.

*

On Christmas morning, Efigenia Villanueva went to the cemetery behind the San Fernando Mission with her husband and three remaining children. Andy’s grave site is marked by a flat stone that reads “A Nuestro Amado Hijo--” To Our Beloved Son.

“I bought this last year through the church,” she said quietly, gesturing toward the plot. “I got it for my husband and me. But my son, he didn’t like that I bought it.”

Andy, by all accounts, never took much in life very seriously, except his family. He was a big guy--6 feet, 11 inches and 260 pounds--a perfect size for Santa, whom he played with gusto on past Christmas mornings, passing out presents to the family.

He loved to tease, play practical jokes and roughhouse with his brothers and father. He was not a good student, but never missed a day of school. From the time he was 15, he always had a job, first helping a cake decorator in a Jewish bakery, then later as a bank clerk.

He had never been in trouble with police.

Effie Villanueva leaned down to keep her 10-month-old daughter, Jennifer, from snatching the ornaments off a miniature Christmas tree placed at the grave.

“I never thought this would be for him,” she said.

*

For Rekdahl, Christmas was much like any other day since she arrived at Sybil Brand Institute to await trial. She admits driving the car used in the shooting but maintains she is innocent of any wrongdoing. Rekdahl said she had no idea that an acquaintance in the back seat was armed, or that he was a well-known gang member.

Rekdahl, who also has children--two sons, ages 5 and 8--said she cannot imagine what it would be like to lose one.

She was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, graduating from Hoover High School in Glendale. She married at age 19.

“I was very young,” said Rekdahl, sitting with her lawyer at the jail. She was wearing an orange-colored shift with the words “L.A. County Jail” adorning the front and back.

The Rekdahls divorced in 1994, sharing custody of their children. She worked for a medical billing company and made extra money working nights as a cocktail waitress at a pool hall.

“It was a nice setting, it wasn’t dirty or anything like that,” Rekdahl said of her night job. “I wanted to make money to go back to school to be a surgical tech.”

According to court records, she had no prior arrests. “I had never been in trouble, never,” she said.

She also said she never used drugs and never associated with gang members. “I’d never hang out with those kind of people.”

While in jail, Rekdahl has lost more than 10 pounds, and sometimes cries uncontrollably.

“I know this has been very hard on my father,” she said. “I’m Daddy’s girl.”

*

Effie and Placido Villanueva married in Mexico in 1976, and then rented a modest house in Beverly Hills, near the private club where Placido worked. She found a job in a bakery.

Andy was born a year later. “He used to say, ‘I was born in Beverly Hills, so what?’ ” Effie recalled with a smile, sitting in the living room of the two-bedroom, North Hollywood house they bought nine years later.

His mother said Andy was a good-natured child who loved to sing in his parents’ native Spanish. But she insisted he also learn English.

“If you are in America, you have to speak English,” she said. She believes strongly in education, and despaired that her son was such a lackluster student.

“He was so lazy,” she said. “In school, he was the clown, always making everyone laugh, even the teachers. They all loved him, but he was always getting in trouble.”

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “He had a good heart,” she said.

Andy did better outside of school. At age 15 he began working for baker Jacob Evron, and on weekends, Andy kept baker’s hours. “Everyone said, you’ll never get a kid to get up at 3 in the morning and come to work,” said Evron, standing behind the counter of the North Hollywood bakery where he works.

“But he did it. Whenever I needed him, he was there.”

Evron was fond of the teenager, who was big in size, but “inside, a pussycat.” And he said Andy had no trouble fitting into the atmosphere of the Jewish bakery.

“We had more in common than I do with the Gentiles,” Evron said. “Maybe because we’re both minorities.”

*

The day Andy died, Saturday, Sept. 30, was unseasonably warm, with Santa Ana winds pushing temperatures into the 90s. The Simpson case had just gone to the jury, and the Dodgers clinched the National League West Division title.

In the afternoon, Effie Villanueva was in a rush, getting ready for a friend’s 25th wedding anniversary celebration at her church. Andy, she said, was planning to do laundry.

Later, he would go to a rehearsal for an upcoming quinceanera, the ceremonial 15th birthday party for Latinas. Andy was in charge of teaching the boys a traditional dance.

“They had a practice ever Saturday since August for that one party,” she said. “It’s important, like a bar mitzvah.”

Effie Villanueva asked Andy to pick up a prescription for a sick friend, then she went to the church.

“It was the last time I saw him,” she said.

For Rekdahl, Saturday was a day off work. She was living at her grandmother’s in North Hollywood for three weeks, having just moved from Eagle Rock. Her children were at her ex-husband’s house.

Rekdahl said that evening, she walked up the street to visit a woman she met shortly after moving to the neighborhood.

In the meantime, Andy had finished the rehearsal and met a group of friends planning to attend a different quinceanera party later that evening. He was in good spirits, proud of his role in teaching others the traditional dance.

“We were laughing, joking around,” said a friend of Andy’s who was with him that night. “Andy was at a good time in his life. He had a good job, he was trying to finish school.”

Shortly after 10 p.m., Andy and five friends, divided between two cars, came to the intersection of Whitnall Highway and Cahuenga Boulevard, confused about directions to the party. They turned onto Cahuenga.

At this point, the accounts given by Rekdahl and the police diverge.

Rekdahl said after talking with her friend, she decided to drive to a liquor store for snacks and drinks.

She and another neighborhood woman got into Rekdahl’s white Range Rover and, after driving a short distance, they picked up an acquaintance, Ernesto Luera. Rekdahl said he wanted a ride to the store.

Los Angeles Police Det. Mark Aragon said Rekdahl and Luera were standing near the intersection of Whitnall and Cahuenga when Andy and his friends got there. He described Luera as a longtime gang member. “They were hanging out there with members of Luera’s gang,” Aragon said.

At that point, Andy and his friends realized they had made a wrong turn.

“We turned the corner and a gangster yelled something,” said the friend, who was afraid to have his named used. “Someone in the car said, ‘They’re chasing us, they’re chasing us!’ ”

They sped away in a panic.

“I ducked down,” the friend said. “I heard gunshots.”

Aragon said he does not know who fired the first shot. But the car that gave chase, he said, was Rekdahl’s Range Rover. “Luera and this gal got in her vehicle, and chased them down and shot them,” Aragon said.

Rekdahl denies the chase or knowing that Luera was carrying a gun. She said Villanueva and his friends were parked near the corner as she drove past. “As soon as we go by them, the next thing I hear [Luera] yell out something, and I hear a shot.”

At first, she said, she thought someone was shooting at her car. “But when I turned, I saw the second flash come from my car. I realized it was him.”

Rekdahl said she has no memory of what happened next. “I totally blacked out after the second shot,” she said. “I don’t remember anything that happened after that point for, like, 15, 20 minutes.

“Next thing I remember was the lights from the police car.”

The police stopped Rekdahl’s car using the description given by Andy’s friends. She was arrested, and Luera was picked up in Burbank the next day.

Andy was the only one shot. He was taken to Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, and at three minutes past midnight, pronounced dead.

*

Rekdahl and Luera have both been charged with murder and attempted murder. They have been unable to post the approximately $2-million bail set for each. Luera is at Pitchess Detention Center. His lawyer, a public defender, turned down a request for an interview.

Rekdahl is confined to her cell except for one hour a day, when she showers and calls friends and family. On weekends she is allowed visitors--her parents usually come on Saturdays and her grandmother on Sundays.

Her boys were brought to see her twice. “That is the hardest time I have,” she said, “because I cry so hard when they leave.”

She said she tells them to expect her home, soon. “I’ve been upfront and honest with them,” she said. “I tell them the police are trying to get all the information together.”

In the meantime, her ex-husband is seeking sole custody.

Effie Villanueva has her family, friends, church members and work mates for support. But there is little comfort.

“We raised a good son,” she said, regretting she did not compliment him more.

“I was always telling him, ‘You are so lazy.’ Sometimes I tell him that I recognize he is very responsible, very loyal. But I never say, ‘You are the best.’ Now that he is not here with me anymore, I say I am very proud of him. Very.”

She tried to hold back the tears as she spoke so she would not upset her sons--Ralph, 13, and Alex, 11. “I try not to, but sometimes I can’t help it,” she said. “Especially when I remember a funny thing he said, when I see his clothes.”

Then the tears came. Ralph and Alex sat quietly, looking at their mother, unable to help.

“When a child loses his parents, God has a name for that--orphan,” Effie Villanueva said. “And when a woman loses her husband, God gave a word--widow. But when a mother loses a child, God has no name for that, because it is too painful.”