Elderly Woman Details Stabbing Attack by Teen

In chilling detail, a 75-year-old woman described to a Municipal Court jury Thursday how a 17-year-old neighbor she let into her house to use the telephone robbed, choked and stabbed her, then left her handcuffed under her sink when she told him she was dying.

Edith Rose of Reseda testified that after being strangled by Eric Serin with an extension cord, she lost consciousness, and when she came to, he asked: “Why don’t you die?”

Rose, a small, soft-spoken woman, was the first witness in Serin’s trial for first-degree attempted murder. She steadily described her ordeal on Dec. 29, 1994, during which she was stabbed about 20 times.

Serin’s attorney, Ira Salzman, said he expected the jury to convict Serin of robbery and burglary, but that “Eric’s conduct, serious as it is, is less than first-degree [attempted] murder.”

Rose testified that Serin, now 18, rode his bicycle past her house several times before the attack, stopping to compliment her on her gardening. That afternoon, she testified, he intercepted her leaving home and asked to use her phone, claiming to have a “terrible emergency.”

“I thought he was just somebody’s thoughtful child,” she testified. Rose let him in and offered him a glass of water. After ostensibly placing a call, Serin went into Rose’s bathroom and emerged pointing what appeared to be a handgun at her.

Rose testified that she realized the gun was fake, charged Serin and knocked it from his hand. But, Rose said, her assailant handcuffed her hands together in front of her and pulled a long knife from his waistband. He cut Rose on the finger and back of the neck as they grappled in the hall and kitchen, she said.

“We were up and down that kitchen quite often, and I know I kicked and I bit and I did my thing,” she said. Before choking her, she testified, Serin grabbed her purse and after finding only $8 in her wallet, he forced her to write a $2,000 check to “Eric Lercin.”

After she blacked out and came to, Rose testified, Serin moved her to the living room. “He came up alongside of me,” she said, “and felt my rib cage, and pushed the knife in, and went up and down with it.”

Rose testified that she told Serin to leave so she could die in peace. He did so after first handcuffing her to her refrigerator and, when she complained of pain, moving her under the sink, she said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Patricia Doyle said Serin disconnected the telephones and alarm system before leaving.

Minutes later, Ed Russell, a longtime friend, called to Rose from outside the house. She told him to call 911 and break down the front door.

“Her face looked just like a piece of raw hamburger,” Russell testified.

Rose said one of the last things she remembers was the ambulance ride to Northridge Hospital Medical Center. “They hit every bump on the way.” She said she still suffers pains in her side and has had fluid drained from her lungs three times since the attack.

Rose’s brother, John Schock, 68, said his sister moved back into her house about a month after the attack.

“That guy found out, he ran across a tiger,” he said. “That’s her castle.”