Philanthropist Dies Mysteriously at Home

Los Angeles police detectives are searching for someone who might have been involved in the death of a prominent Toluca Lake woman who was found in her home Monday evening shortly after calling a neighbor for help, authorities said Tuesday.

The death of Christine Harriet Bireley, 79, who lived in the area for almost six decades and whose foundation gave millions to charities, is being investigated as a homicide, according to Los Angeles police detectives. They say her telephone lines may have been tampered with shortly before she died.

A preliminary autopsy indicated that Bireley suffered a heart attack soon after her telephone line went dead while she was speaking to her next-door neighbor, police said.

“We don’t know what caused the heart attack,” said Los Angeles Police Det. Mike Coffey of the North Hollywood Division. “Maybe fear. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”

Bireley’s neighbor of 30 years, Ralph Sorrentino, said she had called him on Monday evening to check on whether a cable television repair worker had arrived at the front of her house.

“I walked out with my portable phone in my hand and I noticed her garage door was open--that was very unusual,” Sorrentino said, adding that he didn’t see any trucks or workers in the area. “All of a sudden, we got cut off.”

Sorrentino said he was unsure whether Bireley had told him that a cable company worker was in her home or was coming to her home. But she said the worker wanted to get into her basement, located at the rear of her garage, Sorrentino said.

When the line went dead, Sorrentino said he went back inside his home, thinking that the portable had disconnected because of the rainy weather, and tried to call Bireley several more times. There was no answer.

He went to her door and said he could hear Bireley talking. Then, he said, he heard “three loud thumps.” She never answered the door.

Sorrentino said he rushed home and called police, who discovered Bireley in the front room of her ranch-style home.

Nothing appeared missing from the home and there were no signs of forced entry but the telephone lines had been tampered with, police said. The garage door apparently had been opened by Bireley, using a remote control in her house, police said.

Police impounded a white Pontiac Trans Am that had been parked in the neighborhood on and off for several days. Police said they found nothing of a suspicious nature in the car, but they believe the owner could have valuable information for the investigation.

“We are looking for someone who was involved in all that activity outside of her house,” Coffey said.

As the tow truck was about to pull the car away Tuesday, a neighbor, Jo Ann Sykes, told police that she saw the car’s driver leaving in a blue truck with a woman and they had not been seen all day.

Police said the car’s owner probably works in the neighborhood, where several homes are being remodeled.

Family and close friends who gathered at Bireley’s spacious home on Valley Spring Lane said they were mystified and saddened by her death.

“We’re still trying to figure out what happened,” said Fred Arndt, Bireley’s older brother. “We just don’t know what happened.”

Bireley, known as Harriet, lived alone in the home that adjoins the Lakeside Country Club golf course. When she moved to the Valley Spring Lane home, she was one of just three residents in the area.

She served as president of the nonprofit Bireley Foundation--a charitable organization formed after her husband’s death in 1960. The foundation gave $3.4 million to Childrens Hospital Los Angeles over many years, including a $15,000 grant in 1962 that allowed the hospital to begin its adolescent medicine program, a hospital spokesman said. Bireley also served on the hospital’s board for 10 years and remained an active member of the Toluca Guild, a philanthropic group.

The foundation gave money to many local hospitals and to Brigham Young University in Utah, where two of her three children live. Another son, Frank Bireley, lives in Florida.

“She was a nice, generous woman,” said Betty Bireley, Frank’s wife. “She always said ‘Don’t waste the money, don’t give me plaques--spend the money for what it’s intended.’ ”

Bireley, who was of Dutch birth, came to the United States at age 8. At 19 she married Frank Bireley, who was nearly 20 years her senior. They moved to Toluca Lake, which was then surrounded by citrus trees, and were friends with Amelia Earhart, who lived down the street, relatives and friends said.

Her husband founded two companies, including a soft drink firm that sold a noncarbonated orange beverage he created, and a juice manufacturing business based on two machines he invented that extract juice from citrus.

Ernest Baldwin, a Glendale attorney who has represented the family for 35 years, said Frank Bireley was wildly successful at a young age, quitting Stanford University before graduating because of his business acumen.

Bireley had nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

“Harriet never wanted to go into retirement,” Baldwin said. “She was very active, saw a lot of people, did a lot of things.”

Bireley was the unofficial neighborhood historian, according to neighbors, telling stories about the area at bimonthly coffee gatherings. “She was a wealth of information,” Sykes said.

Bireley, who hadn’t driven a car for years, had been robbed a dozen years ago and more recently was mugged in front of her house. During the second incident, her purse was stolen and she was thrown to the ground, injuring her knee and shoulder. She had knee replacement surgery after that assault, friends and relatives said.

Sorrentino, who sat in his backyard Tuesday contemplating the previous evening’s events, said he wondered whether he could have saved his neighbor’s life. He said he was perhaps kept from doing more because of a warning he was given by police when Bireley’s home was robbed. He had interrupted the robbery by showing up with his large dog.

“At that time, the police said, ‘Don’t ever go into a house with suspicious robberies or activity going on,’ ” Sorrentino said. “That’s what got me last night--that warning.”