Tragedy Cries Out for Explanation

Among the victims of the TWA crash were three San Fernando Valley residents--the wife of a prominent jazz musician and a young couple about to be married--as well as a Valley native whose father grieved Thursday night in Sherman Oaks while his wife waited in New York to hear if their daughter’s body had been given up by the sea.

Three of the victims had been scheduled to take other planes, but mechanical problems prompted airline officials to transfer them onto the fatal flight at the last minute. The fourth perished with her 17-year-old niece, a resident of the Fairfax district.

The dead were:

* Ana Maria Shorter, 47, of Studio City, wife of composer and jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter.

* Brent Richey, 26, of Van Nuys, a law student at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

* Seana Anderson, 27, of Van Nuys, a secretary in a medical office in Santa Barbara, who was flying with Richey to Florence, Italy, to be married.

* Lani Warren, 47, the Valley native who was the wife of San Diego County Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter Cross.

Richey, who celebrated his 26th birthday Tuesday, the day before the crash, had met his fiancee about three years ago, said Richey’s stepfather, Rob Anderson (no relation to Seana Anderson) of Ventura.

Rob Anderson said the last time he heard from his stepson was about a week ago and that he was excited about his trip to Italy. Richey was “an intense, honest and meticulous person,” he said.

The future seemed assured for Brent Richey and girlfriend Seana Anderson, who lived in a tidy rented house in Van Nuys with a rail fence and ceramic mice in the garden window.

“They were a super couple,” Rob Anderson said. “They were getting ready to move into a house in Castaic in October.”

Richey grew up in Wichita, Kan., and was a fan of the Kansas City Royals, his stepfather said. Life in Southern California rubbed off on him, and Richey came to be a great fan of the Los Angeles Lakers, Anderson said.

“He was a young guy whose career just seemed to be going right,” said a neighbor, who declined to give his name. In addition to studying law, Richey was co-owner of a company, Vision Communications, that sold pagers. Anderson was a secretary in a Santa Barbara medical office.

“Everything was just perfect for them,” the neighbor said.

Both of them worked hard, leaving their ranch-style house at 6 a.m. and not returning until late. But Richey found time to coach an adult softball team in Van Nuys.

The neighbors said the couple rented the house on Paso Robles Avenue in Van Nuys three years ago. They kept to themselves but were always friendly. The neighbors also said they had a premonition when they heard about the aircraft disaster in New York.

As they followed the news reports, they began to feel that they knew someone on board. “We knew we knew somebody,” said one neighbor, who works in the entertainment industry. “I don’t know why. It was just a feeling we had.”

Richey lived in Ventura briefly with his mother and stepfather prior to moving to the Valley, where he worked for a Century City law firm while attending Loyola Marymount. During his brief stay in Ventura, Richey worked for a law firm in Oxnard, Anderson said.

Besides his mother, Richey is survived by his father, who lives near Wichita, and a 24-year-old brother, Brian. Rob and Shirley Anderson have a 10-year-old son, Casey.

Shorter was described by a friend and family member as the emotional backbone of her family.

“She was one of the strongest people you’d ever meet,” said Krishna Booker, 26, Shorter’s nephew. “She let you know this is the way she felt. She was like a lion.”

A family friend, describing Shorter’s relationship with her husband, said: “She took care of Wayne. She took the lead and handled the nuts and bolts of their life.”

Shorter was traveling with her niece, Dalila Lucien, 17. Shorter’s sister is Maria Lucien, 57, of the Fairfax area.

At the Shorter home in Studio City, friends and relatives declined to comment. But a neighbor, Armand Antonyan, 19, who lives across the street, described Ana Maria Shorter as a friendly, warm woman. “You don’t expect something like this to happen,” he said. “She was such a nice lady, and such a good neighbor.”

A steady stream of visitors arrived at the house Thursday, including Gigi Hancock, wife of musician Herbie Hancock. An assistant to music producer Quincy Jones fielded questions from the media, while friends and family stayed inside the modest house.

Warren had lived in San Diego for about 15 years but was born and raised in the Valley, attending Granada Hills High School. She regularly dropped her car off at her parents’ house so she could catch flights to New York, and then work on planes bound for Europe. She had been a flight service manager for TWA since 1969.

“She loved to travel,” said her father, John Edward Talhelm, 83. “That’s why she got the job.”

Warren regularly worked on European routes, but she was not on duty on Flight 800. The New York-to-Rome flight she had been assigned to had been canceled, so she and other members of her crew were heading to Rome via Paris to join their assigned flight.

“My flight to Rome is canceled. I’m going to have to go to Paris,” she told her father Wednesday night.

“She was just ready to get on the plane when she called,” Talhelm said. “That was the last time I talked to her.”

Talhelm said that the family did not worry about the safety of his daughter’s profession. “This wasn’t an accident,” he said. “This is a thing that would happen one in 10 million times. She had flown 15 or 20 times halfway around the world. There were never any problems.”

This was not the first time tragedy visited Warren’s husband. In 1980, Cross’ younger sister, Julie Cross, became the first female U.S. Secret Service agent to die in the line of duty.

Warren was described as energetic and kind. “She always wanted to help other people,” Talhelm said. “It’s not just because I’m her dad, everyone else will tell you the same thing.”

“Lani was a very small person, but she had this dynamic personality and she was friendly,” said Deanna Ayers, a former flight attendant. “She was easy to get along [with] and she cared for people.”

Talhelm stayed in Sherman Oaks on Thursday while his wife, Virginia, 79, and his son, John Fernand Talhelm, 50, flew to New York.

“It was just a shock to the whole family,” Warren’s father said. “We just hope she didn’t suffer.”

Jose Cardenas, Scott Steepleton and Ann W. O’Neill contributed to this story, along with The Associated Press.