‘Nobody Would Come to Our Side’

The family of Jean Eleanor Richards said Monday that they tried in vain for weeks to have the 62-year-old woman’s granddaughter, now a suspect in her murder, placed in foster care or in a home for troubled teens.

“There was a cry for help, and nobody would come to our side,” said Jim Schroeder, Richards’ son-in-law. “We wanted to make her a ward of the state and were trying to go through proper channels, but nobody would do anything. Nobody listened.”

The teenager is being held at a juvenile detention facility in Las Vegas along with her teenage boyfriend on suspicion of stabbing Richards to death. The woman’s body was found Friday inside her front door. The teens, whose names were not released because of their ages, have not been formally charged in the case. But police confirmed Monday that their investigation is now focused on them, said Los Alamitos Police Capt. Arl L. Farris.

Schroeder said the granddaughter “had threatened her grandmother, threatened to kill her, a number of times in the last two weeks. Everything was pretty much verbal, but we also felt the physical was on its way. It was leading up to it.”

Schroeder said his wife, Judy, and her mother constantly had been on the telephone to numerous county agencies and the police but did not get the help they needed.

“These people that are supposed to be there for help were not,” he said. “We had all the warning signs, all the flags were up.”

Farris confirmed that officers had been called to the home numerous times in the past, including as recently as Wednesday. He said police went to the house whenever they were called and tried to be helpful.

“It is very frustrating for the family and for this to be the ultimate outcome of it. They have to feel the system let them down,” Farris said.

Investigators continued to comb the home in the 11900 block of Paseo Bonita on Monday looking for physical evidence.

“We want to either rule them out or connect them to it,” Farris said. “That’s why we are spending so much time collecting evidence.”

Neighbors called police Friday after noticing a shattered window. They also noticed that the victim’s garage had been left open and her car was missing.

The granddaughter and her boyfriend were found in Las Vegas about 3:30 a.m. on Saturday sleeping in the victim’s 1990 Toyota Camry.

The murder has stunned residents in the quiet residential neighborhood with single-story stucco homes and well-kept lawns.

“Anybody in the neighborhood would have run to her aid in a second,” said one female neighbor who asked not to be identified. She was “a short little lady who wouldn’t have been able to defend herself.”

The neighbor said Richards’ son died several years ago, and that she had lost two daughters in car accidents in the 1980s, including the mother of the granddaughter, and that she had raised her granddaughter since the age of 3. Her husband of 42 years, Robert E. Richards, died two years ago.

“It was almost like the house is cursed,” the neighbor said. “So much tragedy.”

The neighbor said the granddaughter had been “this adorable, sweetest little kid” who had in recent years evolved into a troubled teenager who carved words into the family furniture and broke windows.

“She looked like hell,” the neighbor said. “She looked like something had possessed her.”

Schroeder said the granddaughter had become involved in “devil worship” about a year ago and kept satanic books in her room. She had begun wearing black clothing and makeup and sported inch-long purple hair.

He said that about three weeks ago, his niece had stopped attending classes at Laurel High School in Los Alamitos, and problems in the house had begun to escalate.

“She finally wanted to leave, and we agreed it was time to get her out of the house,” he said. “But she thought she was going to be emancipated, but my wife and her mom were trying everything they could to get someone to take her away from that house.”

Instead, they are left to mourn the grandmother of seven.

“She was the most loving person I’ve ever met, giving and loving,” Schroeder said. “She’d do anything for you.”