Daughter Admits Shooting 82-Year-Old Mom

A 44-year-old woman confessed to shooting her mother, 82, Saturday night in her bed in the townhouse the two shared, police said.

The woman, who identified herself to police only as “Liki,” surrendered outside her home in the 2700 block of Monza about 6:45 p.m. as paramedics rushed inside to aid her mother, Helen Ben Joseph, who was shot twice in the abdomen, Tustin police Sgt. Steve Lewis said.

“She said that she did it,” Lewis said, adding that the woman was still being interviewed at police headquarters as he spoke.

“She was cooperative. We had her exit the house and she did.”

Ben Joseph was in surgery late Saturday at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana. Hospital officials would not comment on her condition.

A neighbor at the quiet townhouse complex where the shooting took place said police had responded several times in the past to reports of loud arguments between the two women. Police said they could not confirm those reports.

“There were always loud arguments, yelling, carrying on,” said Otilia Wright, 66, who lives in the complex. Wright said the two women had been living in the same house for at least five years. Last year, Wright said, the two began caring for Ben Joseph’s 2-year-old grandson, who neighbors said belonged to Ben Joseph’s other daughter.

Wright said the daughter’s behavior was sometimes odd.

“She would just look at you and look right through you. In five years’ time she never even smiled at me or said hello. She would smirk at you. She would be in the Jacuzzi with me and she never said anything. Not once,” Wright said.

The daughter would often walk the several blocks from her house to the complex pool wearing a swimsuit and diving flippers and would send the 2-year-old boy to the pool naked, she said.

The shooting abruptly broke the gaiety of a typical summer night at the complex. Children who had been skateboarding and playing on the street were called inside by anxious parents, said another neighbor, Lynn Thomas.

Other neighbors stayed inside, obeying police officers’ request to keep away from the scene of the shooting.

“Usually you can hear the kids, but it’s so very quiet now,” Thomas said. “You never ever see anything like this around here. It’s scary.”

Police recovered a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol at the scene.