Boyfriend Arrested in Woman’s Stabbing

Sheriff’s deputies responding to a 911 call found a 40-year-old woman stabbed to death in the hallway of her apartment and arrested the man she lived with on suspicion of murder.

Pamela Ostrem was found dead about 10:30 p.m. Monday after Ostrem’s 43-year-old boyfriend, Charles Smith, made a 911 call from the couple’s Camarillo residence asking for help, authorities said.

But when Smith called emergency personnel, he refused to answer questions, saying only that he needed help. Because 911 calls automatically provide the caller’s address, deputies were able to locate the residence.

Smith, who also received several stab wounds, is in serious condition at the Ventura County Medical Center, where he remains in custody.

Deputies are still investigating how Smith received the stab wounds. Investigators believe either Ostrem stabbed Smith in self-defense or he stabbed himself in a suicide attempt.

Gypsy Boots, an upstairs neighbor and friend of the couple, said he had given Smith a ride to a recycling center a few hours before the stabbing.

“He looked pretty bad, and it was strange, because he had his own car, but I took him anyway,” said Boots, a well-known Southern California figure. “If I had known he was that desperate I could have helped him out.”

The couple, who have lived in the 700 block of Mobil Avenue since October, were known by their new neighbors to be cheery and outgoing, not prone to altercations or disputes.

But law enforcement officials said the couple had a history of generating domestic-violence calls, both from their current first-floor apartment and previous Camarillo residences.

“On Sept. 20th they were both arrested for domestic violence on each other, and there was another incident in July when he was arrested for misdemeanor battery against her,” Senior Deputy Jim Aguirre said. “That was a hitting type of a thing, not a stabbing.”

Ron Bookstaver, manager of the apartment complex where the stabbing occurred, said Ostrem and Smith seemed to get along well, frequently chatting with neighbors and enjoying each other’s company.

“I never saw them arguing, and they would tease each other, kidding around,” he said. “If there had been any yelling, I would have heard about it.”

Bookstaver said he thought the couple drank heavily, as evidenced, he said, by the number of beer cans that would accumulate near their front door. But they never appeared to be intoxicated outside of their apartment and were always friendly, he said.

“She had been in an auto accident in the past and had some kind of a brain disorder,” Bookstaver said Ostrem told him. “Because of that she staggered and sometimes couldn’t keep her balance, so it looked like she was drunk when she wasn’t.”

Boots said some neighbors thought Ostrem had acted in bizarre ways. “People would say she was a little strange or a little retarded but she was fine, just sometimes over-friendly,” he said.

Neighbors described Smith as a large man, who looked like he once played football. Although he had recently worked as a security guard, he may have been recently unemployed, according to neighbors. Ostrem’s finances were overseen by a conservator who sometimes spent time at their residence, Bookstaver said.

Although sheriff’s officials declined to provide details of the murder weapon, a neighbor, Richard Gonzalez, who watched as authorities responded, said he saw Ostrem lying on the floor in a hallway a few feet from a bloody kitchen knife.