Woman Forced Off Forest Road, Fatally Stabbed

A woman driver was forced off a remote mountain road Friday by a man driving another auto, who stabbed her to death beside the highway and fled in her car, witnesses said.

The attacker screamed obscenities at the woman before lunging at her with a knife, according to witnesses who called 911 from a nearby restaurant.

Authorities disclosed few details about the 2:40 p.m. attack on Angeles Forest Highway in Angeles National Forest between Glendale and Palmdale.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies were searching for a reddish or burgundy two-door car, possibly a Saturn or a Nissan Altima, said Deputy Joan Raber. The car was last seen traveling toward Palmdale.

Raber said investigators had not positively identified the victim or the killer.

At least two sets of people witnessed the attack but had yet to be interviewed by homicide detectives, who did not reach the scene until nearly 6 p.m., she said.

The assailant was described only as a white male, possibly in his 40s, Raber said.

Elva Lewis, owner of the Hidden Springs Cafe, said two men who witnessed the attack called authorities from a pay phone outside her restaurant, about three miles from where the attack occurred on a desolate stretch of the two-lane forest highway.

“They were extremely excited--they jammed on their brakes and skidded in here,” Lewis said. “I thought, ‘Oh no, what’s happened now?’ ”

The men told Lewis they had seen a cloud of dust and two cars pulled over on the side of the road before the man initiated the attack. The witnesses told her the attacker had a gun, but it was unclear whether he shot the woman.

They told her the killer then abandoned the car he had been driving and fled in the woman’s car.

“I don’t think it was random,” Lewis said. “He swore at her when he got out of the car . . . something about ‘You bitch,’ ” the witness told Lewis.

Lewis, who has run the cafe for nearly three decades, said such violence is rare in the almost uninhabited reaches of the national forest.

“Usually people murder somebody down in the city and bring them up here and dump them,” she said. “We’ve never had anything like this happen before.”

Glover is a Times staff writer and Fox is a correspondent.