Unidentified Teenager Dies After She Is Set on Fire

A teenage girl screamed for her life shortly before she was apparently set ablaze in a predawn slaying Friday near Whittier, a sheriff’s homicide investigator said.

A resident, sleeping with his window open, told detectives he was awakened about 4 a.m. by what he thought were cats fighting on his front lawn, Lt. Ray Peavy said.

Going outside, he “heard a blood-curdling scream,” Peavy said. “She was screaming, ‘Please, somebody help me! Please, somebody help me!’ ”

Seeing a fire near a machine shop down the street, and thinking someone might be trapped in a blazing building, the witness went back to his home and called 911.

County firefighters answered the emergency call and discovered shrubbery burning next to D&B; Machine on Inez Avenue in an unincorporated county area south of Whittier.

Firefighters discovered the unidentified girl’s badly burned body after putting out the fire.

The victim was described as African American, about 15 years old, with braided hair pulled back in a green-and-white bandanna. She was wearing blue jeans with a brown belt and socks but had no shoes, officials said, and apparently had a habit of biting her fingernails.

Investigators were searching for in a 1984 or 1985 white-and-blue Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck with tinted windows seen leaving the scene.

Peavy said investigators believe someone drove the girl to the area, doused her with a flammable liquid and set her on fire. “We think she was alive when this occurred,” he said.

“It is tragic any time a young person dies or is killed, but this was terrible, really terrible,” Peavy said. “This little girl was brutally murdered. I can’t think of a worse way to die.”