Beating Victim’s Condition Improves

A Santa Rosa Valley woman who was hospitalized with head injuries after being severely beaten during an attempted homicide was upgraded Tuesday from critical and serious to critical and stable.

Linda Lou Morrisset, 48, was being treated at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard where she was taken after being found Sunday morning inside her home in the 2000 block of Borchard Road near Camarillo, authorities said.

Morrisset, who owns a Camarillo accounting firm with her husband, Richard, was found unconscious in a hallway by the family’s nanny, said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Dick Purnell.

The couple live at the home with two children, Purnell said.

Authorities have disclosed little information but confirmed Tuesday they have interviewed more than a dozen people, including Morrisset’s ex-husband, who lives in Thousand Oaks, Purnell said.

The couple divorced more than six years ago.

Other people who have been interviewed include Richard Morrisset, who was out of town for military reserve duty when the beating occurred, as well as neighbors, business associates and other family members, Purnell said.

Richard Morrisset ran unsuccessfully for county auditor-controller in 1994 and for Oxnard Cith Council in 1990.

Purnell refused to say how the attacker gained entry or whether anything was stolen from the home.

He said the weapon used in the beating has not been found but that detectives recovered other physical evidence left behind by the attacker.