Grim Answer to Family’s Fears

For two months, Willie Whitfield waited for his baby girl to come home.

Every day, after a long shift on a forklift, the 51-year-old sat alone on the vinyl couch and stared out the window of his South-Central apartment. Each bus that stopped out front brought a quick surge of hope, then emptiness as it droned on up Broadway with no sign of his daughter.

Kartrice Ann Whitfield, 22, had walked out one day in July to cash a check and never came back. No notes, no calls, and no instructions for her 2-year-old daughter.

This week, the Whitfield family faced its worst fear: Kartrice was the long unidentified woman who died after being doused with gasoline and set afire July 9 in South Whittier.

Police have arrested Michael Lynn Crosby, 36, of Whittier and his 15-year-old stepson in connection with the attack. Both have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, torture, attempted robbery and kidnapping, said a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office, which is seeking to try the minor as an adult.

Crosby could be convicted under the three-strikes law because of an extensive criminal record for robbery and burglary, officials said.

Detectives believe that neither suspect knew Whitfield, but picked her up at a bus stop sometime after she cashed a check on Florence Avenue on July 8. They allege that the attackers took her to their home, attempted to rob her, bound her and, early the next morning, took her out and set her on fire.

The burning woman let out such a bloodcurdling scream that it woke up neighbors, detectives said.

One man thought the eerie sound was cats fighting, then ran outside to see what he thought was a fire in a machine shop down the street. He called 911, but by the time authorities arrived, the victim was dead.

Later that day, Kartrice’s mother, Idella Stacy, saw a news story about the burning and thought of Kartrice. She mentioned her fear to Whitfield.

But he could not come close to imagining that the victim was the daughter he always spoiled, the one he could not wait to see every day as he sat on the bus ride home from North Hollywood, where he has worked unloading trucks for 25 years.

Kartrice was attending West Los Angeles College, working to get her high school equivalency degree and some training in computers. She worked part time to support her daughter, Leticia.

As days passed after her disappearance, her father became ever more desperate. “I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t think of anything but her day and night,” he said.

Stacy tried to remain realistic and strong. “I told him to stop looking out that window,” she said. “Your baby is gone.”

They filled out missing persons reports but couldn’t bring themselves to call the coroner’s office. Whitfield said he couldn’t face the prospect that his daughter had met such an awful demise. Their one glimmer of hope: The description released by authorities said the victim was much shorter than Kartrice.

“Because she was so badly burned, it altered her height,” said Scott Carrier, spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner.

On Tuesday, a friend convinced the family to visit the coroner’s office. Dental records helped confirm that the victim was Whitfield.

Her mother is resolute, but her father, a Southerner who cordially offers visitors a drink even on his worst day, crumples over and cries, wondering how anyone could commit such an atrocity against his cheerful girl.

“In my heart, I just want to know if they [the suspects] are the people who did it,” he said. “I just want to see their faces. I want the law to bring justice.”

Others were more incensed.

“They throw gasoline on her and burn her alive?” said Winneka Collins, a family friend. “That is torture. What I want is for them to get the same, the same they did to her.”