Man in Fatal Chase Faces Murder Charge

A 22-year-old Chatsworth man has been charged with murder in connection with a pursuit that ended in the death of an elderly woman in Encino last week, authorities said Tuesday.

James McMann was charged at San Fernando Superior Court with murder with the special circumstances of fleeing a robbery and burglary, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman at the district attorney’s office. McCann also was charged with one count each of robbery, burglary, carjacking and felony evading, she said.

The district attorney’s office has not decided whether to seek the death penalty, Gibbons said. If McMann is convicted of murder with special circumstances, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, she said.

McMann, who is being held without bail, is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 10.

Charlotte Lenga, a 77-year-old Holocaust survivor, was killed when McMann, allegedly driving a stolen Chevrolet Suburban and being trailed by police, broadsided her compact car on White Oak Avenue near Miranda Street in Encino.

The hourlong pursuit began in Northridge when a police officer saw a man loading items into a white van, police said. With helicopters and patrol cars tracking him, police said the driver refused to pull over and drove to Panorama City, where he lost control of the van and slammed into a ground-floor apartment on Nordhoff Street.

Police said McMann pulled himself from the wreckage, entered an adjacent apartment and demanded the resident’s car keys. McMann then drove the Suburban to Encino, where Lenga was struck and killed.