Man Pleads Not Guilty in Killing of Woman, 23
A 23-year-old man pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of kidnapping, raping and killing a Glendale woman and dumping her body in a Culver City park last month.
Jason Thompson of Los Angeles was arrested March 2 in Saginaw, Mich., in connection with the death of Roberta Happe, a 23-year-old USC graduate who worked at a nonprofit center dedicated to helping the disabled.
Authorities said Thompson had been loitering around where Happe worked, near Wilshire Boulevard and South Berendo Street, on Feb. 22. Police said he confronted her in a parking garage as she walked to her car then forced her to withdraw several hundred dollars from an automated teller machine.
Later that night, passersby found Happe’s body in the parking lot of a Little League field in Culver City. She had been stabbed, strangled and beaten, police said.
Thompson is due back in court May 5, the district attorney’s office said.
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