Slaying Victim a ‘Devoted’ Mother

A woman found shot to death in a car driven by a neighbor was remembered Monday as a devoted mother who had battled drug problems but seemed to have put her life in order.

Police and family members identified the woman as Jeanie Waterson-Wheeler, a 44-year-old Lancaster woman who was found fatally shot inside a car that crashed Sunday morning in a field at the intersection of Alton Parkway and Sand Canyon Drive in Irvine.

Police arrested David Rodgers, 37, of Lancaster on suspicion of murder. Family members said Rodgers, a landscape worker at the mobile home where Wheeler lived, was a close friend.

Rodgers shot himself in the ankle during Sunday’s incident and held officers at bay for about 15 minutes, refusing to leave his car, police said.

Eventually, he tossed a handgun out of the car window and crawled out.

Rodgers, who worked at the Rancho Mirage Mobile Home Park where he lived, was scheduled to be arraigned today in Newport Beach on a murder charge.

“The children are devastated,” said Margaret Wheeler, the victim’s mother-in-law. “She was so devoted to them.”

She said Wheeler, her husband and their three children lived in her three-bedroom mobile home.

She said Wheeler left the home Sunday morning to go shopping.

“When she didn’t come home, I thought she was still doing last-minute shopping, and I left to go to Apple Valley to pick up my grandchildren,” Margaret Wheeler said.

She said her daughter-in-law had been in and out of drug rehabilitation but seemed to be more stable of late.

“She had a problem but went through rehab, and she was doing good,” Margaret Wheeler said.

She said she had no idea how or why her daughter-in-law ended up in Orange County.