Friends Recall Woman Slain in Laguna Niguel

More than 100 friends, relatives and neighbors gathered Sunday to remember the life of Jane Hoyt Thompson, the retired Hollywood production assistant who was slain three weeks ago inside her Laguna Niguel home.

Thompson, 72, was killed June 25 during an attempted burglary, authorities said. Her body remained at the Orange County coroner’s office until officials found cousins of Thompson’s in Utah last week.

“Jane was never unclaimed,” said longtime friend Marian Rees during the one-hour service at the O’Connor Mortuary in Laguna Hills. “As her friends know, Jane claimed us.”

Thompson was eulogized as a television executive, an interior decorator with impeccable taste, a gardener, chef, sports fan and world traveler. The program for the service was designed as a passport with a quote of hers: “My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been before.”

A world map that stood in back of the room contained pins marking hundreds of cities that Thompson had visited. She had planned to leave on a cruise to England aboard the Queen Mary II next week and take a train through the Chunnel to Paris.

The overflow crowd of mourners included Thompson’s cousins, Bruce Thompson and Shirley Bradford, and Laguna Niguel neighbors.

Thompson was born June 18, 1932, in St. Louis to Madge and Don Hoyt Thompson, a magazine editor at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. After attending Briar Cliff College and then graduating from Washington University in St. Louis in 1953, Thompson moved to California and was hired as a stenographer by Paramount Pictures.

Samuel Moses Nelson, a 15-year-old neighbor, is to be arraigned Friday in her slaying.