Odd Death Stuns Quiet Street

The Schockners have at least nine security company signs around their home in the leafy, upper-middle-class Bixby Knolls neighborhood of Long Beach, a dog known throughout the area for its protective barking and a locked fence.

In addition, two police officers were standing at the front door and a third was in an alley behind the house when a man allegedly stabbed 50-year-old Lynn Schockner to death Monday just outside her back door.

Her family, neighbors and police expressed bewilderment at the crime Tuesday and remembered Schockner as a woman who volunteered throughout the community despite health problems.

While one man was being held in the slaying, a second man surrendered to Ventura County authorities and was being taken to Long Beach for questioning, authorities said.

His name was not released.

As Manfred Schockner went into the house Tuesday, a neighbor in a passing car called:

“What can we do for you?”

“Just keep smiling,” said the tearful and shaking husband, who was separated from Schockner. “And pray for us.”

Police say Nicholas Harvey, 22, of Port Hueneme stabbed Schockner to death, apparently before stealing jewelry from the home, while officers stood a few feet away, unawares.

Shortly after 11 a.m. Monday, officers responded to a call from one of Schockner’s neighbors saying a man had hopped out of a car behind the home and seemed to be acting suspicious.

One officer went to check the alley, said Sgt. David Cannan, while two others checked the gate to the backyard and, finding it locked, knocked on the front door.

Schockner answered the door with her dog, which barked at the officers, Cannan said.

They told her about the call from her neighbor and asked if they could check her backyard. She said yes and, because the dog was barking, closed the front door as she went to get the key to the gate, the sergeant added.

A few minutes passed, and when the officer in the alley radioed that he had captured a man climbing the fence, the two officers at the door broke in and found Schockner dead of stab wounds.

“We’re theorizing that the homicide was committed first, then the robbery,” Cannan said. “The tough part was, in that short amount of time, we didn’t know he was in there and he didn’t know we were outside. When he jumped over the fence, it was as much a surprise to him as it was to the officer.”

The couple’s 14-year-old son, Charlie, described his mother as someone who “always put others first. She had rheumatoid arthritis. Even if she was in pain, she ... would help you do whatever you needed.”

“I can’t believe this,” neighbor Channi McKinley said Tuesday. “The police were talking to her one minute, and she was fine, and then.... “

McKinley, who described the family as “very friendly, very well-liked,” also expressed shock at the circumstances of the slaying.

“The dog was always alert, always protective,” McKinley said. “We’re all puzzled. Why would a burglar choose a yard where you can hear a barking dog?”

Charlie guessed that the dog may have been distracted by the police officers at the front door as Schockner, apparently intending to unlock the gate from inside the yard, went out the back.

The officers found her body just outside the backdoor.

Harvey had a knife and some jewelry with him when he climbed over the fence, Cannan said.

Police believe the man who surrendered to authorities in Ventura County left Harvey in the alley shortly before the killing.