A 1997 murder remembered

Ten years ago this week a lovely, 82-year-old La Cañada woman, a gentle artist named Helen Huff, confronted a man in her home and was murdered. It was a brutal crime and it happened the night before Halloween, adding another creepy element to the event.

I was reminded of the case Monday night while looking for items for this week’s “10-20-30” column. The 1997 article, and the sidebar story on how the neighborhood was reacting to the crime, carried my byline, as I was this paper’s new public safety reporter.

Mrs. Huff had filed a crime report with the sheriff’s station just a couple of weeks before her death, and I had copied down notes from that report a few days after she filed it. In it, she pointed her finger at her daughter’s boyfriend, saying $3,000 had been siphoned from her bank account and she suspected him of doing the dirty deed.

He’d been painting her house and she believed he’d found her ATM card in her purse, along with the PIN number, which she had written down on a slip of paper for reference. She suspected he’d taken the card out of her purse on different occasions in September 1997, then returned it to its rightful place before she noticed it was missing. When she received her bank statement in early October she discovered several unauthorized withdrawals had been made.

All of this was relatively fresh in my mind when I received the call that Halloween morning to say a murder had taken place on Gould Avenue the night before. When I heard it was in the 4900 block, I remembered Mrs. Huff’s report and realized we could connect a possible motive to the crime.

A photographer and I went to the scene, which was cordoned off by crime tape. The coroner’s van hadn’t arrived yet. Neighbors and reporters milled about.

Investigators were staying tight-lipped. We learned only that a vehicle belonging to a family member was missing from the home’s driveway. It was believed the suspect had used it to make his escape.

The hunt was on. It ended several days later, the day before this weekly paper went to print with the story. The suspect, the daughter’s boyfriend, was arrested.

If my memory is correct, they held him on a parole violation until they could get together enough evidence to charge him with murder. I do remember one sheriff’s department spokesperson telling me the suspect was a “really bad dude” who would probably be in jail for a long time.

In an odd — and a little bit spooky — coincidence this week, on Tuesday morning, about 12 hours after I’d reread the Huff murder story at the office, I opened the old secretary desk I keep stationery in at home. I was in search of a birthday card to send my sister. Sitting on top of a stack of cards was the original photo of Mrs. Huff that I’d been given by her son a decade ago to run with the story.

I had not seen that photo in years. I don’t recall bringing it home and don’t know why I would have. When I came across it Tuesday, the tenth anniversary of her death, it felt as though Mrs. Huff was reaching to me from beyond the grave, urging me to remember her, to remember the crime, to bring it up again in print.

And so I am compelled to do so. I don’t know what happened to the “bad dude” between his arrest and today because my reporting beat changed shortly after the murder. I hope he’s not free, and I sincerely hope Mrs. Huff is resting gently in peace.

CAROL CORMACI is editor of the Valley Sun. Reach her at (818)790-8774 or by e-mail at ccormaci@valleysun.net.