Many people in Torrance, California, were acquainted with a kind, gentle, 65-year-old Asian woman who regularly walked her dog in the neighborhood.
They were shocked to learn that the woman — whose identity has not officially been released — had been attacked and killed on Christmas Eve, allegedly by a homeless man wielding a sledgehammer.
The woman died on Christmas Day. Police arrested 40-year-old Jeffrey Davis in connection with her death, KTLA-TV reported.
The victim regularly walked her little dog Cherry on the El Camino College campus, as she retrieved bottles and cans from trash containers.
Security camera footage showed the woman being attacked about 7 a.m., according to Sgt. Francisco Esqueda of the campus police.
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“Because of that security … camera footage, we were able to get an idea of who the suspect was,” Esqueda said.
“We believe [it was] a homeless person that we’ve had contact with before, so we were able to go to the neighboring county park, where he sometimes hangs out, and that’s where we found him.”
The victim’s collecting of recyclable items was something she enjoyed, not a sign of poverty. She was an apparently well-to-do individual, with a nice home and car. She was preparing to retire from a law office, KTLA said.
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“Our dogs became friends and so they would kind of play together a little bit on the walk, and so while they played, we would talk back and forth,” a neighbor, Leslie Andersen, told the news station.
Andersen was quoted by KNBC-TV as describing the woman as “very sweet, very gentle soul, very loving. She’d pass out Christmas presents to people on Christmas. Just [a] really, really nice lady.”
Another woman described the victim as having been a neighbor for 20 years, KNBC said.
Upon the victim’s death, Davis was charged with murder, according to KTTV-TV. Authorities said nothing about what might have prompted the attack.
Los Angeles, of which Torrance is a suburb, continues to be a hot spot of growing homelessness.
And to the north, San Francisco one of the world’s most beautiful cities, is being ruined by the crime and filth of listless street people.
Boisterous panhandlers might be a nuisance, but at what point do their aggressions cross the line into criminal behavior?
And what can be done about a growing problem?
Thoughts like that may be in the minds of the neighbors of the kind, gentle lady who regularly walked her dog on a college campus in Torrance.
