Los Angeles Times
Wednesday, June 10, 1992
Jury Awards $3.5 Million in ‘88 Murder of Woman Leaving Mall
Crime: The victim's family claimed security in Plaza Pasadena's underground
parking lot was inadequate.
By Amy Louise Kazmin
Times Staff Writer
The family of a woman who was raped and murdered after being abducted from a
Pasadena shopping mall has been awarded $3.5 million by an Alhambra Superior
Court jury, which found that security at the facility was inadequate.
After about a day of deliberations, the jury decided Monday that the owners
of Plaza Pasadena did not take sufficient steps to ensure customers' safety in
the mall's vast underground parking lot. The jury also found that the lack of
security was a direct cause of the crimes that led to the death of Lois Haro.
The 26-year-old college student, who planned to be a marriage and family
counselor, was leaving the mall on Oct. 18, 1988, when two teenagers confronted
her at gunpoint in an escalator leading to the parking lot. She was taken to an
area under Pasadena's Colorado Street Bridge, where she was raped and then shot
once in the head, detectives said.
Ronald Anthony Jones and George Marvin Trone Jr., now both 21, were convicted
by Pasadena Superior Court juries of first degree murder, rape, kidnaping and
robbery. Jones was sentenced to death. Trone was sentenced to life in prison.
Attorney Rene Kern, who represented Plaza Pasadena said an appeal of the
decision is being considered. He denied that Mall officials had skimped on
security and said, "the best security program that could be put together" was
provided.
This is not a coldhearted, unthinking corporation," Kern said.
They are conscientious, and they make every effort to provide the best
possible atmosphere."
Haro's husband, Tony, 27, said he and his wife's parents, Elsie and Herbert
Purnell of Pasadena, sued Plaza Pasadena to force the management to upgrade
security and to deter similar crimes. Ten months after his wife's murder,
another woman was abducted at knifepoint from the parking lot and raped off the
premises, Haro said.
"The whole point of this law suit was certainly not the money," he said. "It
was for the mall to prevent other women from going through what my wife went
through."
"Hopefully this will send a message to them to take security a lot more
seriously than they have been, and that the people that come to their mail to
shop are much more important than their profits."
Plaza Pasadena is owned and operated by H-CHH Associates, a general
partnership, and Ernest W. Hahn Inc., a San Diego-based firm that owns at least
47 shopping malls across the country.
During the monthlong trial, the family's attorney, Suzelle Smith, said that
in the years before Haro's kidnaping, the Plaza Pasadena parking lot was the
scene of numerous crimes, ranging from purse-snatchings to car thefts, armed
assaults, robberies and the 1982 murder of a 9-year-old girl.
Despite that, the two-level underground parking facility, which stretches
under two city blocks. was patrolled by only a single guard, Smith said. Kern
denied that but refused to elaborate.
After thWhen the mall was built in 1980, the parking lot and the escalators
leading into it were monitored by video cameras. However, the cameras fell into
disrepair after about 1 1/2 years and were never fixed, despite the
recommendation of the Pasadena Police Department, Smith said. One of the
non-working surveillance cameras was located at the escalator from which Haro
was abducted.e camera system broke down, Smith said, the mall's director of
security wrote a memo stating that to provide the same level of surveillance, he
needed four guards patrolling the parking lot.
But, Smith said, the mall owners "had a budget for security. And that was all
they were going to spend."
Kern, the mal1's lawyer, said the management decided not to fix the video
cameras because they were not as effective as "well-trained, conscientious
guards." As to the number of guards, the lawyer said, "there are enough. There
were enough."
Unfortunately, he said, no matter what security precautions are taken, some
crime is bound to occur.
"I'm not aware of an area of Los Angeles County that's crime-free," he said.
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