The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 3

LOS ANGELES TIMES A SATURDAY, JULY 222000 1 A3 Second Front Page 4 Members of Family Stabbed to Death in Their Sleep 1 frenzy and grief. In a neighborhood more accustomed to backyard barbecues and pickup basketball games, neighbors and sheriffs deputies converged as Flores family members shrieked in agony, "My Dad's dead!" and "My brother's dead!" By midday, the block had become a grim outpost of mourning with friends placing irises on a sidewalk across the street as investigators worked inside the house. On one corner, where 17-year-old Richard Flores and his friends once played Wiffle ball, the sheriffs department forensic team set up its base of operation. As the news of the crime spread stunning friends, school classmates and neighbors a profile emerged of the Flores family: close-knit, genial and athletic. They lived in a community so secure, many people left their doors unlocked.

Authorities said the Flores' home may have been unlocked Thursday night. Richard Flores, a purchasing agent for Architectural Woodworking Co. in Monterey Park, had worked his way up the company ladder. Beginning in 1976, he moved from apprentice to craftsman and, eventually, into management. But it was his devotion to his children's sports activities that his friends and neighbors remember best.

Flores coached Pop Warner football, as well as youth baseball and youth Please see FAMILY, A12 But she acknowledged, as other homicide detectives did, that stabbings typically are evidence that the attackers know their victims. Baker said, however, that she was unsure whether that applies in this case. "I want to keep real open-minded," she said. The Flores' two sons, Richard, 17, and Matthew, 10, were found dead in the bedroom they shared. The Flores' 13-year-old daughter, also named Sylvia, had been killed in another room.

The family members who escaped injury were all sleeping in another bedroom. They are daughter Esperanza, 18, and Monica Diaz, 16, and Laura Reta, 18 nieces of Sylvia Flores whom she and her husband adopted. Usually, friends said, Monica roomed with her sister, Sylvia, but on this night she apparently joined her older sisters. Esperanza awakened at 3 a.m., walked out of her bedroom and found her father bleeding on the floor nearby. "I've been stabbed, get us some help," he said to her, according to sheriffs detectives.

Meanwhile, her mother shouted from a bedroom to call 911. Later, authorities discovered the phone was off the hook, perhaps dislodged when Sylvia Flores tried unsuccessfully to reach it. Esperanza Flores ran screaming from the house to a neighbor's house across the street, startling sleeping residents. One neighbor, Ernie Hernandez, got to the house and found a scene engulfed in Los Angeles: Father, two sons and a daughter are slain and the mother injured by a lone man in an early morning attack. By JOE MATHEWS and MANUEL GAMIZ TIMES STAFF WRITERS Moving from bedroom to bedroom, an attacker slashed and stabbed five members of a much-admired Pico Rivera family early Friday, killing the father, two sons and a daughter and wounding the mother as they slept, authorities said.

The floors of the neatly kept yellow house on the 9600 block of Marjorie Street were streaked with blood when Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies arrived. Five of the eight members of the Flores household had been attacked. Richard Flores, a 42-year-old affable bear of a man, was found dead in the hallway, apparently after struggling with his killer. His wife, Sylvia, 39, who survived the stabbing, told investigators she awakened to see a man stabbing her and her husband but did not recognize the attacker. Authorities say it is unclear whether the man was a stranger to Flores or someone she knew but couldn't identify in the darkness.

Flores, who taught religion classes at her parish, was taken to KEN LUBAS Los Angeles Times Relatives and neighbors express shock Friday in front of home in Pico Rivera area of Los Angeles where five people were stabbed, four fatally, by assailant. County-USC Medical Center, where she remains in stable condition with wounds to her upper torso. She described her assailant as a cleanshaven Latino in his 20s, dressed in a white tank top, blue shorts and a blue bandanna. "We've got a lot of interviewing to do and hopefully that will lead to something," said county sheriffs homicide bureau Lt. Marilyn Baker.

"I'm trying to keep an open mind to every possibility at this point." a. Interim Education Secretary Named I California: John Mockler, executive director of state Board of Education, will fill job until at least year's end. 9L fa Supt. Wilson Riles. In the early 1980s, he spent a year as a top advisor to then-Speaker Willie Brown, specializing in education and tax issues.

Outside of Sacramento, Mockler worked three years for the Los Angeles Board of Education, reviewing budgets and district policies. In recent years, he has headed consulting and lobbying firms, representing the Los Angeles district, textbook publishers and other interests. Mockler said he is excited about his latest incarnation. "I think we can do some good work," he said. "The state's economy is moving.

We've directed a lot of resources toward education. The governor has really shown a willingness to move in that direction." Mockler will serve at least through the end of the year. A spokesman for the governor said the appointment is temporary, until a permanent secretary is named. Mockler and Burr follow Education Secretary Gary K. Hart, who resigned in February after little more than one year in the job: Lawmakers, policymakers and leaders of the state's largest teachers union all applauded the appointment.

"There are few people who can stand up to John Mockler in terms of their knowledge of education policy, particularly finances," said Assemblywoman Kerry Mazzoni (D-San Raphael), chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee. "He knows education inside and out." Wayne Johnson, president of the California Teachers said: "I don't think there's been a major piece of legislation affecting education in California in the last 15 years that John hasn't been a major factor in drafting. In Sacramento, he's been the man." ByDUKEHELFAND TIMES STAFF WRITER Gov. Gray Davis on Friday appointed a highly respected education lobbyist known for his expertise in school finance to be California's new interim secretary of education. John B.

Mockler, 58, currently the executive director of the state Board of Education, will assume his new position on Aug. 1. Mockler will replace interim Secretary Sue Burr, who is joining the Elk Grove Unified School District as an assistant superintendent. Mockler is an influential Sacramento insider, a self-described "education finance and policy junkie" who has spent three decades in and out of state government. He has shaped large chunks of California's school finance code in the process, and is credited with being the primary architect of Proposition 98, the 1988 voter initiative that guarantees schools and community colleges minimum state funding each year.

"With a lifelong commitment to education, John Mockler brings invaluable experience to further my administration's efforts to improve California's schools," Davis said in a statement. Mockler began working in Sacramento in 1965. He spent nearly 10 years in a variety of legislative positions, including stints as senior consultant to the Assembly Education Committee and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. He also spent three years as a senior staffer in the state Department of Education under former MVUNGJ. CHUN Lot Angeles Times Tow truck driver Jim Watkinson gets ready to tow Tiffany Morrison's car after it blew a head gasket while driving the Grapevine.

Motorists Face Wrath of the Grapevine Long Climb vo the Grapevii Autos: Summertime heat on the brutal uphill climb can mean sudden death for cars and inconvenience for drivers. iMarlcopa JV 1 i Mojav, n-L, KERN Wt I Lebec: 3,500 n. -V mm I ri SANTA J- 6ormM iTejon Pass: 4144 fiT a taneatw Violin Summit I I VT Templin 2,591 ft. r65 uphl" 5 "ilia 1 1 Lake Hughes 1,151 ft. Tji "Sv-Jj7 'ZZr-V LOS ANGELES Santa NT" (VENTURA Jf COUNTY.

hill is a killer," Ludwig said. "It's infamous." The salesman was tackling the hill on his way to visit his parents in San Francisco when his car overheated. Ludwig blames himself. "The temperature gauge was reading high. I don't know where my mind was.

I just kept driving until it blew up," Ludwig said. "I'm disgusted with myself." A week later, Ludwig traveled back to Golden State Towing to retrieve possessions from the car. He has decided to cut his losses and abandon it. Now without a car, he stuffed his belongings into a shopping cart. "I'm bringing it all home on the bus," Ludwig said.

f- On a cross-country trip that started in Michigan, 32-year-old Steve Williams broke down in the late afternoon heat last Wednesday. He almost made it. "The radiator blew at the top of the hill," said Williams, who was heading home to Seattle. His Grapevine ordeal lasted longer than most. He got towed down but didn't get to the repair shop until mechanics had left for the night.

Williams ended up Please see OVERHEAT, A16 By LEE CONDON TIMES STAFF WRITER Tiffany Morrison was trying to be a fun mom. The Lake Isabella resident had agreed to take her two daughters and their three friends to Magic Mountain's Hurricane Harbor in Valencia. Unfortunately, the Grapevine killed her station wagon. "This isn't fun. It's the middle of July, there's five kids with me and the car stops running," Morrison said as the girls tried in vain to convince her that their amusement park adventure could be salvaged.

At Golden State Towing in Castaic on Thursday, mechanics finally said the three words Morrison feared most: "blown head gasket." Morrison is just one of hundreds of motorists whose cars will die this summer on the Grapevine, a 40-mile stretch of the Golden California Hopes to Help Tahoe by Buying Wetlands Source: Caltrans Los Angeles Times State Freeway that runs through Castaic, Gorman, Fort Tejon and Frazier Park, over the mountains north of Los Angeles. Tow truck drivers and CHP officers say the most treacherous part for overheating radiators is the uphill northbound climb that starts in Castaic. The hill rises at a 5 grade, and runs without a break for five miles, from Lake Hughes Road to Templin Highway. "It's steep and it's long," said tow truck driver Jim Watkinson. "If there is something wrong with your car, it will show up on that hill." Last week Kurt Ludwig, 37, of Hollywood said his final goodbye to his 1985 Honda Accord.

"That SLA Fugitive Says She Never Expected to Be Caught From a Times Staff Writer SACRAMENTO State officials announced plans Friday to purchase and revive a broad swath of endangered wetlands and meadow a move that could help in the fight to restore Lake Ta-hoe's world-renowned clarity. The California Tahoe Conservancy will spend $10 million to buy 311 acres at the mouth of the Upper Truckee River on the lake's southern edge. Authorities hope to restore the property along with an adjacent 200-acre parcel that the conservancy already owns. The property, long slated for development, in recent years was home to a herd of cattle. The cattle will be displaced, but the land will remain home to bald eagles, osprey and other rare or endangered birds and plant life.

'This is real key, a prime opportunity to not only preserve what we have now but look at restoration," said Dennis Machida, executive officer at California Tahoe Conservancy, an independent state agency. The Upper Truckee River slashes through the site, the result of intervention by bulldozers during the boom days of development in South Lake Tahoe. Along with nearby Trout Creek, the Upper Truckee funnels almost a third of the runoff that eventually reaches the lake from the snow-draped peaks rimming the Tahoe basin. Officials plan to investigate whether they can restore the river's original meandering path, slowing the waters and increasing the likelihood that silt and nutrients will settle out before entering the lake. Those sediments contribute to the growth of algae that have reduced Lake Tahoe's water clarity, which is declining at an average rate of about 1 foot per year.

"It's a good day for Lake Tahoe," said Heidi Hill Drum, a spokeswoman for the League to Save Lake Tahoe. "This absolutely should help clean up the lake." Crime: Sara Jane Olson is no longer under a gag order, but there is Utile she can say in interviews. tioned the tinted windows on her minivan, she recalled. "Then I looked in the rear view mirror and saw several other cars pull up, and people jumping out," Olson, recently freed from a judge's gag order, said Friday during a day of limited media interviews. "I thought, 'Oh, The whole thing struck me as odd." "FBI, Kathleen," one of the men barked, invoking the name she was given at birth but hadn't used in years.

"It's over." And so, after more than two decades hiding in plain sight, alleged Symbionese Liberation Army foot soldier Kathleen Ann Soliah was arrested for a 1976 in The past year has been filled with cross-country flights, court appearances and a celebrity she never experienced as a local stage actress in Minnesota. She feels like she's been living in a state of suspended animation. Her husband, Fred Peterson, is supportive, but there are limits. He now has his own lawyer as authorities investigate what he knew about her past, and when he knew it The kids' college funds are depleted, the money spent on defense lawyers and investigators. "I just want my life back," she sighed.

On Friday, Olson sat down at a Please see FUGITIVE, A16 dictment out of Los Angeles accusing her of plotting to kill police officers by blowing up LAPD squad cars. "No, I did not expect this," said Olson with a nervous laugh. "I expected to go on with my life and die someday." The pipe bombs did not detonate, and no one was hurt. But 25 years later, the case goes on. A trial is scheduled in January.

After her arrest, Olson spent five weeks in jail, coping by keeping a low profile and watching everything that went on around her. She was freed when her friends and neighbors raised the $1 million bail. By ANN W. O'NEILL TIMES STAFF WRITER It took Sara Jane Olson a while to remember, to understand, when the police cruiser pulled up behind her last June, flashed its lights and stopped her on one of the nicest streets in her neighborhood in St. Paul, Minn.

"What's wrong, officer?" she asked, very much the innocent Midwestern housewife. He men.