The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 110

Cos Angeles Slimes SOUTHLAND Sunday. January 1988 Part II 13 Parents Search for Assailant Who Shattered Girl's Life life-wise smart." About a year before the accident, Pratt started seeing Curtis Croft, an aspiring professional surfer eight years her senior. She was attracted by his sun -bleached hair, good looks and the red Porsche 911 he piloted around town, friends say. At first, her parents gave the relationship the OK, buoyed by Jenny's reassurances that Croft was only 18. But the Stroms, who were married in 1982 after Diane Strom divorced Jenny's natural father, soured on their daughter's boyfriend when they discovered that, in fact.

Croft was 24 and had a criminal past. In August, 1985. Croft was sentenced by a U.S. District Court judge in San Diego to one year in prison and three years' probation after he pleaded guilty to a charge relating to the sale of nearly 10 grams of cocaine to a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent. He was released in February.

1986, after serving five months of his term, "She got mixed up with a bad crowd," Garry Strom says today. "She even mentioned once that a couple of people were after Curtis for something." The Stroms forbade Jenny to see Croft, but the relationship went on virtually unimpeded by the paren tal ban. Jenny would simply tell her parents that she was going out with friends and then head over to Croft's apartment. As the relationship flowered, Jenny changed. "I remember one thing she said: 'I don't need any friends.

I have Curtis." recalled Holly Lightbody, another high school friend of Jenny's. "Their relationship was like a fairy tale. It was like make-believe." Although Croft's living costs were being covered by his parents while he tried his hand in the auto detailing business, Jenny would often use her paycheck from work Please tee JENNY, Page 14 i at NX 1B P0B AU2 BOBCRIESER Los Angeles Times Jennifer Pratt has a kiss for her father during a recent visit at the hospital. Her mother is standing behind wheelchair. Below, Jenny as she looked before being injured by someone in a passing truck.

who know something about this have been able to keep this quiet for so long." By ERIC BAILEY. Times Stajf Writer CARLSBAD-It seemed a typical suburban scene. A young couple zipped through the night on a motorcycle along a lonely stretch of roadway here, eager to beat the midnight curfew set by the girl's parents. As they slowed to a stop at an intersection, their world turned topsy-turvy. A white pickup truck loaded with teen-agers roared by.

Without so much as a warning, someone in the truck bed tossed a wooden plank at the couple. It may have been a misguided high school prank, it may have been intentional, but it changed Jennifer Pratt's life forever. The length of 2-by-4 hit the San Die-guito High School sophomore in the back of the head. She slumped motionless against her boyfriend, blood oozing from her ears. Pratt languished in a coma for three months after the April, 1987, accident.

Today, she is but a shadow of the vivacious, 16-year-old blonde who dreamed of being a model. She remains bound to a wheelchair in the hospital, her muscles stiff and twisted by seizures. Her mind seems that of a child. While struggling with their grief, the girl's parents have mounted a crusade to identify the assailant. Dissatisfied with the efforts of police, they hired a private investigator and littered the community with thousands of posters offering a reward and pleading for information about the case.

The parents, Diane and Garry Strom, say they are certain they know the identities of the teen-agers involved in the incident. Nonetheless, the case remains unsolved. "It's so hard when you know who it was, but you're missing one little piece of the puzzle," Garry Strom said. "Just about anyone you talk to says they know who did it. I think there's hundreds of people now who know who did it." Indeed, at San Dieguito High School and in the neighborhoods around the couple's comfortable Encinitas home, the rumors are rampant.

Many people seem certain the culprits come from the ranks of the high school's party crowd. While the Stroms' private investigator says the case is a whisker away from being solved, police are not so certain. Detectives with the Carlsbad Police Department, which is handling the investigation, say they have followed up numerous leads but have little more than circumstantial evidence as to who the assailants might be. Nonetheless, officers see an ominous thread to the episode. They remain dumbfounded that none of the youths involved in the incident, not even those on the periphery, have stepped forward.

ilV Everyone called her Jenny. It fit the bubbly personality, the bouncing mane of blond hair. "She was one of the nicest people I know," said Sydney Stanger, a high school girlfriend. "She'd do anything for anybody." Like so many young women in the beach towns dotting San Diego County's northern coast, Jenny grew up fast. The trappings of childhood were all too quickly replaced by clothes and makeup.

High school boys, too, soon became passe. Along with her friends, Pratt began to catch the eye of men in their mid- to late-20s. "Girls around here just go around with people who are a lot older," explained Stanger. "It's just the way it is around here. We're more INSTALLED AS SHOWN PRE FINISHED IN WHITE BwEJ i don't seem to have that A conscience inside that tells them, 'This is wrong and I better do something to make it said Sgt.

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