Woman’s habit of inviting homeless addicts into her West Side home may have led to her death, relatives say
By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah | Tribune reporter
April 8, 2009
Relatives believe that an 83-year-old West Side woman’s habit of inviting homeless drug addicts into her home may have contributed to her brutal death.
On Tuesday, police ruled the death of Flora Thompson of the 600 block of North Ridgeway Avenue a homicide. She was found dead Monday evening on the kitchen floor of her East Garfield Park apartment from blunt trauma to her head and a stab wound to her neck.
“She just wanted somebody to come and talk to her,” said Pearlene Ward, 68, who lived downstairs from Thompson and warned her about inviting strangers into her home. “I’d tell her, ‘Don’t befriend homeless drug addicts. Don’t let them be the death of you.’ ”
Ward, whose late husband was Thompson’s nephew, said Thompson lived on the second floor of the two-flat with a female roommate in her 60s. Police said they had no suspects.
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POMONA, Calif.—A 27-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to more than 400 years in prison for a September crime spree that included carjacking, burglarizing and shooting a psychologist during a robbery.
Anthony Hislar must serve at least 85 percent of a 93-year prison sentence before beginning a separate term of 429 years to life, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Hislar was convicted of 33 felony counts last month in Superior Court, including robbery, burglary, carjacking and evading police. His crime spree was carried out in Hermosa Beach, Long Beach, Los Angeles and parts of the San Gabriel Valley before he was arrested leaving Disneyland on Sept. 24.
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The defense in Phil Spector’s murder retrial rested its case Thursday with the testimony of a memory expert summoned to undermine a key prosecution witness.
UC Irvine professor Elizabeth Loftus summarized research suggesting that certain circumstances — including stress, fear and exhaustion — can lead witnesses to misremember events. Loftus spoke generally about the limits of human memory, but questions by a defense attorney referenced the circumstances in which Spector’s former driver, Adriano de Souza, says he heard the music producer admit to shooting actress Lana Clarkson in his home. Read the rest of the article