Man Shot in Head 3 Times by Night Stalker Improves

Night Stalker victim Bill Carns, the 29-year-old Mission Viejo man shot three times in the head on Aug. 25, is able to sit up, eat solid foods and talk with his parents and fiancee, hospital spokesmen and friends of the family said Tuesday.

Carns, who was erroneously identified as “brain dead” in a Los Angeles Police Department bulletin Thursday, has improved slowly but steadily since he was rushed to the trauma unit at Mission Community Hospital, Dr. Juan Carlos Cobo said.

“Carns is breathing on his own, he is awake and alert and able to follow commands and, with some assistance, to take nourishment,” Cobo said Tuesday. “We are currently listing him in serious but stable condition.”

Carns remains paralyzed on his left side, but “he’s got sensation there--he can feel and that’s encouraging,” Cobo said.

Two bullets remain lodged in Carn’s body, one in the back of his neck and the other in the lower right side of the skull, “within the casement of the brain.”