Dana Point Women Denied Bail in Firebombings of Two Autos

Two Dana Point women accused of hiring a team of would-be mercenaries to intimidate and assault former employees were denied bail Tuesday in the case of two San Bernardino County firebombings last August.

After a lengthy detention hearing in Los Angeles federal court, U.S. Magistrate Volney V. Brown Jr. ruled that Charlotte Ruth Wyckoff, 51, and Elizabeth Leta Hamilton, 39, pose a danger to the community. He also found that bail would not assure their return to court to face charges.

Valerie Ramirez, who was formerly married to Wyckoff’s son, Robert, testified as a government witness Tuesday that Wyckoff called her son in 1981 and said, “I’m going to put a contract on Valerie’s life.”

The witness said she thought that Wyckoff would follow through on the threat. She was frightened, she said, and reported the incident to police. She also told friends, “in case anything did happen,” she said.

Six Arrested

Wyckoff and Hamilton, owners and operators of preschools and elementary schools in Orange and San Bernardino counties, were arrested last week, along with Franklin Joseph Camper, 38, owner-operator of a paramilitary camp in Alabama, and three part-time paramilitary instructors.

Camper and one of the instructors, Paul Johnson, 42, were brought before U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson for a detention hearing late Tuesday, but that hearing was continued. The two others, James Larosa Cuneo, 22, and William Dean Hedgecorth, 22, have been ordered to be present at the next hearing.

The six were charged in a criminal complaint, filed by Assistant U. S. Attys. Charles J. Stevens and David W. Wiechert, with conspiracy, arson and use of napalm-like gasoline bombs in two firebombings.

A car belonging to Robyn and Michael Rishoff of Etiwanda was firebombed at around 3 a.m. Aug. 13 at their home. At about the same time, a few miles away, a car belonging to Harriet and Richard Russo of Ontario was firebombed in their garage. The Rishoffs and Harriet Russo had formerly worked at schools run by Wyckoff and Hamilton.

The two school operators told investigators from the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that after seeing Camper on television they had hired him to investigate people who they said had been harassing them and vandalizing their schools. Both denied specific knowledge of any firebombings.

It was disclosed at Tuesday’s hearing that Wyckoff and Hamilton had been held for nine hours and questioned by sheriff’s deputies in Rancho Cucamonga after the August firebombings, then released.

In pressing for bail, attorney David E. Kenner, representing Wyckoff, argued that his client and Hamilton had been caught up in an atmosphere of fear and had hired Camper because they failed to get satisfaction when they complained to Orange County authorities about threats and harassment.

He maintained that if they had wanted to flee to Australia, as reported, the two women could have gone months ago.

‘No Reason to Flee’

“They didn’t flee because they didn’t do anything wrong, and they had no reason to flee,” Kenner said.

Rabbi Hershel Brooks of Ontario, called as a character witness, said he found Wyckoff and Hamilton to be “wonderful people.” He described them as “kind, serene and dedicated” to children.

The rabbi said he has taught for an hour a week at one of the defendants’ schools.

Testifying for the prosecution, Ronald L. Hacecky, an Orange County Fire Department investigator, described an arson fire set in a small Wyckoff-Hamilton preschool in San Juan Capistrano in February, 1984.

According to Hacecky, Wyckoff and Hamilton supplied a list of possible suspects, but he said the list led nowhere. “It was just as if we were getting the runaround,” he said. “It just led us back to the owners.”

Calls Described

The next witness, Robert Russell, now an Orange County Sheriff’s Department homicide investigator, said he had been assigned to the Orange County Fire Department at the time of the school fire.

He described a series of calls from Wyckoff and Hamilton reporting threats, harassing telephone calls, vandalism and license numbers of cars that supposedly were following them, but Russell said investigation failed to turn up anything of substance about the reports.

When prosecutors asked who he thought may have set the school fire, Russell said, “My opinion is that the fire was done by Charlotte Wyckoff or Leta Hamilton or both.”

Another prosecution witness, Steve Powelson, a former boyfriend of Wyckoff’s daughter, Shirley Wright, said he went to the Dana Point home occupied by Wyckoff and Hamilton last summer and found Hamilton with a shotgun, crouching behind a shutter and peeking through the window.

According to Powelson, Hamilton demonstrated how to fire a shotgun from the hip position.