Raped and Set Afire, Teen-Ager Is Tough Area’s Latest Victim

Life in one of Hollywood’s toughest neighborhoods turned even meaner Tuesday as a teen-ager was kidnaped, raped and set afire by two men just three days after two motorists were injured by automatic weapons fire there, authorities said.

The 19-year-old victim was in critical condition late Tuesday at County-USC Medical Center, with second- and third-degree burns over 85% of her body.

News of the attack appalled even the grim denizens of the neighborhood around Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue, a gritty warren of adult book stores, X-rated movie houses and cheap motels.

“I just feel sick,” Sally, a prostitute in the area, said Tuesday. “It’s scary,” said another self-described “working girl,” who declined to give her name. “It could be anybody.”

Police said they have no suspects in the crime that began near the troubled intersection, where two men were wounded Saturday by stray bullets in what was believed to be a gang shooting.

The victim in Tuesday’s attack told police that two men about 40 years old picked her up in a dark-colored van after midnight. She said the men refused to let her go, then took her clothes off and raped her.

They drove her to Monterey Hills where they dumped her onto Monterey Road and doused her with a flammable liquid before setting her on fire, police said.

A resident in a nearby apartment complex, Jesse Williams, heard an outdoor faucet running and a low voice pleading: “Help me, help me! Please God, help me!”

Williams, a teacher, said he stepped outside and saw the teen-ager naked and severely burned. Most of her hair had been singed off and she was trying to soothe her badly blistered body under the faucet, Williams said.

Police said the victim arrived in Los Angeles about 1 1/2 years ago from out of state, although they had few other details. Los Angeles Police Detective Bob Suter said the young woman apparently had been living on the street.