Prisoners of Fear : For Some Elderly, Van Nuys Slayings Are Reminders of Vulnerability

It’s strange, Grace Salerno says now, how the cozy old Van Nuys house where she has lived for 42 years could turn into such an ominous place--just another modest urban house where danger now inhabits the dark corners and empty rooms.

After all, this was home , the place where she and her late husband, Joseph, raised their two daughters, God-fearing parents who watched black-and-white television on warm summer evenings, lying in bed at night, talking about the day’s events and how much they loved one another.

Now Joseph is gone, the girls have moved away, and the nights are different: the 75-year-old Salerno lies awake at night with a .22-caliber pistol under her pillow, in terror of having to fight off an intruder.

On Wednesday, as she ate lunch with scores of other elderly diners at the Bernardi multipurpose senior center, she talked about how her fears have grown since two elderly Van Nuys women were killed in the past four days, apparently by burglars.

Berneda McMackin, 77, was found beaten to death Sunday in her smoke-filled home. Two days later, 72-year-old Aliza Levi was killed when she apparently startled a burglar shortly after her husband left their Norwich Avenue home to run errands.

Although police say the killings are unrelated, aging widows like Salerno say the crimes are a cruel and sober reminder of the dangers of being old and alone in a big city.

“It scares me to death to go to bed now,” the retired nurse said over a roast beef and cabbage lunch. “I lay there with my knees knocking, wondering if I’ll ever have the courage to use that gun if someone comes for me in the darkness. I pray to God that I do.”

Each day, scores of elderly Van Nuys residents gather at the senior center for lunch, parties and social affairs. But at 4 p.m., when the center closes its doors, many return to all-too-quiet homes now devoid of spouses, children and a sense of safety.

It’s the elderly version of “Home Alone.”

“You don’t know which door to go in,” said 74-year-old widow Margaret Vreeland, who has twice been mugged on the street since her husband died in 1971 and bears the scar where two thieves cut her with a knife.

“I live alone. It’s just me and my little doggie, Little Bit. She barks like the dickens whenever anyone comes near the house. But she’s old, 15 years old now. I know I’m going to lose her someday soon. And I don’t know what I’ll do then.”

Center Director Sabella Richardson says the killings haven’t come up much in conversations at the center.

“People come to forget their troubles,” she said. “But we have a lot of elderly women here, a lot of them. And they live alone. I can’t see why the Van Nuys police aren’t here telling these people how to better protect themselves at home. I mean, how can they do that?”

Jim Habif has seen the problem: The 76-year-old volunteer delivery man for a meals-on-wheels program says he has seen too many trusting men and women open locked doors for the flimsiest of reasons.

“All I gotta say is ‘meals on wheels’ and the door opens,” said the white-bearded man in a sea captain’s hat. “I’ve delivered flowers, too. When I yell ‘Flowers!’ the door opens. As long as the voice is friendly, they throw down their defenses. They should be cautious.”

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At one of the center’s cafeteria tables, 70-year-old Marion Whitley said she fled the big city dangers of Queens, N.Y., three months ago. Now, two of her neighbors have been killed.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“Me, too,” said lunch mate Lucien Farland, 67, a former postal worker and sheriff’s deputy from nearby Panorama City. “It makes me glad I’ve got 11 reasons to keep strangers away. Five go in one gun and six in another. They’re bullets! And if I hear just one strange noise, I’m up. And, let me tell you, I’m a light sleeper.”

In a game of seeming one-upmanship, the two traded urban fear stories:

“Too many old ladies open their doors without looking through their peepholes first,” Whitley said.

“Not me,” Farland responded. “I don’t open my door for anyone who doesn’t know me. And if they can’t say my name first, then they don’t know me.”

Whitley frowned. “I just don’t know, sometimes you can’t even go to the store or to church anymore, you’re too afraid, even in broad daylight! I used to go dancing. Now I have an exercise bike right in my room.”

Grace Salerno’s daughters--one lives in Alaska, the other in Ventura County--have long encouraged her to move away from the house she now shares with her 88-year-old aunt Frances, whom she describes as “sharper than any tack.”

But she just can’t seem to leave the old house. There are too many memories.

Sometimes, though, since Joseph, a plumbing contractor, died, Salerno feels like a prisoner in the home she once considered the safest place on earth.

“Every window has a stick in it” to hold it closed, she sighs. “Every door has a deadbolt. There isn’t a cross breeze anymore, no fresh air. Frances and I, we’re a couple of old lady prisoners.”

Not long ago, Salerno went to a discount store and asked the salesman for a gun “a little old lady could handle.”

So far, the weapon hasn’t been fired.

An elderly man from across the table spoke up: “Well, if Joseph were still around, he’d protect you. He’d hit them with a lead pipe.”

Salerno’s face suddenly flushed with memory.

“No,” she said. “My Joseph was a pacifist. He’d never approve of me owning a gun. But what can I do? Frances and I are all alone now, all alone.”