Woman in CityWalk Case to Hire Lawyer

Family members of a woman investigators want to question in connection with a double-slaying at Universal CityWalk have said they want to hire a lawyer for her before she answers questions, authorities said Wednesday.

The woman, Donna K. Lee, 44, was discovered with her stomach slashed alongside the Hollywood Freeway about 15 minutes after Doris Carasi, 61, and Sonia Salinas, 29, were found with their throats cut on top of a CityWalk parking structure Sunday evening.

Lee lived with Carasi’s son Paul--who was Salinas’ ex-boyfriend--in the same North Hollywood apartment house where the two dead women lived together. Lee also worked with Paul Carasi and Salinas in a Bank of America data processing center.

Lee, listed in fair condition Wednesday at a Panorama City hospital, has refused to answer investigators’ questions, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

“Investigators do want to interview Donna Lee, but their latest information is that her family has expressed a desire to seek legal representation prior to any interviews,” Deputy Brian Jones said.

Lee, in an emergency phone call from a freeway phone box, told a police dispatcher she was stabbed in a robbery. But investigators want to know why a fanny-pack belonging to Doris Carasi and a butcher knife--which deputies say may have been the murder weapon used in the CityWalk slayings--were recovered near her sports car by CHP officers who found her on the freeway.

“We’re looking at her very closely,” Sgt. Mike Robinson said Wednesday. “We’re looking at everybody very closely, but nobody is a suspect yet.”

Doris and Paul Carasi, Salinas and Salinas’ 2-year-old son by Paul Carasi had just finished eating a Mother’s Day dinner at the Country Star restaurant on the CityWalk promenade when they were attacked Sunday as they returned to their car.

Paul Carasi, 30, who said he was present but unconscious when his mother and ex-girlfriend were killed, has been asked by sheriff’s deputies to take a lie detector test, but no date has been scheduled.

Carasi has told investigators that he cut his thumb and arm when he tried to grab a knife held by an unknown assailant who came on him from behind, deputies said.

Carasi said he passed out during the attack and that when he regained consciousness he found his mother and Salinas with their throats slashed.

Robinson said that Paul Carasi was covered in “quite a bit of blood” when he alerted security guards of the attack and that tests are being performed on his clothing to determine whose blood it was.

Paul Carasi lived with Lee just two doors from an apartment shared by his mother, Salinas and his son.