Assailant With Knife Hurts Couple, Neighbor

VAN NUYS —  A married couple in their 60s was wounded, the husband seriously, after a knife-wielding stranger attacked them outside their home on a quiet cul-de-sac Tuesday afternoon, police and relatives of the victims said.

The assailant was then stabbed, and a neighbor was also injured in the melee.

Robert A. Brown, 67, was cleaning out his family’s garage in the 13500 block of Vose Street when the attacker, identified as Eliazra Hernandez, 20, dashed into the open garage and stabbed him repeatedly with a kitchen knife, authorities said.

Hearing her husband’s screams for help, Brown’s 61-year-old wife, Lucy, sprinted into the garage, pulled the assailant off Robert Brown and managed to grab the knife away. The attacker then clubbed Lucy Brown on the back of the head with a nearby drafting lamp, according to the couple’s son, Bob Brown.

“This guy walked up the driveway and my dad asked him what he needed and then he just jumped him,” the son said. “My dad was calling my mom and she thought something had fallen on him. When she went out there, this guy was on top of him.”

Hernandez was in serious condition Tuesday night at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where he was being treated for chest wounds inflicted by his own knife. Police Sgt. Brett Papworth said it was unclear whether the suspect stabbed himself or was wounded in the struggle with Brown.

Papworth said Hernandez was returning from a park outing when he suddenly stopped his car a few blocks from the Brown home and told his brother “I have to see somebody.” He then jumped out of the car and took off running, Papworth said. The brother quickly lost sight of him, he said.

Papworth said it is still unclear why Hernandez went after Robert Brown since they did not know each other.

Hernandez’s family said he had been having “relationship problems” recently, but denied that the suspect was using drugs, police said.

One of the Browns’ neighbors, Craig Posen, 40, was also injured after he ran next door to check on the commotion and was struck with the lamp. His wife, Ronna Posen, said that when her husband yelled to her to lock up their house, the bloodied assailant lurched over to their front lawn and then hid behind the Posens’ garage.

“That is when he attacked Craig,” Ronna Posen said. “Craig swung at him with a fence post and hurt his arm when he jumped over the fence to get away from the guy.”

Ronna Posen said that before her husband went to see what the screaming was about, she called 911, but the operator told her to call back when she had more information on the nature of the trouble. With the attacker on her front lawn she called back, and police “were there in like two seconds,” she said.

After officers arrived, Hernandez “jumped on the police car” and smeared the vehicle with his blood, Ronna Posen said.

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Robert Brown suffered stab wounds to the abdomen and deep gashes on his face and arms. He underwent three hours of surgery at Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills Tuesday afternoon and was reported to be in stable condition.

His wife received three stitches for a cut on her head, and Craig Posen was under observation for a possible concussion and broken arm, according to relatives.

Bob Brown said his parents have lived in the same house on Vose Street for 35 years. His father is a retired insurance salesman who was going through a box of old newspaper clippings detailing his children’s sports achievements at the time of the attack, Brown said.

His mother works as an administrative assistant at USC and, fortuitously, was home from work ill on Tuesday.

“If she hadn’t been there, she feels my father would be dead now,” Bob Brown said. “If me and my brother had been here, that guy probably wouldn’t be alive now.”