Killing Among Girls Called Rarity

The fatal back-alley stabbing of a teenage girl in Anaheim over the weekend was a rare outburst of extreme violence among girls, apparently fueled by motives not often found in young men, witnesses and experts say.

“Boys fight for instrumental reasons, such as money. Girls tend to fight for emotional reasons,” said Meda Chesney-Lind, a women’s studies professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who has written several books on women and violence.

Homicide detectives won’t discuss the possible motive behind the killing of 17-year-old Yolanda Acevedo. But to her friends, the reason was clear: She was beautiful, and her assailants were jealous.

Acevedo died several hours after she was attacked, allegedly by two other teenage girls late Friday night in an alley behind an apartment complex in the 1800 block of West Glencrest Avenue, where she had lived with her family for two years.

Police on Saturday arrested two Anaheim girls: Nuvia Jeanneth Constantino, 17, and Linda Duarte, 16. Duarte lived in the apartment below Acevedo. The two suspects will be tried as adults, prosecutors said Monday, and were being held without bail at Orange County Juvenile Hall.

Police said a weeks-long feud led to the killing, in which Acevedo was stabbed in the neck, heart and lung. A 19-year-old friend from childhood who was with her was treated for minor injuries and released from the hospital.

Neither the victims nor their alleged attackers were gang members, police said. The killing stunned authorities because such extreme violence among young women is rare.

“We’re so accustomed to hearing about males in fights and, unfortunately, [being] the victim of homicides,” said Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez. “I haven’t seen anything like this in my 30 years here.”

Indeed, such crime is on the decline, said Chesney-Lind. Citing the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics, she said female juvenile arrests for murder and non-negligent manslaughter dropped 43% from 1993 to 2002.

“I would suspect that in this case, [death] was not intentional,” she said. “Girls tend to feel more guilty about what they do.”

Acevedo’s friends said Monday that they had spent several hours Friday straightening her hair before they gathered in the alley behind the apartment complex where she lived.

Trouble began when two girls and a teenage boy came out to the alley and reignited a disagreement that had been festering for several weeks, police and friends said.

The attackers “started stuff with us” and harassed Acevedo, said Laura Vizcarra, who attended elementary school with Acevedo and was wounded in the attack. “They always had something to say.”

They “were talking trash,” said Yesenia Mendoza, 19, Acevedo’s sister-in-law, who said she was struck in the head with a bottle. “They came back with Corona bottles and hit us.”

Acevedo “was beautiful, gorgeous,” Vizcarra said. “They were jealous of her looks.”

Neighbors heard the scuffle and called police, who arrived to find broken bottles and no one at the scene. They were notified by staff at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center after friends took Acevedo and Vizcarra there.

Knives and bottles are more common weapons of choice for girls than guns, said Chesney-Lind.