KILL THEM!

[Taco John]

Two boys arrested after SLO man's death

13-year-old to be charged with murder after attack on victim, 87, at his south street home

Laurie Phillips

The Tribune


When three San Luis Obispo police officers entered Gerald "Jerry" O'Malley's mobile home Monday night to find out why his Ford Explorer was abandoned, they discovered the 87-year-old dead in the living room.

His killer, they would suspect by the end of the night, was 13 years old. And the cause of the blunt head trauma, they now say, was a skateboard.

By 1 a.m. Tuesday near San Luis Obispo's Railroad Square, two other officers arrested the 13-year-old and a 12-year-old friend, the younger boy on suspicion of auto theft.

The 13-year-old is the youngest person in at least 30 years to be arrested in connection with a murder in San Luis Obispo County. Neither is being named because they are minors.

Detectives believe the boy forced his way into O'Malley's home in the Village Mobile Home Park on South Street.

Coroner Detective Rick Neufeld confirmed that blunt-force trauma to the head caused O'Malley's death, and said he may have been dead at least a day when his body was found. Neufeld declined to say whether O'Malley appeared to have been struck repeatedly.

Police served a search warrant at the 13-year-old's San Luis Obispo home Tuesday afternoon and recovered a skateboard. But, police Lt. Steve Tolley said, investigators want to see lab results before they say whether they think it's the murder weapon.

O'Malley's neighbors said the boys didn't live in the park but did know at least two teenage girls there. Police were unsure whether O'Malley knew the boys; neighbors and friends didn't think he did.

Investigators were still searching for a motive Tuesday night.

A grim discovery

A driver on Highway 101 near Arroyo Grande noticed a dark green 1995 Ford Explorer driving erratically Monday evening and thought perhaps the driver was drunk.

Police believe the murder suspect and his 12-year-old companion were in the Explorer -- one of them driving it.

Following it north from Arroyo Grande and off the freeway in San Luis Obispo, to just behind Village Mobile Home Park, the concerned driver and a passenger decided to go for help.

Police have not identified those witnesses. But they could not have known that when they flagged down officers near the corner of Bridge and Higuera streets, they were inadvertently reporting a homicide.

By the time the police got to the Explorer, it was abandoned.

Officer Eric Lincoln checked the registration, Tolley said, and learned that it belonged to

O'Malley.

That fact led authorities to the victim's nearby home, where Lincoln, Sgt. John Bledsoe and another officer discovered

O'Malley's body around 9 p.m., Tolley said.

Investigators found signs of forced entry into O'Malley's home and believe at least one of the boys took "some property of value," said a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Investigators and neighbors confirmed that the 13-year-old suspect had talked to other children living at the park about the crime late Monday, and the youths gave descriptions of the boys to police.

Both boys were found and arrested about 1 a.m. Tuesday after a short foot chase by two plainclothes officers near Railroad Square and Santa Barbara Street, Police Department spokesman Rob Bryn said.

After police interviewed them, the boys were taken to the county Juvenile Services Center, where they remain.

Quiet man

One 33-year resident of the Village Mobile Home Park said he watched three or four young boys climb into O'Malley's sport utility vehicle and drive away from the park between 4:30 and 5 p.m. Monday.

He guessed they were 12 or 13 years old, and he did not recognize them.

"That's when I knew it was suspicious," Leonard Martin said. "He wouldn't let (anybody) have his car."

Tolley said investigators are "looking into the possibility" that other children were involved in the crime.

Wait staff at International House of Pancakes on Madonna Road, where O'Malley ate breakfast nearly every day, said he told them recently that young boys had robbed him. He apparently did not know the youths, they said.

Kathy Beamun, a server at IHOP, said O'Malley often told the restaurant's employees about his visits to the doctor.

"I knew he had an aneurysm in his stomach that could kill him any time," she said. "We knew at any time he could go, but we didn't suspect that way."

Neufeld confirmed O'Malley had an aneurysm but said the condition did not cause his death.

Neighbors were alerted to the crime Tuesday morning by barricades placed at the front of the 77-space park and crime-scene tape looped across the street near O'Malley's trailer. He moved to the park about three or four years ago and lived alone.

"This place is very quiet -- we don't have much trouble here," said Sharon Slaton, who watched police arrive from her porch. "This looks like the ghettoes, but guess what -- it's a nice place."

John Hough, the managing partner of Village LLC, which owns the park, said O'Malley was a "nice, quiet guy" who was retired and moved there three years ago for the affordable rent.

Police said both boys were suspected -- but not arrested -- in the recent theft of a small John Deere tractor from a construction site near the mobile home park. Neighbors said the boys had taken it for an early morning joyride through the park.


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