So far, for Enietra Washington, today had been like most days lately. That was about to change.
In the early evening of November 20, 1988, Enietra, 30, a jocular woman with a effusive personality, was walking south on Normandie when she turned west on 90th Street and passed the GP Market. She had spent part of the afternoon with her boyfriend, Vincent. Enietra did not drink, but she did use drugs. This was the late 1980s, after all, and South LA was flooded with drugs. So while she and Vincent were visiting a friend’s house, they had smoked pot and crack. They had stopped around three o’clock, and Vincent, on his way to work, dropped Enietra off in her neighborhood.
That night, Enietra was going to a party, so she was heading to her friend Lynda Hoover’s house. In the past, the two were so close that Enietra called her “sister,” but when Lynda stopped doing drugs in 1985 and Enietra continued—she even got arrested once for an incident involving narcotics—they became distant. Wearing a beige miniskirt and matching jean jacket, a floral-print blouse, biker shorts, and white Keds tennis shoes, Enietra, her hair up in pigtails, planned to change into party clothes at Lynda’s and do her hair, just as she had in the past.
As she passed the GP Market, a car parked on the street caught her eye—a pimped-out orange Pinto. “Oh, wow,” she thought, “a Pinto.” The car was popular in the 1970s, but after Ford stopped production in 1980, you rarely spotted them anymore. This one looked like “a Matchbox car or a Hot Wheels car,” Enietra would later say, mostly because the owner had detailed it out with white stripes on the hood and silver rims on the tires.
When the owner came out of the store and spotted Enietra admiring his Pinto, he spoke to her, but she didn’t answer. As she walked off, he shouted a remark, which she ignored.
Finally, the man got in the Pinto, drove up alongside her as she walked, and shouted through the open passenger window.
“You want a ride?”
“No,” Enietra said. “That’s okay.”
“You sure you don’t want a ride?”
“I’m only going a short way,” she said. “It’s not that far to walk.”
The Pinto inched down the street beside her. “That’s what’s wrong with you black women,” the man shouted from the car.
That sure got her attention. Enietra shot him a look, as in What did you say?
“No one can offer you anything,” he said. “I’m only going to drop you off.”
Enietra stopped. The two had words, and before she knew it she agreed to let him give her a ride. She was not in the habit of getting into cars with strangers. She did with this man because he seemed harmless, nerdy, maybe outspoken and full of himself, but certainly not dangerous.
She opened the door. Before she could get in, he had to move some schoolbooks from the passenger seat and toss them in the back. Once inside, Enietra noticed the car’s interior was pimped out like the exterior. The gearshift knob was pearl. The seats were covered with white diamond-cut upholstery to accentuate the white dashboard. The windows were tinted. For a car that was about a decade old, it was in such good condition that Enietra assumed the man was a member of a car club. This supposition was underscored for her when she noticed tools, socket wrenches it looked like, in the car’s back seat and floorboard.
As she was scoping out the Pinto, Enietra got a better look at the man. Neatly groomed with short hair, dark-skinned, 30ish, 160 pounds, he was maybe her height, five-eight. In high heels, she would have towered over him. It seemed to her he was wearing work clothes—a dark-colored khaki jumpsuit—but he was not dirty. He was soft-spoken, polite, but as he talked Enietra realized the only topic he was interested in was himself.
Enietra soon wished she had never gotten into the car, but here she was, so she decided to make the best of it. After all, what could go wrong? She told him she was headed to her sister’s house where she planned to get ready for a party they were attending that night. As soon as he heard about a party, the man asked, “Well, can I go?”
“Sure,” Enietra said. “You can go to the party. Everybody is welcome.”
Mostly, she would later contend, she was thinking that if she got him to the party he might meet someone else and lose interest in her.
“Well, do I need to bring something?” he asked. “A drink?”
“I don’t drink,” Enietra said. “If that’s what you want to do, you can bring it.”
“Then I need to stop and get some money,” he said as they drove along.
“Huh?” Enietra said. She did not want to drive around the neighborhood; she wanted to go to Lynda’s. “Just take me to my sister’s house and then you can come back.”
But the man kept driving.
“I’m going to get the money,” he said. “It’s not going to take me that long—15 minutes at the most.”
He was heading along Western Avenue when he turned onto 81st Street. He did not drive far before he stopped in front of a golden-brown house prominently featuring an octagon doorway. Even though the house had a driveway, the man parked along the curb on the street. He got out and headed for the house, pausing on the porch before continuing around to the side. Enietra later identified the house’s address—1742 West 81st Street. But right now she wasn’t paying that much attention. To pass time while she waited, she lit up a cigarette.
Enietra could hear the man talking to someone, yet when she turned in her seat she couldn’t see him. Beginning to get uneasy, she decided if he returned to the car with another person she would get out and walk away. Before long—she had not even finished her cigarette—the man came back and got in the car. Since he was alone, she stayed.
Heading out, the man turned up the radio until the music was blaring. It was so loud that when he started talking to her she could not understand what he was saying. Then she noticed something alarming. His mood had changed dramatically. Previously, he had been engaging if sarcastic; now he was angry, hostile, jumpy. His body language was menacing. Enietra felt threatened for the first time. This was not the man she had been jawing with back and forth earlier or she would have never remained in the car with him.
After he had driven a block or two, he turned off 81st Street. He spoke to her once more, but still the music was too loud for her to hear what he was saying.
“Are you talking to me?” Enietra asked.
“Then,” as she later described what happened next, “all of a sudden it got real quiet.”
“Oh,” Enietra said. “What happened?”
She did not know why it had gotten so quiet.
She turned to the man. “Wait a minute,” she said. “I’m getting out of the car.”
“You get out of this car,” he said as he drove, “I’m going to shoot you again.”
Enietra could not believe what she heard.
“Shoot me?”
“Yeah.”
“You shot me?”
“Yeah, bitch,” he said, “and I’ll shoot you again.”
In disbelief, Enietra glanced around the car. Then, focusing on herself, she could see, even in the darkness lit only by passing streetlamps, blood on her blouse. It had all happened so fast. But apparently as they drove the man reached over with his right hand to the door pocket on the driver’s side, grabbed a handgun, pointed it at her chest, and fired. All she noticed, when she thought back, was one quick flow of movements, which she caught from the corner of her eye. She never saw a gun. She didn’t hear a shot. She felt no pain. All she knew was the man had been talking over the roaring music and then everything got quiet.
As she sat bleeding, the man, for some reason, started calling her “Brenda,” the name of a woman in the neighborhood known to be a prostitute.
“That’s not my name,” Enietra said.
“Quit dogging me.”
“I’m not dogging you. That’s not my name. My name is not Brenda.”
“You know me.”
“I don’t know you,” she said. “If I know you, don’t you think I’d call you by your name?”
“Quit dogging me, Brenda,” he said again. “Quit dogging me.”
Enietra realized she had to get out of the car. Now. The man had lost his mind. It was only a matter of time before he shot her again. She had no chance of withstanding a second gunshot. So she reached for the door handle. She would jump out, even if the car was moving. But before she could jump, the man anticipated what she was going to do.
“You move,” he said, “I’ll shoot you.”
“But I don’t even know you.”
“Yes, you do, Brenda.”
“I told you my name is not Brenda! I don’t know you!”
Suddenly, the man pulled the car over and stopped. Before she knew it, he was on top of her. She tried to push him away but couldn’t. Even as she struggled to fight him off, he started kissing her.
“Get off me!” she yelled. “You’re hurting me!”
With his full weight bearing down on her, she could hardly breathe. Even so, he kept kissing her. As he did, she tried her best to reason with him.
“Why did you do this to me?” she said. “Just take me to the hospital.”
“No, I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can,” she said. “You can just take me to the driveway. I’ll walk. I’ll get there, some kind of way. I’ll get there. All you got to do is take me to the hospital.”
“No, I can’t do that.”
“Yes, you can. What am I going to do about my kids?”
“You got kids?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Yes,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I? Just because I’m out here?”
The man said nothing.
“If I die,” Enietra said, “you got to take care of my kids. And if you don’t, I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”
The man still said nothing.
It was now that Enietra began fading in and out of consciousness. Before, she had been able to stay engaged in what was happening. Not anymore. She felt herself passing out. Blackout.
When she came to, the man had leaned the seat back so he could better position himself on her. He ripped off her biker shorts, tore her panties, and tried to perform oral sex on her. She was aware of what he was doing, more or less. Blackout.
Gaining consciousness again, she thought the man was having intercourse with her. Blackout. When she came to next, it was because something was flashing in her face.
Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash!
Seeing the flashes and hearing the grinding sound made by an Instamatic camera, Enietra realized he was snapping pictures of her, pictures of all parts of her body. Blackout.
She woke up one more time. Now he was driving. She had to get out of the car—no matter what. Since he raped her, he was certain to shoot her again. She opened the passenger door, but before she could jump he shoved her. As the car moved at a moderate speed, she went crashing onto the pavement. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. If the car had been going faster, the fall might have killed her. But Enietra was alive. She lay sprawled in the street, motionless, as the orange Pinto sped off into the night.
For some time, Enietra lay in the street. Then, fearing she might be hit by a car whose driver did not see her, she got up and started walking. It was hard to get her bearings. At one point, she thought she was heading toward Western, but as she gazed up at a street sign she discovered she wasn’t. She kept on walking. Eventually, she came to a light, glanced up, and saw that the sign read “Denker.” She was near Lynda’s! All she had to do was walk down Denker and she would be there.
Wandering along, Enietra finally made it to Lynda’s house. Stumbling onto the porch, she started banging on the front door with both fists. No answer.
She called out Lynda’s name.
“Lynda! Lynda! Lynda!”
No answer. When it was obvious Lynda wasn’t home, Enietra collapsed onto the porch. She lay there, again drifting in and out of consciousness. She could not keep track of time, so five minutes may have passed, or an hour. She was about to get up and head to Western, where she hoped someone would spot her and take her to the hospital, when a car drove up to the house and stopped.
It was two o’clock in the morning.
As Lynda and her husband Kenneth pulled up to their house, Lynda saw something unexpected—someone lying on her porch. Who could it be? A drunk? A homeless person? Getting out, Lynda rushed to the porch, not sure what she would find. When she got there, her husband behind her, she was stunned to see Enietra, curled up in the fetal position, trembling.
“Lynda! Lynda!” Enietra was saying. “Please come help me! Come help me! I’ve been shot, and they raped me.”
Looking down at her friend, Lynda could see, from the glow of the front porch light, Enietra’s ripped panties hanging down her leg. With Enietra’s blouse unbuttoned and open at the neck, Lynda could also see, much to her horror, that Enietra had been shot.
“What happened?” Lynda said, frantic.
“They ripped off my panties and raped me,” Enietra said. “They shot me.”
“Who?”
“Two men in a car.”
“Two men?”
“Yes, two men.” Pause. “Please don’t let me die, Lynda,” Enietra started pleading.
Please don’t let me die! Please don’t let me die! Please don’t let me die!
From the way Enietra’s body was shaking, Lynda was afraid she was going into shock. Rushing inside, Lynda called 911.
Returning to the porch to wait for the ambulance, Lynda tried to get Enietra to explain what happened, but all she could piece together was that two men raped and shot her, after which she fell out of a car at Normandie and 81st or 82nd street. Somehow she walked to Lynda’s house, which was only, as it turned out, two blocks away.
Lynda was shocked not just because of the physical condition she found Enietra in, but because Enietra was there at all. She had made no arrangements to meet Enietra that night. She and her husband had plans, which did not include Enietra. In the past, Lynda and Enietra often went out on Saturday night, usually ending up partying. But after Lynda quit using drugs three years ago, she had been clean and sober. As often happens, she stopped seeing friends from the days when she did use drugs, friends like Enietra. So the two women were not supposed to go out tonight, not to a party or anywhere else. Lynda had not spoken with Enietra on the phone. Indeed, the last time Lynda saw Enietra, before she found her curled up on her porch, was almost one full year ago.
Soon an ambulance arrived and paramedics began attending to Enietra. They too asked her what happened, but she couldn’t answer, she said, because she was about to pass out.
“Oh, no,” one of the paramedics said. “You’re not going to pass out here.” Aware that this was a danger sign, he knew he had to keep her awake.
After they stabilized her, the paramedics loaded Enietra into the ambulance and rushed her to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. There, she was taken directly from the Emergency Room into surgery where Dr. John Marshall Robertson, the lead surgeon, removed a bullet from her chest. Fired from a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun, the bullet passed through her right chest, causing her lung to collapse. She was lucky to be alive. Had she remained untreated on Lynda’s porch much longer, she would have died.
Enietra’s internal injuries were so severe she stayed in the hospital for 13 days before being released. During that time, she was interviewed by a succession of detectives. On two occasions after she got home, she was visited by Detective Rich Haro. It was during these interviews with police that Enietra described what her assailant looked like. His appearance was not as distinctive as that of his car. Not too tall, 160 pounds, African-American, he was nothing special. The one distinguishing characteristic that did stand out: He had a pockmarked face as if he suffered from severe acne in his youth. But that car—you didn’t see a lot of pimped-out orange Pintos cruising around South LA in 1988.
As time passed, the investigation into the attack on Enietra Washington did not prove fruitful. That was not because of LAPD’s lack of effort. Not only did they interview Washington numerous times, producing a police-artist rendering of the suspect, but they staked out the street Washington said her attacker took her when he went to get money. Rich Haro drove Enietra to the street, where she pointed out the house. Washington’s information “caused [us] to set up for a month surveillance by police officers right there on the northwest corner of 81st Street and Western,” Dennis Kilcoyne, an LAPD detective, would say. There was “an abandoned business [there] at the time. [The area] was a haven for drug activity. They sat there and they viewed that area for over a month, watching for the elusive orange Pinto that never returned.”
In addition, police conducted countless interviews with residents in the neighborhood. They investigated the owners of every Ford Pinto registered in Los Angeles County. Strangely, despite these substantial efforts to unearth information, no one from LAPD ever bothered to interview Lynda Hoover. Logically, she would have been able to provide invaluable information about both Washington and the events of the night of the attack. This gaffe, an example of why some critics would charge the department with incompetence, was later a sore spot with LAPD officials. “We had a live witness telling us what happened,” Kilcoyne would say, meaning Washington. “You would have to believe that she would be the most truthful, laying in a hospital bed, shot up and hurting. She’s not going to fabricate what happened to her that evening.”
Police may not have found the orange Pinto during their monthlong stakeout, but some residents of 81st Street would find it hard to believe they hadn’t spotted it before the Washington attack. “The Pinto had been parked out there in front of Lonnie Franklin’s house for years and years,” a neighbor says. “Lonnie would move it from one side of the street to the other. The neighbors never paid any attention to it. I don’t know when it disappeared because he had so many cars. He had been salvage dealing too—he’d fix up cars and sell them. Lonnie didn’t go all the way crooked. It was a blend.”
And it’s not like police didn’t know there was a notorious orange Pinto in the area. The car had certainly been described to them. On October 31, 1987, Mary Lowe was reported getting into an orange Pinto the night she died. Alicia Alexander was seen being picked up by a man in an “orange hatchback” in September 1988 just nine weeks before Washington was attacked. The bodies of both Lowe and Alexander were found within blocks of 81st Street, less than 40 blocks for Alexander and a dozen for Lowe. If police had driven down 81st Street in the weeks before the Washington attack, it would have been hard for them to miss an orange Ford Pinto parked on the street.