A LIFE CUT SHORT SLAIN WOMAN REMEMBERED.Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer LA CRESCENTA - More than 1,500 people gathered Saturday to celebrate 23-year-old Roberta Happe, whose short life violently ended last month when she was murdered and her body was found in a Culver City Culver City, city (1990 pop. 38,793), Los Angeles co., S Calif., a residential suburb of Los Angeles; inc. 1917. It is a center of the U.S. motion-picture industry, whose roots in the city date to c.1915. Its chief manufactures are rubber products and computers. park. The ceremony was filled with equal parts tears of pain and happy memories of the woman who was abducted abducted Distal angulation of an extremity away from the midline of the body in a transverse plane and away from a sagittal plane passing through the proximal aspect of the foot or part, or away from some other specified reference point outside the nonprofit agency where she worked providing assistance for the mentally challenged. ``We gather wrapped in the conflicts which accompany us with overwhelming pain and grief because a life was unaccountably un·ac·count·a·ble adj. 1. Impossible to account for; inexplicable: unaccountable absences. 2. cut short,'' said the Rev. Diane Kenney in opening the service in the auditorium at La Crescenta Valley High School Crescenta Valley High School is an secondary school located at 2900 Community Avenue in La Crescenta-Montrose, an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The school is a part of the Glendale Unified School District. , where Happe graduated in 1995. ``We gather in anger by the randomness of this irrational violation.... But what many of you know personally is that you were blessed by the presence of Roberta who was among you for a short 23 years.'' The two-hour memorial service came after authorities on Friday took into custody the man they suspect in Happe's slaying. Jason Thompson Jason Thompson can refer to different people:
Two detectives from the Culver City Police Department flew to Michigan on Saturday to interview Thompson. He is awaiting an extradition hearing this week, said Culver City Police Sgt. Ed Henneberque. Authorities said Happe was abducted at 6 p.m. Feb. 22 on Wilshire Boulevard and taken to an automated teller machine automated teller machine (ATM), device used by bank customers to process account transactions. Typically, a user inserts into the ATM a special plastic card that is encoded with information on a magnetic strip. where the suspect demanded cash. Her body was found more than two hours later by residents in the parking lot at the Culver City park. An autopsy showed that Happe suffered multiple injuries by strangulation strangulation /stran·gu·la·tion/ (strang?gu-la´shun) 1. choke (2). 2. arrest of circulation in a part due to compression. See hemostasis (2). stran·gu·la·tion n. , blunt force and stab wounds, said a Los Angeles County Coroner's Office official. Culver City police also say she may have been raped. As police continued their investigation, family and friends remembered the affable and selfless Happe, pronounced ``happy,'' amid the flowers and photographs throughout the auditorium. ``Roberta, we love you so much,'' read a friend, Rob Luke, from a letter written by college friends at the University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission . ``We love you because you lived up to your last name. You had a contagious smile. You were our ambassador of peace and doer of goodwill.'' Luke also remembered Happe's zany side. ``You wore gardening gloves to grow your nails,'' he said, to which the audience broke into laughter. ``You had no idea how beautiful you really were.'' CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- 2) A memorial service, above, for slaying victim Roberta Happe is opened Saturday by the Rev. Diane Kenney and the Rev. Darell T. Weist at La Crescenta Valley High's auditorium. At left, Happe's husband, Brian, listens during the service. John Kennedy/Special to the Daily News |
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