Woman Killed After She Resists Purse Snatching

A would-be robber attacked and killed a woman in a busy supermarket parking lot in the unincorporated Florence area of South Los Angeles early Wednesday as horrified shoppers watched helplessly, authorities said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Angie McLaughlin said Rushie Lyons, 62, of Los Angeles was pistol-whipped by a man who tried unsuccessfully to snatch her purse outside the Superior Wholesale Supermarket in the 7300 block of South Compton Avenue.

Lyons was pronounced dead at Martin Luther King Jr. Hospital/Drew Medical Center about an hour after the 9 a.m. attack, authorities said.

“She was confronted by a man who tried to tear her purse from her grip, and when she resisted, the suspect produced a handgun and began beating her about the head with it,” McLaughlin said.

Witnesses said the attacker struck the woman at least three times in the head and then fled on foot without taking the purse.

Store security guard Ellis Willoughy said he chased the attacker across the parking lot, and that the man jumped into a car in which another man was waiting and sped off along Compton Avenue.

“It happened so fast there was really nothing anybody could do,” he said. Investigators were seeking a suspect Wednesday described as 20 to 25 years old, 5 feet 10 inches tall, 150 to 170 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair worn in a freshly done two-inch Jheri-curl. The man wore a short-sleeved black T-shirt and dark pants.

Investigators described the getaway car as either a faded yellow older-model Buick Regal or a light tan Oldsmobile Cutlass.