Prof's Daughter, 17, Is Murdered After Alleged Kidnap in L.A. Law School Area
The murder of a California attorney’s 17-year-old daughter after she was allegedly kidnapped near Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles has stunned the local legal community.
Lily Burk never returned home after running an errand for her mother at the law school Friday. Her body was found in her Volvo the next day, reports the L.A. Now blog of the Los Angeles Times.
Charles Samuel, 50, was charged yesterday with murder, kidnapping and robbery in the case. Police say they have surveillance camera footage showing the transient driving from the law school vicinity in Burk’s car as she is sitting in the passenger seat, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Burk’s mother, Deborah Drooz, is a partner at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. She had just finished teaching a summer course at the law school as an adjunct professor, reports the National Law Journal. Burk picked up some paperwork for her mother at a law school building shortly before her alleged abduction.
“This has hit all of us very hard,” says Leslie Steinberg, an assistant dean of public affairs at the law school. “We’re in shock. The community is a very close family. On a personal level, all of us are feeling this, and our hearts go out to Professor Drooz’s family. We also want people to understand that this is an extremely unusual situation, and that none of us have ever seen anything like this here.”
