Bride-to-Be Murder Victim's Family Campaigns to Change Parole System

The family of murder victim —who was stabbed by an intruder last year in Valley Village—launched a campaign Tuesday to hold parole officers accountable for checking in with parolees assigned to them.

“I strongly believe that if the parole officers had done their duty and had him [Osmanhodzic's ] checked out, then she would not have been murdered,” said Osmanhodzic's great-aunt Karen Sutton, who is spearheading the campaign, which she is calling “Cheree’s Law.”

“He was on drugs. He would not have been on the streets and back in jail if his parole officer saw him," Sutton said. "He would not have been able to walk into the back door of her house and stab her 20 times.”

The goal of the campaign is to get a million signatures to call for a law that would make parole officers notify police if a parolee doesn’t check in within 24 hours, and have an immediate arrest warrant issued for the violator.

According to state documents, Loera was released on parole Feb. 12 and should have been assigned a parole officer. The case was assigned to the Van Nuys division, but there was some confusion if he was an illegal immigrant.

"The file was ignored for three months," said retired parole officer Caroline Aguirre, who researched and wrote about the Loera case for WomenInCrimeInk.com. Aguirre is working with the family, said, "This is clearly a case where the system failed. How many more people will die before things like this are fixed?" Aguirre said the three-month lag time for Loera to see a parole officer was "inexcusable."

Aguirre said many of the parole officers have about 40 cases, and are not overworked. "This is yet another case of a dysfunctional parole agency," she said. "Loera was classified as a high-control supervision case, and this verification should have been done immediately after his release from prison."

Osmanhodzic, 34, was murdered July 24, 2010, two months before she was to be married. Loera walked through the back door of her apartment near Riverside Drive, took a beer out of the refrigerator and startled her while she was cleaning the bathroom, police said. Loera had a small knife, like a homemade shank found in prisons, and stabbed Osmanhodzic 20 times before setting her bed on fire, police said.

Her fiancé, Adam Culvey, came home while Loera was setting the apartment on fire, and chased the suspect out the door while on the phone with 911. The 911 dispatch operator urged Culvey to give up the pursuit. The next day, a person walking a dog found a knife and an iPod, both which were later found to have Loera’s DNA on them.

“[Loera] was flipped out on drugs, and the parole officer would have seen that and he would have been put back into jail where he belonged,” Sutton said. “There is no accountability for parole officers,  and they should have notified police.”

The family of 27-year-old Erica Escobar of Santa Monica contacted the Osmanhodzic family to get involved in fighting against non-revocable parole (or NRP), which releases "low-risk" criminals from prison on unsupervised parole before their time is served to alleviate prison overcrowding.

were tortured and killed in Culver City and their bodies found on May 3. A transient,, who was on the NRP program, was arrested and charged in connection with the double murder.

"Meeting Cheree's family was surreal," said Kathy Doyle, mother of Erica. "I am still grieving, of course, and so are they. Gail [Osmanhodzic's mother] remembers every moment she spent on the last time she saw her daughter."

Sandy Houston, Escobar's aunt, said there is no tracking for released criminals, and they can only be sent back to prison for new violations. Police confirmed that Loera was not part of the NRP system, but was required to report to a parole officer when released into the community.

Doyle, a registered nurse who has worked with law enforcement, said she believes that it is important to have families who have been through such traumatic situations speak up. "Apathy leads to nothing," Doyle said. "At least it keeps me distracted and I know Erica would have wanted me to do something. It's these little acts of kindness that mean a lot to me, like this man who made some pretty expensive posters for me about my daughter who said he couldn't charge me for it. I just started sobbing."

The families have not yet sought help or support from Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian yet, although he was very supportive throughout the search for Loera and . As a state representative, Krekorian voted for the NRP measure.

Adam Culvey and his mother, Carolyn, along with Osmanhodzic's mother, Gail, and Sutton met with Escobar's family to discuss ways to stop crimes like this and what positive measures they can work on together. They agreed to put up a series of websites to bring attention to the issue and the petition.

On Tuesday they launched: StopKillers.org, ChangeCA.org and ChereesVoice.com. They also have a video (see above in the video section.)

“There is not much up on the sites at the moment, but they all link to the petitions, and I hope that we will get a lot of people signing it,” Sutton said. “I found out that ‘parole’ means ‘voice’ in French and I still want Cheree’s voice to be heard.”

(Photos of Cheree Osmanhodzic and Erica Escobar are above, as well as the video.)