2 LA Worlds? Colliding?

Collision of 2 L.A. worlds may have led to girl's death
Tue 28 Jul 2009
By Richard Winton, Ari B. Bloomekatz and Joel Rubin
LA Times
(images courtesy of LA Times)



Lily Burk and Charles Samuel walked in separate worlds.

Burk was a bright, bookish 17-year-old, whose future was ahead of her.
After a summer in which she was to appear on stage as the lead in a
play and volunteer at a skid row needle exchange program, she was to
have started her final year of high school.

Samuel, 50, had been in and out of prisons for decades. He was a
transient with a long record of criminal activities and drug abuse.

Friday, on a hot, bright afternoon, chance brought the two together on
a quiet, tree-lined street.

Burk walked down Wilshire Place about 3 p.m., leaving the former
Bullock's Wilshire department store that today is home to Southwestern
University School of Law. Under her arm, she carried a box of
paperwork that her mother, who taught at the school, had asked her to
pick up. Samuel had walked out of a nearby residential drug treatment
program earlier in the afternoon. He had been ordered there after a
recent arrest but had been given permission to leave for the day. As
Burk approached her Volvo sedan near 7th Street, Samuel confronted
her...



Read the full article here.