Eu Tells Court She Didn’t Get Good Look at Robber Who Beat Her in Her Home

Secretary of State March Fong Eu testified Wednesday that she “never did get a good look” at the robber who beat her with the blunt end of a hatchet last November in her Hancock Park home.

“I was in front of him all the time,” she told a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury during the third day of the trial of the accused robber, Gregory Lee Moore.

Eu, 64, spent about an hour on the witness stand while Deputy Dist. Atty. Antonio Barreto Jr. guided her through the events surrounding the attack on Nov. 10. Moore, 28, represented by Public Defender Jim Bisnow, looked on impassively during Eu’s account of the attack.

Other Evidence Cited

The trial that began last Thursday in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Dion G. Morrow is expected to be completed next week. Although Eu cannot positively identify Moore, prosecutor Barreto said during a recess that he will rely on other evidence.

Barreto said that in his opinion the most convincing evidence is a bloody thumbprint found on an envelop containing four $100 bills taken from a second-floor study in the Eu home the night of the attack. The thumbprint, he said, matches Moore’s.

The discarded envelop was discovered on a nearby lawn by a neighbor who tossed it in her car, where it remained for five days before it was turned over to police. The evidence has yet to be presented to the jury.

Public Defender Bisnow said the thumbprint amounts to circumstantial evidence since there was a question as to when the print was left on the envelope--at the time of the robbery or at a later date. The same problem, he said, applies to a bloody sneaker print found in the house.

Moore has a criminal record, including convictions for armed robbery, receiving stolen property and burglary. He is facing 10 counts of robbery and residential burglary for an alleged spree that began Oct. 20, 1986, and involved six separate residences, ending with the Eu break-in. If convicted, he faces up to 24 years in prison, according to the prosecutor.

Reading in Dining Room

Eu recounted how she had begun to read in the dining room of her Fremont Place home when an assailant came at her from the darkened living room.

“I was grabbed around the neck, and I screamed and hollered for help, and the intruder proceeded to beat me with a blunt end of a hatchet . . . on the head and told me to keep quiet,” she testified.

Although the intruder dragged Eu around the two-story house, she reiterated that her husband, Henry, in a second-story bathroom, did not hear the commotion. Eu suffered three fractured ribs and portions of her hair were pulled out during the attack. She testified that she was the hospital for more than a week and had to undergo surgery to reconstruct her left ear.

At a December police lineup, Eu testified that she was shown six suspects and finally settled on defendant Moore as her attacker. But, under questioning from the prosecutor, she said that on a police form she subsequently wrote “not positive” on whether Moore was in fact her attacker.