Michael Koss

An evening of drinking and drugs descended into a grisly, lethal confrontation that ended in the shooting deaths of three young women in Pasadena, court documents filed in the case reveal. Filed in Pasadena Municipal Court in support of murder charges brought against two suspects, the documents are reports of investigations conducted by detectives at the murder scene and their interviews of witnesses and suspects.

Koss Real Estate Investments, West Los Angeles, has purchased the Malibu Center shopping complex from John and Errol Coughlin for $5.9 million. The 2.18-acre project at the southwest corner of Cross Creek Road and Civic Center Way in Malibu, has 35,592 square feet of rentable space and is adjacent to the 29,000-square-foot Malibu Country Mart already owned by Koss. Michael Koss said he plans to integrate the two centers.

Shirley M. Dowling of Santa Monica has been installed as president of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, succeeding J. D. Miranda. Other officers include James Cook of San Marino, first vice president; Michael Koss of Koss Financial in Los Angeles, second vice president; Jon Hanson of Santa Monica, treasurer, and Robert K. Green of Lomita, secretary. Dowling previously was a director, first vice president, second vice president and third vice president of the association.

The Wilshire Commerce building, an office and retail complex at 3101 Wilshire Blvd., has been sold by the Heritage Group to Michael Koss and Marc Scott for a reported $6.25 million. The 86,333-square-foot building, on more than two acres, is at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Shatto Place, directly across from Bullocks Wilshire department store. Tenants include restaurants, a computer learning center, boutiques and AT&T.

Michael Koss' column "Rent Control Is Missing Its Target" (Op-Ed Page, July 28) and the subsequent letters (Aug. 8) all failed to mention the fact that if rent control were phased out or eliminated it would directly result in countless numbers of more homeless people on our streets. It is a known fact that there are many who have jobs, but on their low wages they are unable to afford the astronomical rents that prevail in this area. The Reagan Administration's drastic cutbacks in housing funds have certainly made the matter worse.

Michael Koss correctly argues that rent control is detrimental to providing affordable housing ("Rent Control Is Missing Its Target, Helping Neither the Needy Nor Housing," Op-Ed Page, July 28). But he has missed the point. Rent control is not about housing, it is about power. This power is exercised by an unholy alliance between tenants and politicians. The tenants get bargain rents.

Separate juries found two defendants guilty Friday in the shotgun slayings of three teen-age girls during an evening of drinking and marijuana smoking last year in a garage apartment in an upscale Pasadena neighborhood. On Friday afternoon, a Pasadena Superior Court jury found Vincent Hebrock, 18, guilty of three counts of second-degree murder. Another Pasadena jury had earlier convicted the second defendant, David Adkins, 18, on three counts of first-degree murder.

Two young men convicted in the 1991 shotgun slayings of three teen-age girls in Pasadena were given maximum sentences Wednesday after a judge heard emotional accounts from members of the victims' families about how the murders had devastated their lives. Pasadena Superior Court Judge J. Michael Byrne sentenced David Adkins, 18, to life in prison without the possibility of parole and Vincent Hebrock, 19, to 51 years to life.

When Broadous Elementary School students boast about their cool school, they aren't kidding. As one of three Valley schools participating in the city Department of Water and Power's "Cool Schools" program, the students, teachers and parents at the Pacoima school will soon begin planting trees and gardens around the campus in a joint DWP/Los Angeles Unified School District effort to create energy-efficient, environmentally friendly campuses.

The new Koss QuietZone 2000 headphones can reduce background noise in offices, homes, airplanes and other places so the user won't hear droning and offensive noises such as computers, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers and jet engines. The headphones don't drown out speech, but they will cut down the tone of even the most shrill colleague. In a recent test at The Times, the QuietZone 2000 noise reduction stereophone system reduced both high and low frequency noise.