A man sentenced to death for the 1980 rape and murder of a Seal Beach woman died in prison on Monday, Dec. 22 at the age of 80, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Wednesday.
Benjamin W. Watta, formerly of Long Beach, was found unresponsive in his cell at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City around 11 a.m. on Monday during a count and pronounced dead by paramedics just after 11:30 a.m., the corrections agency said. The Del Norte County Coroner will determine his cause of death.
Simone Sharpe, 70, killed in 1980. (Courtesy photo)
Benjamin Wayne Watta, convicted of a 1980 murder in Seal Beach. (Courtesy photo)
Benjamin Wayne Watta sits in the Santa Ana courthouse with his legal counsel on Jan. 20, 2009. (File photo by Joshua Suddock, Orange County Register)
Benjamin W. Watta, who was sentenced to death for the 1980 murder of Simone Sharpe, died in prison at age 80 on Dec. 22, 2025. (Photo Courtesy of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
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Simone Sharpe, 70, killed in 1980. (Courtesy photo)
He was convicted of murder during the commission of rape and burglary in 2008 for the 1980 rape and killing of 70-year-old Simone Sharpe in Seal Beach. A jury recommended the death penalty for Watta and that sentence was imposed in 2009.
Sharpe was found dead by her son at her neighbor’s home on Christmas Eve 1980. She had been raped, strangled and suffocated the day before. Sharpe was feeding her neighbor’s cats and collecting their mail for them, going into the home through an unlocked garage door, as they were on a vacation.
Sharpe’s son realized she was missing and looked for her at the neighbor’s house, where he found her dead in a bedroom, between a bed and wall, prosecutors said.
Sharpe’s murder case went cold and was unsolved until 2001, when a district attorney’s office task force focused on killers, rapists and sexual offenders used DNA technology to link Watta to the murder, with DNA from a rape kit collected in 1980.
When the task force made the DNA connection, Watta was in custody for attempted murder of his ex-girlfriend in Florida and was extradited to Orange County.
Watta was moved to Pelican Bay State Prison from Orange County in 2009 and was serving a condemned sentence, the corrections department said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 placed a moratorium on the death penalty in California. The last execution in the state was in 2006.
Their names hardly do them justice: Mother Dragon, Fish, Two-Headed Dragon, Starfish, Octopus and Tripod.
Six colorful, whimsical, playground sculptures surrounding Legg Lake within the expansive Whittier Narrows Recreation Area in South El Monte have become beloved park icons for kids and adults alike for more than six decades.
Back in the 1960’s a sculptor named Benjamin Dominguez created several works of art inspired by fantasy sea creatures that were placed in playgrounds all around Whittier Narrows Recreation Area park on Oct. 24, 2025 in South El Monte, CA. (Photo by John McCoy, Contributing Photographer)
Back in the 1960’s a sculptor named Benjamin Dominguez created several works of art inspired by fantasy sea creatures that were placed in playgrounds all around Whittier Narrows Recreation Area park on Oct. 24, 2025 in South El Monte, CA. (Photo by John McCoy, Contributing Photographer)
Back in the 1960’s a sculptor named Benjamin Dominguez created several works of art inspired by fantasy sea creatures that were placed in playgrounds all around Whittier Narrows Recreation Area park on Oct. 24, 2025 in South El Monte, CA. (Photo by John McCoy, Contributing Photographer)
Back in the 1960’s a sculptor named Benjamin Dominguez created several works of art inspired by fantasy sea creatures that were placed in playgrounds all around Whittier Narrows Recreation Area park on Oct. 24, 2025 in South El Monte, CA. (Photo by John McCoy, Contributing Photographer)
Back in the 1960’s a sculptor named Benjamin Dominguez created several works of art inspired by fantasy sea creatures that were placed in playgrounds all around Whittier Narrows Recreation Area park on Oct. 24, 2025 in South El Monte, CA. (Photo by John McCoy, Contributing Photographer)
Back in the 1960’s a sculptor named Benjamin Dominguez created several works of art inspired by fantasy sea creatures that were placed in playgrounds all around Whittier Narrows Recreation Area park on Oct. 24, 2025 in South El Monte, CA. (Photo by John McCoy, Contributing Photographer)
Back in the 1960’s a sculptor named Benjamin Dominguez created several works of art inspired by fantasy sea creatures that were placed in playgrounds all around Whittier Narrows Recreation Area park on Oct. 24, 2025 in South El Monte, CA. (Photo by John McCoy, Contributing Photographer)
One of the crowd-sourced photos turned in to LA County Department of Arts and Culture by a county resident. (images courtesy of LA County Department of Arts and Culture
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Back in the 1960’s a sculptor named Benjamin Dominguez created several works of art inspired by fantasy sea creatures that were placed in playgrounds all around Whittier Narrows Recreation Area park on Oct. 24, 2025 in South El Monte, CA. (Photo by John McCoy, Contributing Photographer)
In order to find out more about them, the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture is asking the public to send them their personal photos of themselves and their children or grandchildren playing on the sculptures, captioned with memories of a mid-century era when parks intertwined public art, interactivity and a child’s imagination.
“Depending on the response, how many photos we receive, we will have a phase two to determine creative ways to share them with the public,” wrote Laleña Vellanoweth, the county’s civic art conservation and collections manager in a statement released Thursday, Oct. 23.
Erica Rojas was in the park on Friday, Oct. 24 with her husband. They were training their dogs to walk and behave on the trails, when Rojas noticed the theme of ocean life after passing by the Octopus and Two-Headed Dragon sculptures.
“I love any artist that has inspiration from both land and sea,” she said.
The county’s project has two parts: conservation and historical research, Vellanoweth wrote.
The department is bringing on apprentices to comb through the photos, people’s comments and dig out letters and other records for clues on how the sculptures got here and why. They will also digitize and catalog the data. Conservation goals include: upkeep of the outdoor artworks that are subject to wear-and-tear, weather and seismic activity.
The outdoor, interactive artworks were designed by Mexican artist Benjamin Dominguez (1894-1974). He studied art at Academia de Artes Plasticas at the University of Mexico and graduated in 1925. He perfected a centuries-old faux-bois craft, known as “concrete wood” while at the university and used it to create these unique park sculptures.
Dominguez emigrated to the United States at age 62 and was commissioned to make tiger and lion enclosures at a zoo in El Paso, Texas. But he first began building his concrete-and-steel sea creatures at a park in Las Vegas, which was recently bulldozed to make room for a development. All the sculptures were destroyed.
In 1961, Dominguez was commissioned to make the six playground sea creatures for Whittier Narrows park by Frank G. Bonelli, the father of parks and recreation in LA County and a former county supervisor. A nature park in San Dimas bears his name.
“We noticed that the Dominguez sculptures at Vincent Lugo Park has tons of historical information and wanted to create that type of archive for our sculptures,” wrote Vellanoweth.
The county has consulted with Eloy Zarate, a history professor at Pasadena City College and co-founder of the San Gabriel-based Friends of La Laguna. The group raised $1.1 million to restore the La Laguna playground art, which includes a lighthouse with a slide kids love to go down. As a child, he played on the interactive sculptures in San Gabriel where he grew up, he said.
“We are the ones that brought Benjamin Dominguez to life. We said, ‘Hey, this guy was important,” said Zarate.
He said the six Whittier Narrows sculptures are similar to the ones Dominguez designed in Las Vegas, especially Mother Dragon, her yellow-orange body dotted with blue spikes and surrounded by red-and-white mushrooms.
Zarate has offered to write the nominating papers for the Whittier Narrows artworks so they can be accepted on the National Register of Historic Places.
“That is one of the last things we will do,” he said, noting the 20 years he and his group have given to preserving the artist’s unique playground artworks.
Besides San Gabriel and Whittier Narrows park, the third place where his work is preserved is Atlantis Play Center in a park in Garden Grove, at 13630 Atlantis Way, Zarate said. That park features Sandy Sea Serpent, with its tail winding up a hill that kids slide down. “All these structures are meant to be played on,” Zarate said.
His works in these parks represent “a rare example of handcrafted, mid-century playgrounds, when parks were designed to be creative and interactive rather than standardized,” wrote the Los Angeles Conservancy.
The works at Legg Lake were preserved in 2015 through the support of then L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina, according to the inscription on the informational display in front of one of the sculptures. It concludes by saying Dominguez’s works are an example of the contributions made by immigrants to Southern California.
In today’s political climate, in which ICE raids are resulting in the arrest of hundreds of immigrants, including those undocumented who’ve made a living and raised a family in Southern California for decades, the recognition of Dominguez at an L.A. County park is made more meaningful, Zarate said.
He hopes the county in its crowd-sourcing effort will acquire many photos, letters and documents relating to the Whittier Narrows park artworks.
“It is important particularly in today’s environment to understand people who come to this country and work, who give a significant amount to the country they’ve settled in,” Zarate said.
One can’t go into Whittier Narrows park without noticing the iconic serpent, or the octopus, for example, which are closer to the entrance on Santa Anita Avenue and the Pomona (60) Freeway.
“I mean, they are part of the park, and you recognize it,” said Armando Salcido on Friday, Oct. 24. Salcido and a friend were heading to get a closer look at some of Dominguez’s other sculptures scattered within the vast county park. “It is the first time I’ve seen the dragon. It’s really nice.”
For questions or for help converting your physical images into digital images or submitting over 10 images, contact Danielle Galván Gomez, civic art registrar, at dgalvangomez@arts.lacounty.gov.
Submission deadline is Dec. 12 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
In response to a recent spate of rider assaults, LA Metro on Thursday authorized “a surge” of law enforcement to physically patrol on board trains and bus lines marked by high rates of crimes, instead of just remaining on train platforms, within bus depots or in squad cars.
The sea change comes from a motion approved by the Board of Directors, aimed at rejiggering deployment strategies from the trio of law enforcement agencies hired by the transit agency, including officers from the LAPD and the Long Beach Police Department and deputies from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. The motion also includes redeployment of Metro Transit Security Officers.
The 2024-2025 budget of about $9 billion will include an additional $18 million for law enforcement, bringing the total cost for the three agencies to about $195 million, which means LA Metro gets about 260 armed officers patrolling the vast system each day.
While many board members acknowledged that is not enough, considering that LA Metro every day handles almost a million riders on 2,400 bus runs, 108 rail stations and more than 400 rail cars, they must work within a tight budget.
“I’ve been told law enforcement can’t be everywhere at once,” said board member and L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. “They don’t have the personnel to the extent needed.”
Nonetheless, CEO Stephanie Wiggins said the agency is reacting to recent violent incidents on buses and trains and on train platforms. The agency already expanded law enforcement presence primarily on the rail systems, while Metro’s security officers are increasing their presence on buses.
Liu Francisco, 52, from North Hollywood rides the mile from home on his bike to the North Hollywood B (Red) line station on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. He paid to enter as security look on. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
The agency on May 28 will also launch a 90-day pilot program that involves locking the exit fare gates at the North Hollywood B Line Station. That will require passengers to touch a TAP card on a reader at the exit, showing they’ve paid the fare in order to open the turnstiles, a first in the agency’s history.
Riders who did not pay will be cited or removed. The idea is to remove riders, often who are homeless, mentally ill or taking illicit drugs, from the system.
“The majority of violent crimes are from those with untreated mental health conditions and drug addictions,” Wiggins said.
An LA Sheriff’s Department officer rides the C-train at the Vermont Avenue station in Los Angeles on Wednesday, May 15, 2024.(Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)
Board member James Butts, mayor of Inglewood and a former police chief, agreed that enforcement of the agency’s fare system, part of its “code of conduct,” is a key aspect of stemming violent assaults. But that enforcement power was taken away from law enforcement a few years ago by Metro.
“We need to make sure people who get on buses and trains are the people who have paid the fare,” Butts said.
Two murders of passengers appear to have been committed by assailants who were mentally ill, as both killings were unprovoked, authorities reported.
Wiggins specifically mentioned the unprovoked killing of Juan Luis Gomez-Ramirez, a teacher visiting from Mexico who was sitting on a Line 108 bus in Commerce when someone on the bus got up, walked toward the rear exit, pointed a gun at the back of his head and fired, killing Gomez-Ramirez instantly.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón called it a tragic, senseless and heartbreaking killing of a “beloved father” who was simply riding on a bus in the 6200 block of Slauson Avenue in the afternoon of May 17. Winston Apolinario Rivera was charged with one count of murder, Gascon said in a statement.
The second involved the fatal stabbing of 66-year-old Mirna Soza Arauz on April 22. Arauz was riding the B Line train at the Universal City Station in Studio City, heading home from her job as a night security guard at Tommy’s Restaurant in North Hills.
Arauz, a mother and grandmother, was murdered in an unprovoked attack. After being stabbed in the neck, she managed to get off the train at the station, where she was found mortally wounded on the platform. A suspect was arrested about a half-hour later and identified as Elliott Tramel Nowden, 45. Nowden has since been charged with murder.
Mirna Soza Arauz, 66, seen in a photo on the GoFundMe website, was heading home after boarding Metro B (Red) Line in North Hollywood early Monday, April 22, 2024, and was stabbed to death. A suspect identified as Elliott Tramel Nowden, 45, was arrested. LA Metro’s board voted on Thursday, May 23, 2024 to beef up patrols and other security measures on its system. (Photo via GoFundMe)
“No one should be losing their life or or risking their life just for riding on Metro,” said board chair and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. “The violence and crimes we’ve seen on Metro is absolutely unacceptable.”
A second motion also approved unanimously calls for the three chiefs of the law enforcement agencies to report to the Metro board at its June meeting about these “high profile” incidents, deployment of personnel, staffing levels and a cost analysis.
“I feel the tail is wagging the dog right now,” she said.
Below is a list of recent crimes on LA Metro that made headlines:
A teenage boy was fatally stabbed at the 7th/Metro Center station in downtown L.A. on Jan. 11.A man was fatally stabbed at the Westlake/MacArthur Park Station (651 S. Westlake Avenue, Los Angeles) on Feb. 1.A No. 2 line bus was hijacked by a man with a BB gun that resembled a gun on March 21. The bus crashed into the Ritz-Carlton Hotel at West Olympic Boulevard.Two people were stabbed in separate attacks at Metro B (Red) Line stations in East Hollywood at (Hollywood/Western) and Westlake/MacArthur Park (600 block of South Bonnie Brae Street) on April 7.A bus operator got punched and stabbed while driving in Willowbrook (119th Street and Wilmington Avenue) on April 13.A man stabbed a 66-year-old woman (Mirna Soza Arauz) to death at a Metro Universal City station in Studio City (3900 block of Lankershim Boulevard) on April 22.A security guard was stabbed at a B Line station in Hollywood (1500 block of North Vermont Avenue) before fatally shooting his assailant on May 7, authorities said.A woman was stabbed in the arm at the Metro C Line Vermont/Athens station (South Vermont Avenue and the 105 Freeway) on Monday May 13.Hours later on May 13, four teenagers fought on a bus in Glendale (West Los Feliz Road and South Central Avenue). Two were stabbed and the other two arrested.On Tuesday, May 14, a man was robbed of his cellphone and hit in the chest on a bus in Encino (Ventura and Balboa boulevards).On Thursday, May 16, a man shot another passenger to death on a Metro bus in Commerce (6200 block of Slauson Avenue), authorities reported.A person was stabbed Tuesday, May 21, on a Los Angeles Metro bus in Lynwood (Long Beach Boulevard and Norton Avenue).
SCNG staff writer Hunter Lee contributed to this article.
President Joe Biden will add nearly 106,000 acres to the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument on Thursday, May 2, expanding the monument designated 10 years ago by President Barack Obama by nearly one-third, according to the White House.
Also, Biden will approve a 13,696-acre expansion of the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in northern California’s inner coast range, north of Sacramento. The two designations will be signed as proclamations by Biden later today at the White House through use powers granted to the executive branch. Together, they will add protections from mining and new highways to nearly 120,000 acres of wild lands in the state.
The San Gabriel Mountains monument expansion will add 105,919 acres of Angeles National Forest land to the existing 346,179-acre SGM monument, protecting closer-in areas in the western Angeles, including historic Chantry Flat, the Arroyo Seco and federal forest lands near Sunland, Tujunga and Santa Clarita.
Along with the expansion of the SGM monument, Biden promised additional resources for the area known as “L.A’s backyard playground,” located within 90 minutes of 18 million Southern Californians.
The White House announced funding for an unknown number of additional field rangers, interpretive rangers and positions to help with visitors. Also, $2.3 million in Great American Outdoors Act funding will be invested in the monument to rehabilitate barracks and provide housing for recreation and other Angeles National Forest staff, the White House said.
The Angeles National Forest received nearly 4.6 million visitors in 2021, more than Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks. Yet many areas remain closed due to fires, subsequent flooding and not enough funding to complete repairs.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will join President Biden in the signing of the proclamations.
“The San Gabriel Mountains National Monument is a crown jewel for Los Angeles. It is a backyard to millions of people, and is also home to cultural resources, rare animals and plants, unique geology, and dynamic forests, rivers and high peaks,” said Secretary Vilsack. “President Biden’s actions today ensure this remarkable place is protected for current and future generations.”
Others were jubilant over the presidential designation, something that was expected to happen on Earth Day in April but was pushed back. This included Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, who was present when Obama signed the original designation in 2014 and has championed the expansion for the last 10 years.
“In 2014, President Obama answered our calls by designating the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument for the first time. Since then, we have introduced legislation and fought to complete the vision of an expanded Monument that includes some of the most visited and beautiful lands in the western Angeles Forest. President Biden and the Biden-Harris Administration heard us,” wrote Chu in a prepared statement.
The monument before the expansion includes 342,177 acres of the Angeles National Forest and 4,002 acres of the neighboring San Bernardino National Forest. The addition also takes in lands owned and managed by the U.S. Forest Service.
Biden added to what Obama started by using the Antiquities Act of 1906, first used by President Theodore Roosevelt to designate Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. Eighteen presidents of both parties have used this power to designate other national monuments, including the Statue of Liberty, Colorado’s Canyon of the Ancients, and New Mexico’s Gila Cliff Dwellings
The San Gabriel Mountains monument is renowned for scenic mountain peaks, dark canyons, a plethora of flora and fauna species, hiking trails, campsites, streams and reservoirs. The addition takes in more popular portions of the western Angeles National Forest left outside the boundaries by Obama.
A map of the proposed addition to the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. (graphic by Jeff Goertzen/SCNG)
The expansion includes areas north of Sylmar and east of the Newhall Pass, near Placerita Canyon in the Santa Clarita area. It would include the Upper Arroyo Seco, a historic tributary of the Los Angeles River with headwaters in the Angeles that meanders through La Canada Flintridge, Pasadena and South Pasadena. Also, the addition includes the Big Tujunga Reservoir and Big Tujunga Canyon, Switzer’s Camp, Millard Canyon and Eaton Canyon waterfall.
Another key addition is a closer-in area known as Chantry Flat, a popular hiking, picnicking and camping spot north of Arcadia and Sierra Madre that has attracted thousands of visitors on weekends but has been closed for several years due to damage from fires, rainstorms and a lack of resources from the U.S. Forest Service to make repairs.
The road leading to Chantry Flat is closed. This area would be added to the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. (photo SCNG)
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Also included in the expansion is the site of Thaddeus Lowe’s funicular, the Mount Lowe Railway, which from 1893 to 1938 took people on a roller-coaster of a ride high into the mountains above Pasadena. The monument protects giant wheels used to hoist the railway onto the tracks, left on the side of the trail near Echo Mountain for decades.
Other historic trails that were created as part of the Great Hiking Era include the Gabrielino Trail, which was once a trade route used by Native American tribes and was recently restored. The new areas also contain ancient Native American relics.
A view of part of the proposed expansion area of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, with downtown Los Angeles visible in the background, on April 16, 2024 near La Cañada Flintridge, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Switzer Falls, off the historical Gabrielino Trail in the western part of the Angeles National Forest, as seen in June 2022, is scheduled to be added to the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument. (photo by Steve Scauzillo)
In an aerial view, a vehicle drives past a proposed expansion area (L) of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in the Angeles National Forest on April 16, 2024 near La Cañada Flintridge, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
In an aerial view, water flows from Big Tujunga Dam, in a proposed expansion area of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in the Angeles National Forest, on April 16, 2024 near La Cañada Flintridge, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
“Our local community is overjoyed to see this next step in a 20-year effort to permanently protect the San Gabriel Mountains,” said Belén Bernal, executive director of Nature for All, a group lobbying for more resources and expansion of the monument. “The area included in the expanded San Gabriel Mountains National Monument is the closest section of the National Forest to the San Fernando Valley,” she added.
Guillermo Rodriguez, vice president of the Pacific Region and California director for Trust for Public Land, said the expansion of the San Gabriel Mountains monument will stimulate not just public, but also private funds, too.
“Having that special designation allows for greater resources to be invested in these areas,” Rodriguez said. “We have seen national monuments, like national parks, act as economic drivers. That increased attention and accessibility adds revenue to the local economy.”
About $1 million will be invested in the SGM monument from the State Water Resources Control Board, U.S. EPA, and the California Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, according to the White House.
