HAWAIIAN GARDENS : Man Charged in Attack on Woman Who Nearly Died

Attempted murder charges were filed this week against a convicted murderer accused of attacking a Hawaiian Gardens woman a year ago and leaving her for dead.

The victim spent four days in a garage until she was found, barely alive. She was in a coma for months before she recovered and assisted authorities in arresting the suspect, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Clifton H. Garrott.

James Lum Shamburger, 47, was charged with one count of attempted first-degree murder and one count of attempted rape.

Bail was recommended at $500,000.

Garrott said the victim was picked up in the Hawaiian Gardens area last Aug. 27 and taken to a vacant garage and attacked, he said.

When the woman struggled, she was hit on the head with a hatchet or similar sharp-edged instrument and the attacker fled, the prosecutor said.

On Aug. 31, a man who was looking for his girlfriend’s dog peered into the partially open garage and smelled what he believed to be the odor of a decomposing body, Garrott said.

The man summoned sheriff’s deputies, who felt the woman’s pulse and believed that she was dead. When homicide detectives arrived, one discovered that she was breathing.

Garrott said the unidentified victim, who is in her late 20s, was hospitalized for months. After coming out of the coma, she assisted sheriff’s detectives in their investigation, leading to Shamburger’s arrest on Tuesday.

The prosecutor said Shamburger served 11 years in prison for the Aug. 3, 1977, murder of his wife in Los Angeles. She was beaten on the head with a baseball bat.