Woman Struggles for Composure as She Describes Safari Attack

A woman, testifying Wednesday in a civil suit against Chatsworth-based Brendan Vacations Inc., struggled at times to maintain her composure as she told a Los Angeles Superior Court jury how she was shot by a bandit during a nature walk in Africa in 2007 when she was four months pregnant.

Jacqueline Lutz—who found out hours later, after arriving at a Nairobi, Kenya, hospital, that her fetus had not survived—recounted the events leading up to and immediately after the time she was hit by gunfire in the abdomen.

Lutz, her husband, Rg Lutz and his longtime friend, Long Island, N.Y., resident Raymond Mollica, filed suit against Brendan Vacations in March 2009. They allege Brendan made numerous representations on its website that led them to believe everyone involved in their safari trip once they reached Africa was a Brendan employee.

The Redondo Beach couple and Mollica maintain they only learned later that Brendan delegated most aspects of the trip to third-party companies, including the ground tour operator.

Previously: It Took 8 Hours to Find a Doctor After African Bandits Attacked

Brendan Vacations has denied any wrongdoing. Defense attorneys say the company did not select the activities on the safari to Tanzania and did not employ the two nature walk guides who were with the Lutzes and Mollica when the bandits attacked them during their "Splendor in the Serengeti" tour in March 2007.

They also say the plaintiffs failed to read the tour package disclaimers and that they should have known the distinction between Brendan and the other companies.

Lutz said she and her husband met with Mollica and his then-fiancee Celia Vergel DeDios, who is now his wife, at their hotel near Arusha, Tanzania, on the first night of their vacation. She said they discussed their plans to take the nature walk and the next morning met the tour guides, Herman Kiriama and Charles Safari, before the two couples and a fifth tourist, a woman from Great Britain, embarked on the walk to Lake Duluti.

The woman said the group was on a trail when a man with a machete accosted them and demanded money. She said he told them to lie on the ground and give them their money.

Each member of the group complied, but then Kiriama began struggling with the assailant, Lutz testified.

"I felt scared—this is dangerous," she said.

About five to 10 seconds later, a second bandit fired a shot, she said.

"Then I heard two more gunshots and I felt the bullet," she said.

Lutz said she told Mollica she had been shot and that he replied he had been wounded too, having been struck in the left leg. She said later that she found out that Safari had been shot in the head and killed.

"Then I heard Rg say we have to get out of here," Lutz testified. "I just took off walking. All I wanted to do was get back to get help to see if the baby was OK. I was hopeful the bullet just hurt me and not the baby."

She said that when they reached the hotel, they were met with indifference as they asked for help, first by men at a guard shack and later by a group of women who just walked away. She said she and Mollica also were not allowed into the hotel.

"They didn't want to make a scene for the other guests," she testified. "No one was helping us at all. Ray and I were both sitting with blood all over our pants."

She said the hotel staff appeared to be more concerned about the British tourist, who was "screaming her head off because she lost her bag."

Earlier today, Mollica testified about his injury.

"I was shot in my left leg around the calf area," Mollica said. "It was very painful, like a burning sensation, almost."

Mollica said he quickly became aware that his friend's wife also was wounded. He said she was lying to his right after everyone in the group was ordered by one of the assailants to lie on the ground.

"I remember how calm she was and how much she was bleeding," Mollica testified.

Mollica, like Lutz, said Kiriama aggravated the situation and likely prompted the bandit with the gun to shoot by trying to disarm the machete-wielding man who had demanded the tourists' money.

"I couldn't believe he [Kiriama] had done that," Mollica said. "I thought they would rob us and go away and we would just have have a horrible story to tell."

—Bill Hetherman, City News Service