2 Arrested in Inquiry Into Disappearance of Woman

A Los Angeles legal secretary and her daughter were arrested Tuesday in the disappearance of millionairess Jean Fay Drexler and booked for investigation of kidnaping for extortion, authorities said.

Lillian Kahn, 38, and Cynthia Deaver, about 20, were taken into custody by district attorney investigators at a West Hollywood hotel and turned over to Los Angeles police detectives, district attorney’s spokesman Al Albergate said.

The two were later booked at the Van Nuys Division Jail, Cmdr. William Booth said. Further details were not released.

Kahn was identified as an associate of Drexler’s former attorney, Thomas Carver, who was jailed for contempt Aug. 4 when he declined to tell the court where the 74-year-old woman could be found. He was released last week after filing an appeal.

Before her arrest, Kahn had been subpoenaed to appear Thursday before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Miriam A. Vogel, who said at a hearing last week that she feared that Drexler had been kidnaped and held against her will.

Vogel called in the district attorney’s office and the Police Department to find the missing woman, who was last reported seen in a church parking lot near downtown Los Angeles on Aug. 4.

Drexler’s court-appointed attorney, Marshal Oldman, said Tuesday, however, that information developed by his office and turned over to authorities last week had connected Kahn with his client in Palm Springs as recently as Thursday.

Police went to a residence in the desert resort city and learned that Kahn and Drexler had been there earlier that day, Oldman told The Times. He said the two women rented a car at the airport later in the day. When the car was returned 21 hours later, it had been driven 377 miles, enough to include “practically any place in Southern California,” the attorney said.

Continuing the investigation in Los Angeles, investigators secured a warrant to search Kahn’s Crescent Heights-area home Tuesday, and then later arrested Kahn and her daughter at the Four Seasons Hotel, Albergate said.

Drexler, who was reported to be “confused, disoriented” and unable to express herself sensibly, was placed under the public guardian’s conservatorship by court order earlier this year.

“She had been the frequent prey of men approximately 50 years younger than herself who have utilized every available means to take from her an estate valued at $2 million,” a Superior Court document said.

Investigators reported that Moises Vasquez, an illegal alien with Drexler’s power of attorney, had been living with the missing woman in her expensive Hollywood Hills home.

When two deputy public guardians went to the home May 17, they said the garage door opened and a car carrying Vasquez, 25, and an elderly woman--believed to be Drexler--drove away.

In court last week, Juan A. Flores, director of a center for the needy at St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church, testified that Vasquez brought Drexler to his home that same day, and she lived with his family until June 23, when she entered Midway Hospital for treatment of a hip injury.

Flores said she was transferred in mid-July to the Beverly Palms Convalescent Hospital, where he picked her up Aug. 4, took her to Farmer’s Market for lunch and then to the church, where he had met Drexler about two years ago.

He testified that Drexler was “terrified” about coming to court and “afraid to return” to her home. “She told me that she had many friends in Los Angeles, and they would take care of her,” he said.

The last time he saw Drexler, she was getting into a car in the church parking lot, Flores said.

Vogel was openly skeptical of testimony offered by Flores and Carver, who told the court that the last he knew of Drexler’s whereabouts was at the convalescent hospital. The judge accused both men of lying.

Drexler, whose husband, Troy L. Drexler, died in 1969, came to the attention of authorities in November, when City National Bank filed a petition in Superior Court seeking instructions about how to handle her trust account.

The bank reported that Drexler seemed to be under the undue influence of others, who appeared to be depleting her assets. She had withdrawn $39,000 from her account in a matter of weeks, bank officials said.