UPDATED: Intruders Ransack Elderly Woman's Norwalk Home, Flee With $25,000

UPDATED on July 16, 2011: Detectives now say there were three men and the victim is 75 years old.

Three men walked into a 75-year-old Norwalk woman's home early Friday, ransacked the residence and fled with her purse and about $25,000 in cash that she had planned to use for her own funeral, authorities said.

The suspects kicked Louisa St. John's back door open about 2:35 a.m. and made entry into the home in the 12000 block of Tina Street, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Lt. Frank Rivera of the Norwalk Station. 

Once inside, the suspects told the woman to lay on the floor. The victim, who was alone in the home when the burglary occurred, was not hurt by the intruders, the lieutenant said.

The suspects were last seen driving a gray Chevrolet Impala, Rivera said. A description of the men was not immediately released.

St. John, who is suffering from lymphoma and melanoma and is also recovering from a broken back, said she had planned to use the money to pre-pay her funeral expenses. 

"I was going to go pay for it today,'' St. John told ABC7 on Friday. "I don't want my kids to have to pay nothing.''

She said she heard the trio break into her home while she slept on the
sofa in the living room.

"I jumped up, and right then the door flew open and I said, 'Get the
hell out of my house','' St. John said.

She then grabbed her purse, which contained the cash, her wedding ring worth $10,000 and her medication, and tried to flee, but she dropped it, and the suspects grabbed it and fled. She believes she was targeted.

"I have lots of kids and grandkids, and they like to talk,'' St. John
told ABC7. "They probably did.''

A neighbor found the purse in her trash and returned it to St. John, who told one of her neighbors that she didn't wear her wedding band because it no longer fit her after her cancer treatment.

Anyone with information about the crime was urged to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Norwalk Station at (562) 863-8711.

* City News Service contributed to this report.