5 Victims of Pan Am Crash : Young Southlanders in Fiery Death

They probably had never met each other, the five young people from Southern California who would die together in a fiery crash over Scotland on Pan Am’s Flight 103.

They were all young, too young. The oldest was just 35. But they had something else in common, something their friends and family members would remark upon in their grief.

Remarkably, it seemed, each of the five had reached a semi-magical point in life when a brass ring each had worked and sacrificed for was within grasp.

Diane Boatman-Fuller, a striking woman of 35 with memorable green eyes, was born into a large family in Detroit. She moved to Los Angeles in 1981, and taught English at the Hollywood High School of Performing Arts, a magnet school located on the campus of Hollywood High. At night, she also taught English to immigrants in adult schools.

“She was a serious teacher--teaching wasn’t something she just did in her spare time,” said Stephen Sloan, coordinator of English-as-a-second-language programs at Hollywood Community Adult School. “She was a very caring person, very bright. And at the same time, she had a lot of ambition when it came to her writing.”

While still teaching, she began writing a play about the personal struggles of young black women like herself. She called it “How We Got Over.” But she couldn’t find a producer willing to take it on.

Risky Step

In January, according to a close friend, Cheryl Jones, Boatman-Fuller took a risky step. She moved out of her Marina del Rey home and went to Paris in hopes of finding someone who could help produce her play. Once there, Jones said, she found financial backers who helped put her play on videotape. And with that videotape, just a few weeks ago, she moved to London.

“She felt certain that if she had that videotape, she could find investors to put it on stage,” Jones said. “It was a very big step for her to leave Los Angeles, to leave teaching. But she really wanted to write. She wanted to get this play produced. And it looked as if she was just on her way to do it.

“But you know what? She knew what she wanted: to work on her play in Europe. And she was very lucky that she got to do something she wanted to in life.”

Lou Marengo was 33, Los Angeles born and bred. Those who knew him knew that whatever he set his mind to, he could achieve. Outgoing, academic and athletic, he graduated from Loyola High School and Santa Clara University.

Once out of school, he quickly got a job as a manufacturer’s representative in Los Angeles for Ford Motor Co., and simultaneously finished his master’s degree in business administration. Meanwhile, he and his young wife, Maria, of Granada Hills, had three children: Anthony, now 7, Elizabeth, 6, and Dominic, who was born just six months ago.

In business, he became known as a risk taker, according to his brother Paul, co-owner and publisher of the Orange County Business Journal. He was the sort of up-and-comer that other executives liked to help succeed.

Rapidly, Lou Marengo climbed the career ladder. By 1986, he was northwestern regional manager for Volkswagen of America. Early this year, he leapfrogged to a post normally reserved for older men: director of U.S. marketing for the firm.

“He was the sort of person who could see into the future what he wanted for himself and then achieve that,” Paul Marengo said. “He wanted to be a CEO or president of a big company someday. And, knowing my brother, I know he would have attained that.”

The last time friends saw her here, Elizabeth (Liz) Marek, 30, had colored her hair rainbow punk. She was an ardent peace activist, comic and entertainer.

Born in Connecticut and a graduate of the University of Connecticut, she had spent most of her 20s in Los Angeles, taking odd jobs to pay the rent on her Venice apartment.

“She had twin loves,” said Torie Osborn, an activist and producer who, when she met Marek, was director of communications for PRO-Peace, the organization that sponsored the Great Peace March across the United States in 1985. “One was performing, acting and singing. The other was political activism. And she always kept going back and forth between the two.”

A dedicated feminist, she joined the peace march and, on the months-long trek, formed a band called Wild Wimmen for Peace, which performed at night for the marchers.

Along the way, she was arrested at demonstrations at nuclear test sites and military bases. When the march ended, she helped form an all-girl band, called the Cherry Cokes, that spoofed songs of the ‘50s.

But then, after years on the fringe, things began to fall in place.

She was offered a paying job as producer-director of a well-known puppeteer named Bill Mack, a longtime friend, in New York City. She accepted and moved east.

“This was like a giant step in her career,” Osborn said, “to work as a director and a producer in a formalized, paid way. . . . Finally, she had her chance.”

Lilabeth Macalolooy, was 27, the youngest of 12 children in her family, a native of the Philippines who moved to Long Beach when she was 11.

When Mike La Riva met her at Banning High School, where she was a cheerleader, she already knew what she wanted to do.

“She was pretty exceptional,” said La Riva, a former boyfriend. “She always wanted to travel. It was kind of remarkable that even when she was young, she wanted to be a flight attendant.”

She graduated from high school in 1980. A year before she was to graduate from Mills College in Oakland, she dropped out to work for an airline loading baggage. Then, four years ago, Pan American World Airways accepted her as a trainee in its flight attendant program.

Reached Her Goal

Finally, about a year ago, La Riva said, she finally attained the goal she had worked toward since she was a high school student: to live and work abroad.

She began living in Frankfurt, West Germany, fell in love, and commuted between Germany and London. Meanwhile, she took her vacations in the exotic spots she had dreamed about in high school: Morocco, Maui, Rio de Janeiro, India.

And each time there was a crash, she would call her mother, Natividad Macalolooy, of San Pedro, so she wouldn’t worry.

“But this time we never heard from her,” said Lilabeth’s brother-in-law, Ernie Camanag.

Jocelyn Reina was just 26. Born and raised in La Palma in Orange County, she studied Shakespearean acting at Cypress Junior College and volunteered her talents each year at Agoura’s Renaissance Faire.

But her real passion was traveling, said her brother, John. And less than a year ago she began to realize it. She too became a flight attendant for Pan Am.

“She was born to be a flight attendant, because she was always happy and had a smile,” said her friend Susan Perry. “She loved her job.”

“She called Pan Am her second family,” said her brother.

“It’s a tragedy to have lost her,” he said. “But how many of us can say that when we have to leave this earth we left loving what we were doing?”

Times staff writers David Haldane and Lucille Renwick contributed to this story.