Neighbor Heard Argument Before Girl Was Stabbed : Crime: A woman who lives near corner where Huntington teen was found said she sounded ‘really mad and a little scared.’ There was no cry for help.

A woman who lives yards away from the corner where a 16-year-old Huntington Beach girl was fatally stabbed said Wednesday that she had heard a girl “really mad and a little scared” arguing with someone.

About 1 a.m. Tuesday, the 32-year-old woman said, she was awakened by the sound of a car door slamming and a girl saying something unintelligible that gave the woman the impression the girl wanted to get away.

“In my opinion, she knew the person,” the woman said. “I was waiting to hear if she was going to call for help. But she didn’t.”

The woman heard the girl walk toward Acacia Avenue and Brookhurst Way. Then the shouting stopped.

“I thought that they were just fighting,” she said. “And the argument had ended.”

She said she didn’t hear another voice nor a car being driven away.

About five minutes later, she heard a man yelling for someone to call 911. Police arrived about 1:10 a.m. and discovered the body of Mary Irene Lewis. She had been stabbed 16 times, according to autopsy results released Wednesday.

The autopsy showed that some of the lacerations were inflicted as the Huntington Beach High School student tried to fend off the attack. She died about an hour later at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

The neighbor said she didn’t learn what had happened to the girl until the next day.

Police had no suspect as of Wednesday night, nor had they found the 1987 white Nissan Sentra the attacker stole from Lewis.

The car with license plate 2EGD875 has a dark tint on the rear and back side windows and a medium tint on the front side windows, Police Lt. John Woods said. The chrome-rimmed car has a brown vinyl interior and a small dent on the right rear wheel well area.

Family and friends gathered at the house of Lewis’ best friend, Michelle Hamelin, 17, on Wednesday to share their memories.

The best friends met in 1985 when Hamelin’s family moved to Tellim Lane, where Lewis lived with her parents and four siblings. Even before Hamelin arrived, Lewis had walked over to Hamelin’s house-to-be every day and asked Hamelin’s father, who was getting it ready for the family, “Is Michelle here yet?”

Hamelin said when she arrived weeks later, Lewis was on the doorsteps waiting.

“She has been my missing link ever since,” Hamelin said.

The pair were like “black and white,” opposites but inseparable, said Hamelin’s mother, Martha. “You can’t think of one without thinking of the other.”

While Lewis favored baby-doll dresses with flower prints, Hamelin prefers black. Lewis listened to funk and rap, and Hamelin “got into Gothic ethereal.”

When the two were together, they settled on a middle ground: oldies, Hamelin said.

Hamelin and other close friends said Lewis thrived on a busy social life, but she was not irresponsible. Two hours before she was found, she had called home and checked in with her parents.

“She would not have put herself in a dangerous situation,” Hamelin said. “She must have trusted the person she had been with. I think it must have been someone she knew.”

Erica Castille, 16, of Huntington Beach, said Lewis liked to dance. And she was a heartbreaker, friends said. Lewis didn’t have a serious boyfriend, but many boys were interested in her, they said.

As for school, “she was never a participant,” Hamelin said. Lewis sometimes pretended she was sick during gym, Castille added.

“She went through life saying ‘This is who I am,’ ” Hamelin said. “She was very excited about life.”