Apparent Target Fearful, Grieving for Jogger’s Family

SAN CLEMENTE —  Margaret “Peggy” Wengert said Thursday the idea that someone was apparently was trying to kill her “is very frightening.”

But an equally troubling emotion, she said, is having to cope with what happened to Jane Carver, the United Airlines flight attendant whom police believe a hit man mistakenly shot to death last June, thinking she was Wengert.

“It makes me feel very bad,” said Wengert, 62. “I feel so for that family. It was supposed to be me, but she was killed instead. It’s a terrible feeling. I’m keeping them in my prayers, and I hope none of them hold any ill feeling toward me.”

Wengert said she continues to feel fearful, knowing that someone tried to kill her and that someone did shoot her husband in the face in San Clemente on April 10. Nevertheless, she continues to walk her dog and, she said, tries to live as normal a life as possible.

The Wengerts have been caught up in the criminal investigation involving Premium Commercial Services Corp., a Huntington Beach company that the couple allegedly owed more than $400,000--and that Margaret Wengert had sued three days before Carver’s death.

“It’s emotionally wrenching. I’ve been through a lot. Nothing like this has ever happened to me or my husband. But I get my strength from the Lord, and it’s a wonderful source,” said the woman whose friends call her Peggy.

“I take my solace in Psalms 91 and 23. I have a prayer group that’s lifting me up, praying for me regularly, asking me to come to the light. I try not to look at the circumstances of what happened but look to Jesus instead.”

Wengert said she belongs to the King of Glory church in Fountain Valley and faithfully attends meetings of the Woman Aglow Fellowship, a nondenominational Christian women’s group.

Apart from her own fear, Wengert has had to care for a spouse whose jaw was shattered with a single shot from a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun.

“Emotionally, that too has been very difficult,” she said. “We continue to feel frightened together. You know, you look around when you go outside. . . . But Jesus is our personal savior and friend. The Lord is our protector, and with that, that’s how we’re coping these days.”