By Town Crier Staff

A 78-year-old woman remained in critical condition Monday morning after two burglars allegedly attempted to beat and strangle her to death in her Mountain View home Saturday afternoon.

Mountain View police said the woman appeared to have interrupted the two burglars who somehow gained access into her Jardin Drive home behind Los Altos High School.

The men severely beat the woman on the head and strangled her after ransacking the house. They fled with a few items taken from her home, said Officer Jim Bennett.

The woman’s longtime companion discovered her lying in a pool of blood when he returned home from a morning outing. Believing she had suffered some sort of a medical problem, he called 911 for an ambulance.

Emergency workers determined that an assault had resulted in the woman’s head and skull injuries.

Two witnesses told police they had seen two men leaving the house in a 1993 to 1997, four-door gray Dodge Intrepid just before 1:30 p.m.

Both men were Hispanic, according to witnesses. One man was 18 to 20 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall, about 140 pounds, bald with a Fu Manchu mustache and was wearing either a muscle shirt or no shirt, police said.

The other man was between 16 and 18 years old. He was 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed about 120 pounds, according to witness acounts. He had short black hair and was wearing a blue shirt.

“Police are still agressively investigating the incident,” Bennett said Monday morning.

Anyone with information about the incident should contact investigator Greg Oschnsky at 903-6344.