NORTH HIGHLANDS (CBS13) — He survived three tours of duty, but a 91-year-old veteran couldn’t survive the brutal beating he suffered in a home invasion.

Akemi Girion had to make the toughest decision of her life this weekend when said goodbye to her stepfather, John Masson.

“His face was all broken — jaw, cheek, head — everything was broken,” she said. “Even if he survives, he’s not going to have a quality life.”

Masson was badly beaten on October 28 when thieves broke into his North Highlands home in the middle of the night. They blindfolded and tied up Girion and a caretaker and demanded Masson’s car keys.

“He didn’t give up his key because he’s a military man,” she said.

The suspects left with cash, jewelry and prescriptions drugs instead.

Masson’s injuries were too much, and he died over the weekend.

“This is not a home invasion anymore, it’s a murder,” she said.

For half of his life, Girion says, Masson served in the Air Force — through World War II, the Korean War and the start of the Vietnam War.

“He told me he almost died a couple times, but he survived everything,” she said.

Masson lived the other half of his life in a home off of Cortright Way, where for some of them, he took good care of his disabled stepdaughter.

“We were two peas in a pod, and they stole that from me,” she said. “They stole my father.”

A man who survived three wars and decades of military service is now the victim of a violent crime in his own home.

“Please help us to catch the people, people who did that to my father,” she said.

There isn’t a good description of the three to four suspects, because it was dark in the home at the time.

Masson’s family is offering a reward for information leading to an arrest.

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