A woman accused of killing her 64-year-old grandmother in Bell last month pleaded not guilty Thursday to a murder charge.

Sarah Paula Montoya, 24, is charged with killing Paula Montoya, whose body was discovered July 21 in her residence in the 6600 block of Pine Avenue.

The victim, who had six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, was last seen alive at her home three days before her body was found by deputies conducting a welfare check. She was discovered in a bathroom wrapped in plastic and a blanket.

Detectives said last month that the woman had been strangled, and that she also suffered broken ribs and a bruise on her head.

A motive for the attack was unclear, but Sarah Montoya allegedly told investigators she simply “snapped,” according to sheriff’s officials.

Investigators said the defendant then fled to Mexico with her children, who range in age from 1 to 9. Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Rosson said Mexican authorities detained the mother and her children at the Otay Mesa crossing.

Montoya is due back in a Norwalk courtroom on Sept. 28, when a date is scheduled to be set for a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to require her to stand trial.

–City News Service

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Photo by John Schreiber.

A second suspect was arrested this week in connection with the shooting death of a 19-year-old man in Long Beach three weeks ago, police reported Friday.

Nick Cubas of Downey was found dead about 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 4 in the area of Willow Street and the San Gabriel River, according to the Long Beach Police Department.

The following day, Rueben Alexander Ortega, 19, of Lakewood was arrested on suspicion of murder.

On Thursday, Edgar Miguel Espinoza, 18, of Downey was arrested in San Diego and booked on suspicion of murder, police said. He’s being held without bail at the Long Beach jail

Ortega is being held without bail at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic and is next due in court in Long Beach on Oct. 17, according to sheriff’s online inmate records.

No details have been released about the circumstances of the shooting or how Ortega and Espinoza were linked to the killing.

–City News Service

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Photo by John Schreiber.

A 26-year-old woman stabbed her 34-year-old boyfriend to death after he tried to strangle her during an argument at their South Los Angeles home.

Katrina Jeaneene Rawls was booked on suspicion of murder by L.A. police just after the incident, a police officer said. Jail records indicate Rawls is held on lieu of $2 million bail.

The woman and man were involved in an argument at their home in the 2000 block of East 114th Street, when he tried to strangle her, according to a different officer, Officer Tony Im of the LAPD‘s Media Relations Section. The fight was a little after 5:50 p.m. Saturday.

She then armed herself with a kitchen knife and stabbed him several times, Im said. Paramedics rushed the 34-year-old man to an area hospital, where he later died from his knife wounds.

The woman was booked on suspicion of murder, he said.

There was no other immediate information.

–City News Service

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Photo via Pixabay

A Los Angeles Unified School District special education teacher’s assistant is facing charges of smuggling heroin and cell phones to a death row inmate convicted of eight murders in Southern California.

Teri Orina Nichols, 47, of Bellflower, was arrested at San Quentin State Prison during a visit with 50-year-old killer Bruce Millsap.

Nichols posted bail and is scheduled to return to a Marin County courtroom for arraignment on Sept. 13, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

Prison officials told the newspaper that when questioned about some plastic bags in a trash can in the Thursday visit, Nichols pulled out a large cloth beanie from under her clothes that held 18 cellphones with chargers, two unidentified blue pills and roughly three ounces of heroin.

There was no immediate word of the connection between Nichols and Millsap.

LAUSD officials said Nichols was hired in 1992 as a substitute special education trainee and most recently worked at South East High School in South Gate. She was reassigned to a non-school site Monday pending the outcome of the criminal case, according to a statement issued by the district.

“Nichols is not a teacher, and these allegations do not involve students,” the statement reads in part.

Special education assistants aid teachers by “caring for the physical needs of students with disabilities and helping in their training and education,” according to a job description posted online by the LAUSD.

Millsap and co-defendant Kendrick Loot were sentenced to death in 2000 for the robbery-murders of two armored car guards and a third man during a yearlong crime spree in 1995-1996.

Millsap was also convicted of five other killings, including a witness and another armored car guard, prompting Los Angeles Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith to comment at sentencing, “I’ve been around 46 years and I’ve never seen a case quite like this.”

A police investigator said the crew, which included two other men, never gave guards the opportunity to surrender the cash. “They would just sneak up, execute them and take the money,” Detective John Gentzvin said.

Millsap was also charged with trying to take a contract out on the lives of two deputy district attorneys as well as two other witnesses against him, but prosecutors decided against pursuing those allegations.

Millsap’s victims included:

— armored car guard Fernando Herrera at Queen City Bank in Long Beach in November 1995;

— Ramone McKissick in November 1995;

— Manuel Garibay, a witness against Millsap in an unrelated case, in January 1996;

— armored car driver James Moon at Curtis Junior High School in Carson in February 1996;

— Francisco Parocua, Carlos Nuno and Patrick Barnett, killed during robberies in August 1996; and

— armored car guard Lamont Smith, killed outside a Walmart in Highland near San Bernardino in November 1996.

–City News Service 

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Los Angeles fire and police officials discuss the arson investigation with media. Courtesy LAPD

A homeless man accused of setting a fire that killed five people in a vacant office building in the Westlake district where he was living with other transients pleaded not guilty Tuesday to capital murder charges.

Johnny Josue Sanchez, now 22, could face the death penalty after being charged with five counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder in connection with the June 13 blaze.

The murder charges include the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder during the commission of an arson. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty against Sanchez, who is being held without bail.

Authorities allege Sanchez intentionally set the fire because he had a dispute with other transients living along with him in the 14,351-square-foot, long-vacant building at 2411 W. Eighth St. near MacArthur Park.

“It was a dispute between Sanchez and other individuals that were residing in the building that was the cause of him ultimately lighting the fire,” Los Angeles police Lt. William Hayes alleged.

A male victim was initially declared dead as a result of the blaze. The bodies of four more homeless victims — two men and two women — were found the next day in the ruins of the two-story structure, which had no functional fire sprinklers.

Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Ralph Terrazas said the additional victims were located together under debris on the second floor.

Cadaver dogs and their handlers discovered the additional victims, according to fire department spokesman Peter Sanders, who said all five victims appeared to be transients.

Two of the victims were identified — Jerry Dean Clemons, 59, and Mary Ann Davis, 44 — but the names of two other males and another female victim have not been released.

Firefighters used ladders to rescue three people from second-story windows during the blaze, Sanders said. One of them was transported to a local hospital, and the other two were treated at the scene.

It took 147 firefighters nearly 2 1/2 hours to extinguish the blaze, which broke out about 7 p.m. Sanchez was arrested at the scene.

He is due back in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Oct. 13, when a date is scheduled to be set for a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to require him to stand trial.

–City News Service 

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Courtesy of onscenevideo.tv.

A woman who allegedly ran over her boyfriend outside a La Puente motel after an argument pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a murder charge.

Sharon Kay Hood, 52, of La Puente, is charged in the May 8 death of 51- year-old Randolph Morales.

The two — who had been dating for six years — had argued inside a motel room in the 500 block of North Azusa Avenue in La Puente before Hood abruptly went outside, according to police and prosecutors.

When Morales followed her outside, she allegedly ran over him with her car. He died at the scene, and Hood was arrested the same day.

The murder charge includes the allegation of use of a deadly and dangerous weapon — an automobile — during the commission of the crime.

If convicted as charged, Hood could face up to 26 years to life in state prison, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

–City News Service 

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LAX Sign. Photo by John Schreiber.

Skipping death row, the diminutive killer of a TSA guard at Los Angeles International Airport in 2013 who targeted federal security officers pleaded guilty Tuesday to murder and other charges.

The plea agreement between Paul Ciancia, 26, and federal prosecutors will spare him the death penalty, but he still faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for the killing and the wounding of three. Formal sentencing is set for Nov. 7.

Ciancia pleaded guilty to 11 felony counts stemming from the Nov. 1, 2013, shooting rampage in the airport’s Terminal 3, including the murder of TSA Officer Gerardo I. Hernandez.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty, but the murder charge to which Ciancia pleaded carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Weapons charges carry another mandatory 60 years in prison, in addition to several years behind bars for other charges.

Ciancia, standing about 5-foot-3 and shackled at the waist, wrists and ankles, surveyed the crowd as he was escorted into the courtroom for the 40- minute hearing.

Speaking in a high-pitched, strangled-sounding voice that is apparently a remnant of neck wounds suffered when he was shot by police, Ciancia told the judge he was taking about a half-dozen medications for various ailments.

When asked by U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez if he was indeed guilty of the premeditated attack in which he shot Hernandez multiple times at point-blank range, Ciancia said yes.

Members of the victims’ families filled the downtown Los Angeles courtroom, many weeping throughout the proceeding.

One of the survivors, 38-year-old TSA Officer Tony Grigsby — who was wounded in the ankle and foot but has returned to work at LAX — said outside court that the plea has given his family “some closure,” but he “cannot fathom” the motivation for the attack.

A member of Hernandez’s family, who did not wish to be identified, wept as she recalled the late officer —  the first TSA agent to die in the line of duty in the agency’s 15-year history — as “a really good father who just loved his kids. It’s such a shame.”

Ciancia walked into Terminal 3 at LAX and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle while carrying dozens of rounds of ammunition, along with a signed handwritten note saying he wanted to kill TSA agents and “instill fear in your traitorous minds.”

Witnesses to the shooting said the gunman asked them whether they worked for the TSA, and if they said no, he moved on.

The New Jersey native, an unemployed motorcycle mechanic who had been living in the Sun Valley area of Los Angeles for about 18 months, was shot in the neck and leg during a gun battle with airport police.

Federal prosecutors cited Ciancia’s “substantial planning and premeditation.”

Ciancia purchased his weapon almost seven months prior to the attack and concealed it on the day of the shooting by tying two pieces of luggage together to create a carrying case, according to court records.

According to the plea agreement, Ciancia sent text messages to his brother and sister while he was being driven to the airport on the morning of the attack. In one, he called himself a “patriot.”

“I’m so sorry that I have to leave you prematurely, but it is for the greater good of humanity,” he wrote to his brother. “This was the purpose I was brought here.”

To his sister, Ciancia wrote that he had to “stand up to these tyrants,” and asked her not to let the media distort his actions.

“There wasn’t a terrorist attack on Nov. 1,” he wrote. “There was a pissed off patriot trying to water the tree of liberty.”

The evidence includes a two-page, handwritten, signed letter in which Ciancia wrote that he had “made a conscious decision to kill” TSA agents that morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said.

After he shot Hernandez at a passenger ID checkpoint and the officer fell to the ground, Ciancia got on an escalator heading into the terminal. When he saw Hernandez still moving, Ciancia went back and shot the officer repeatedly, prosecutors said. Hernandez was shot a total of 12 times.

Moving back into the terminal, Ciancia shot TSA Officers Grigsby and James Maurice Speer, along with a civilian, Brian Ludmer. He continued into the terminal but was shot by police.

Ciancia spent two weeks recovering at a hospital before he was transferred to a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where he remains in custody.

—City News Service

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Photo via Pixabay

An Echo Park mother whose malnourished 11-year-old son was found dead last month in a closet at her home is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on murder and child abuse charges.

Police said a number of reports were made by concerned citizens to child welfare officials about the son who hadn’t attended school since 2012, but apparently no investigation was launched.

Veronica Aguilar, 39, is scheduled to appear in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom in connection with the death of her son, Yonatan Daniel Aguilar.

She was charged Aug. 25 with one count each of murder and child abuse resulting in death involving the boy, who was found Aug. 22 wrapped in a blanket in a closet of their home in the 2100 block of Santa Ynez Street.

The boy’s stepfather, Jose Pinzon, said his wife told him that her son was dead before Pinzon found the body and called 911, according to police.

The boy allegedly died due to neglect and showed severe signs of malnutrition, according to prosecutors.

Aguilar was arrested the day after her son’s body was discovered. At her first court appearance last month, she was ordered to remain jailed in lieu of $2 million bail.

If convicted as charged, she could face up to 15 years to life in state prison, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Capt. Julian Melendez, commanding officer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Juvenile Division, told the Los Angeles Times last month that he was aware of three reports to the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services regarding possible abuse of the boy. The possible abuse was also reported to police but did not trigger an investigation by detectives from that division, according to Melendez.

The boy had not attended classes in the Los Angeles Unified School District since 2012 and was thought to have possibly been in Mexico for some time, authorities told the newspaper.

—City News Service

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A man who allegedly acted as the getaway driver in a residential burglary involving two other ex-cons pleaded not guilty Thursday to a murder charge stemming from a crash that killed a 66-year-old motorist in Industry.

Anthony Marcel Quisenberry, 35, was allegedly behind the wheel of a black Chevrolet Camaro that struck a small SUV at the intersection of Gale Avenue and Johnson Drive on May 31.

The SUV’s driver, Rojelio Gonzalez, of Downey, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Along with murder, Quisenberry is charged with one count each of first- degree residential burglary and assault upon a peace officer.

Quisenberry has prior convictions for first-degree residential burglary in 2000 and 2005, identity theft in 2003 and conspiracy to commit a crime in 2005, according to the criminal complaint.

Two men who were allegedly in the Camaro with Quisenberry — Charles Archer Allen, 32, of Hawthorne and Michael Vincent Smyer, 27, of Los Angeles — pleaded not guilty to one count each of first-degree residential burglary.

Prosecutors allege Allen has prior convictions for second-degree commercial burglary in 2011 and identity theft and forgery in 2012, and that Smyer was previously convicted of first-degree residential burglary in 2014.

The three men bailed out of the vehicle after the crash, but were apprehended later by sheriff’s deputies, according to Deputy District Attorney Marie Cox.

Deputies from the Industry station had responded to a burglary in progress in the 15200 block of Folger Street in Hacienda Heights. Witnesses told deputies that two men were seen kicking in a neighbor’s door, while a third man waited across the street in a Chevrolet Camaro.

Deputies spotted the black Camaro near the intersection of Gale and Gatlin avenues and began chasing the vehicle, but broke off the pursuit because the Camaro was being driven into oncoming traffic. Soon after, the deputies were notified the car had crashed into an SUV, according to authorities.

The three are due back in a Pomona courtroom on Oct. 20 to get a date for a preliminary hearing that will determine if there is enough evidence to require them to stand trial.

If convicted as charged, Quisenberry could face up to 31 years to life in state prison, while Allen and Smyer face possible maximum terms of 14 years and 17 years, respectively, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

–City News Service 

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via Sheriff’s Information Bureau

A 17-year-old boy accused of fatally stabbing his 16- year-old ex-girlfriend in her Pico Rivera home last month while her mother slept upstairs pleaded not guilty Thursday to a murder charge.

Rory Murga of Pico Rivera is being prosecuted as an adult in the Aug. 12 death of Elena Lillian Moore.

The teens had been involved in a relationship for about a year, but the victim had broken up with Murga two weeks before she was killed, according to prosecutors and detectives.

Murga allegedly stabbed his former girlfriend multiple times before fleeing from her home in the 9800 block of Shade Lane. The mortally wounded girl made it upstairs, where her mother was awakened by her daughter’s screams and called 911, authorities said.

The girl died at the scene. Information provided by her mother pointed to the teen’s former boyfriend as the suspect, and sheriff’s deputies announced later that day that they were looking for Murga.

He was taken into custody Aug. 16 after patrolling deputies spotted him under a railroad underpass at Rosemead Boulevard and Slauson Avenue.

Murga is due back in a Norwalk courtroom Oct. 13, when a date is scheduled to be set for a hearing to determine if there is sufficient evidence to require him to stand trial.

If convicted as charged, he could face up to 26 years to life in state prison if convicted.

–City News Service 

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Photo via Pixabay

A convicted killer who, from his jail cell, arranged the murder of a witness against him in a robbery case, told a judge Monday he doesn’t want his attorneys to actively defend him against the death penalty.

The judge then agreed, and told the defendant’s attorneys they would not be allowed to put on much of their case in battling a death sentence.

“I don’t want to even listen to the proceedings. I don’t care,” defendant Michael Thomas, 50, insisted in court. He then left the courtroom without hearing the prosecution’s opening statement in the penalty phase of his murder trial.

“I don’t care for anyone to know about my life … to go into detail about my upbringing, my family,” Thomas, who spent time in juvenile detention, told the judge.

When questioned by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry, Thomas said a number of times that he didn’t want to be in court and didn’t want his attorneys to call witnesses or make any statements in his defense. Thomas reiterated a stance he took last Thursday when jurors convicted him of murdering 42-year-old Erik Poltorak.

A defense lawyer failed in his effort to sway the judge to allow a full defense. “We are obligated as defense attorneys to present mitigating evidence,” Joel Koury said, telling the judge that the defense planned to call an expert on child development and a gang expert who would impeach some of the prosecution’s witnesses.

But Perry disagreed, overriding multiple objections by the defense attorneys and ruling that they would not be allowed to present an opening statement, call witnesses, offer a closing argument or cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses.

“It is not irrational to prefer the death penalty to life in prison without the possibility of parole,” Perry said, adding later, “I’m not allowing you to put on a defense when he doesn’t want you to.”

After allowing Thomas to leave the courtroom, Perry called him back to restate his wishes and shortly after that said he didn’t want to hear any more arguments from the defense.

“I made the decision. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong,” he concluded.

Murder victim Poltorak was the target of an Aug. 13, 2011 home invasion robbery. Poltorak had planned to testify against Thomas, identifying him as the perpetrator. Poltorak was shot to death on his doorstep in Beverly Grove on Halloween night 2012.

Jurors found true special circumstances allegations of killing a witness and lying in wait, which make Thomas eligible for a death sentence and triggered the penalty trial phase that began Monday.

Thomas was dressed in blue jail garb rather than the dress shirt and other street clothes most defendants wear during trial and said he wanted to go back to sleep.

Defense attorneys James Cooper and Koury said members of Thomas’ family from Oklahoma and Vancouver, Canada, would be in court Tuesday and could offer testimony about his character.

“We are trying to change his mind,” Cooper told the judge of their uncooperative client, adding that he hoped seeing family members would make a difference.

His attorneys argued that Thomas was still shaken by the conviction and unable to make a coherent decision in his own best interests.

Perry disagreed.

“Mr. Thomas is an intelligent man and he has decided that he doesn’t want to be here,” the judge said.

Deputy District Attorney Candice Henry also objected to Thomas not being in court to hear witnesses against him and victims’ impact statements.

Perry cited case law that he said gave Thomas the right to waive his appearance, and added that he had presided over a case more than a decade ago in which the defendants had asked their attorneys not to put on a defense.

Those defendants believed their accommodations would be better on death row and were “not afraid that … given the broken system … the death penalty was going to come their way anytime soon,” Perry said.

That said, the judge agreed that it was “very unusual” that “a death penalty defendant would effectively ask for the death penalty.”

The defense argued that it wasn’t Thomas’s choice to make. He could choose not to testify in his own defense, but could not prevent his attorneys from putting on a case.

All of this happened while jurors waited in the hallway. When they were seated, Perry told them only, “The defendant is not here. He has asked to not be here.”

During his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Bobby Zoumberakis played a 911 call in which a co-worker who arrived at Poltorak’s house and found him shot in the face and back of the head sounded hysterical and was hyperventilating.

She tied the murder to Poltorak’s pending court appearance, telling the 911 dispatcher, “I’m sure he did it, he did it,” of the man charged in the robbery case, without citing Thomas by name.

Poltorak “left behind a 15-year-old daughter who suffered from autism,” Zoumberakis said, telling the six-man, six-woman jury they would hear evidence of the impact of the crime on her life.

“She was 9 years old when he was killed … she can’t talk about it to this day,” Zoumberakis said.

“This was a brutal execution,” but the case isn’t just about Poltorak, the prosecutor said. “The other victim” is the justice system and the penalty phase is about “making sure no one is above the law,” he said.

Zoumberakis said Thomas manipulated his three co-defendants to carry out Poltorak’s killing and had a long history of criminal and violent acts, including threats to Culver City police officers, a stabbing and using a shank in jail.

“This is the type of conduct and this is the type of (individual) that warrants it,” Zoumberakis told the jury, asking them to recommend the death penalty rather than life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Allen Williams, the gunman, who was 23 years old with no prior criminal record at the time of the crime, is serving a life sentence without the chance of parole.

Thomas’s niece, Jessicha Thomas, was 20 years old at the time and also had no criminal record. She testified against Thomas in exchange for a leniency agreement for second-degree murder.

Yvonne Keith, 49 years old at the time of the murder, pressured the other two into committing the killing. She is also serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

–City News Service 

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The rapper Kid Cali. Image from mix tape

A 19-year-old man suspected of killing a well- known rapper in an apparent gang-related shooting at a pool party in Granada Hills last month was charged Tuesday with murder.

Justin Lishey, 30, who was professionally known as Kid Cali or Cali OSo, was shot about 9 p.m. Aug. 20 in the 12400 block of Longacre Avenue at a party that had been heavily promoted on social media and through fliers.

The suspect, identified as Kenny Birdine of Inglewood, was arrested on Monday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged Birdine with one count of murder, along with allegations that he used a handgun and that the killing was gang-related.

He is being held in lieu of $3.065 million bail and is due to be arraigned at the San Fernando courthouse on Thursday, according to police and the DA’s office.

Two men in their 20s suffered non-life-threatening wounds in the shooting, which occurred at a party attended by hundreds of people, police said.

–City News Service 

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Detectives and family members of a 61-year-old woman fatally injured during a fight with a woman, 67, in a Compton park appealed Tuesday for anyone who witnessed the assault to come forward.

Patricia Davis was was the victim at about 6:50 p.m. Aug. 4 as she sat in Tragniew Park at 2121 W. Alondra Blvd. Compton Station sheriff’s deputies dispatched to the park found her on the ground and unresponsive.

“Detectives discovered that a group of women were at a local park when a 67-year-old woman became annoyed with another woman, arguing that she was too loud,” Deputy Guillermina Saldana of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau said then.

“The argument quickly became physical with both punching each other and one being hit with a cane. Both women ended up on the ground where the altercation continued. The 67-year-old suspect got up and walked away while the other complained she could not breathe.”

Davis was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The suspect, whose name was withheld, was booked on suspicion of murder, but was later released from custody “pending additional investigation,” the sheriff’s department reported.

“She is the suspect that did this,” sheriff’s Lt. John Corina said at a news conference this morning. “And she admits to some of (what happened), but … we are just trying to corroborate exactly the circumstances of what happened.”

–City News Service 

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Photo via Pixabay

A 65-year-old man charged in the 1989 fatal stabbing of a transgender woman in Santa Ana has stage 4 lung cancer and likely has only a couple of weeks to live, his attorney said Wednesday.

Douglas Gregory Gutridge of Lodi was moved from Theo Lacy Jail to an area hospital, where doctors say he is terminally ill, attorney Kristine Adams said.

“He’s been in the hospital for two weeks,” she told City News Service.

Jail staff “tried to treat him, realized they couldn’t and he went to the hospital where he was put in the ICU and immediately diagnosed,” Adams said.

“They’re guessing maybe a couple of weeks,” is how much time he has left, Adams said.

Gutridge is charged with killing 35-year-old Carla Leigh Salazar, a transgender woman stabbed to death in her Santa Ana apartment at 1609 N. Bush St. on June 29, 1989.

When Gutridge was charged, Santa Ana Police Chief Carlos Rojas declined to discuss a motive, but Adams revealed today that Salazar was HIV-positive.

Adams has been fighting in court to have the inmate released on his own recognizance since he’s “hooked up to a gazillion machines and can’t breathe on his own,” so he’s no flight risk.

The attorney wants the bail reduced because it would clear the way for visits from family.

“At least allow him to have contact with one family member before he dies,” Adams said. “His brother’s wife is dying so they can’t travel all the way down here to see him, and he can’t even call them to say goodbye. That’s why I’m trying to get (the release). All I want for him is to be able to talk to one family member before he dies.”

Senior Deputy District Attorney Larry Yellin said, “We have made efforts and we’ve assured (the defendant) that his wife will be able to come see him… We’re trying to make sure visitation is not affected by his bail status.”

Adams is also frustrated that her client will not get a chance at exoneration.

“We never even made it to the preliminary hearing,” Adams said. “I was planning on winning at the preliminary hearing.”

Adams said the prosecution’s case is “beyond ridiculous. They do not have enough evidence. There’s no way they would have enough evidence to overcome extraordinary doubt.”

When Gutridge was charged in December 2014, police said advances in DNA technology helped make the cold case.

“That was baloney,” Adams said. “There were no new advances in DNA since the last they studied the case in 2008. I think Doug Gutridge has been victimized. He had to spend the last year and a half of his life thrown away in a dark cell, not being treated right or in the appropriate way and left to rot and die.”

The attorney added, “When Doug was arrested the truth was he was the last suspect left alive. All of the other suspects had passed away.”

Yellin said that’s “a ridiculous premise that does not deserve a response… If this made it to trial I could prove beyond a reasonable doubt he was the one who committed the crime and that is the only thing that goes into the filing decision and the decision to proceed.”

The prosecutor pointed out that many cold cases are closed “without a lot of fanfare” because the chief suspect has died.

“I’m looking at one right now,” Yellin said of a case recently handed to him by authorities to clear.

Besides, Yellin argued, a dead suspect helps the defense because prosecutors cannot impeach them in testimony.

Adams said two knives were used in the murder — one that was double- edged and the other a butcher’s knife. The defense attorney said her theory was that two people were involved in the killing.

“Absolutely it took two,” Adams said. “She was not weak, not frail, not small. She was a spitfire.”

Gutridge met the victim, who was a switchboard operator, while he made a collect phone call.

“They ended up having a conversation, met for dinner and had a few encounters after that,” Adams said. “They were friends and Doug was stunned she had been murdered, so he called police to tell them he wanted to help in any way.”

Gutridge and Salazar had a sexual relationship, but they also “connected on a friendship level,” Adams said.

Gutridge “is a good person. He’s good to the core,” Adams said.

Adams believes another transgender woman with whom Salazar had an up-and- down relationship was the culprit. Adams declined to identify that suspect, who has since died.

The next hearing in Gutridge’s case was scheduled for Sept. 20.

–City News Service

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Authorities Wednesday were trying to determine just why a woman stabbed her 8-week-old son to death in Long Beach before taking her own life.

Officers were sent to the 1500 block of Park Avenue to investigate a report of a possible suicide attempt and found the baby and his mother unconscious and not breathing, suffering from stab wounds to their upper bodies, according to the Long Beach Police Department.

Firefighters arrived and pronounced both Shane Ventanilla and his mother, 36-year-old Charlene Ventanilla, dead at the scene, police said.

“Further investigation found that the incident was an apparent murder suicide,” according to police. “Homicide detectives were requested and responded to handle the investigation.”

Police did not provide any further information about the woman’s background, nor speculate about a cause for the tragedy in the Tuesday morning incident.

–City News Service

Suicide Prevention Hotlines:

• Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health: 1-800-854-7771
• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
• Teen Line: 1-800-852-8336

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The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to hear the case against a man convicted of murdering three men, including two brothers, in a West Hollywood apartment during an apparent drug deal that went bad.

The state’s highest court denied a defense petition seeking its review of the case against Harold Yong Park.

In a June 24 ruling, a three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal found that “compelling circumstantial evidence” pointed to Park as the gunman who killed Pirooz Moussazadeh, 27, his older brother, 38-year-old Shahriar Moussazadeh, and Bernard Khalili, 27.

The three were each shot in the head Aug. 26, 2010, in an apartment in the 600 block of North Kings Road.

In a 27-page ruling, the appellate court justices noted that the most reasonable inference is that Park “robbed Pirooz at gunpoint, and then shot the three potential witnesses against him.”

Detectives determined that there were many phone calls to and from Pirooz Moussazadeh’s cell phone from a phone belonging to Park, according to the ruling.

“Numerous text messages to Pirooz indicated that defendant had been recently purchasing large quantities of marijuana from him, and that defendant and Pirooz had arranged to meet at Pirooz’s home on the night of the murders for defendant to make such a purchase,” the justices noted in the ruling.

The appellate court panel noted that at the time of his arrest a few days later Park had all of his clothing in his car, along with his birth certificate and passport photos, “suggesting he was preparing to flee the country, and suggesting a consciousness of guilt.”

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant who searched Park’s vehicle testified that he found a suitcase containing two large bags of marijuana that would have a street value of $40,000 to $50,000 if divided into smaller parcels, according to the ruling.

Park gave varying accounts to Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators about what happened, including his final account that he brought a handgun with him into the apartment, shot the men in the head after one of them smirked at him when he tried to negotiate with $2,000 in cash and took a bag of marijuana, the justices noted. He subsequently contended that he had confessed to crimes that he did not commit in an attempt to satisfy the detectives so he could leave the sheriff’s station, according to the ruling.

Park was convicted in September 2014 of three counts each of first- degree murder and residential robbery and one count each of burglary and transportation for sale of marijuana.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Windham — who heard the case after Park elected to have a non-jury trial — also found true the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders, murder during a robbery and murder during a burglary.

Park was sentenced in November 2014 to three consecutive life prison terms without the possibility of parole.

–City News Service 

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An 11-year-old boy whose mother faces charges of murder and child abuse weighed only 34 pounds when he was found dead in a closet at his home in Echo Park late last month.

Details about the condition of the body of Yonatan Daniel Aguilar when it was found were disclosed in more than 100 pages of heavily redacted case records and police reports released to the Los Angeles Times by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services this week.

The records reported Thursday show that Yonatan’s risk of abuse at home had been marked as “high” four times from 2009 to 2012 by a county program intended to guide social workers’ level of intervention, The Times reported. But he was never removed from the home.

When police officers removed the mirrored doors behind which the boy had died hours earlier, they found a crumpled blanket on the ground, obscuring his emaciated body — pale and stiff, curled in a fetal position, with cuts on his face, according to The Times.

One officer lifted a corner of the blanket and two cockroaches crawled out. The child was so tiny that officers thought he was 6 years old or so — not 11, the newspaper reported.

His mother, Veronica Aguilar, 39, pleaded not guilty last week to charges of murder and child abuse resulting in Yonatan’s death. She’s being held in lieu of $2 million bail, with her next court appearance set for Oct. 20.

Officials with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Juvenile Division told The Times last month that although allegations of physical abuse regarding Yonatan were reported to both the Department of Children and Family Services and police, no police investigation was launched. They declined to provide details.

Yonatan’s autopsy report has been put on a security hold by law enforcement, and the cause of death could not be released, Ed Winter of the L.A. county coroner’s office told The Times.

—City News Service

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Photo by John Schreiber.

A 61-year-old man was behind bars Thursday for allegedly shooting two people, one of them fatally, in Long Beach, police said.

Sotero Monteon of Long Beach was picked up by detectives about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, in the area of Lime Avenue and South Street, according to Long Beach police. The suspect was taken into custody without incident.

Monteon was booked on a number of charges including murder, being a felon in possession of a firearm and other outstanding but undisclosed warrants. He’s being held at Long Beach City Jail in lieu of $2,002,396 bail, according to police.

The shootings took place in the 5400 block of Atlantic Avenue about three hours before Monteon’s capture, police said.

A man and a woman were shot. The man died at the scene and the woman was transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, according to the LBPD. The deceased man’s name was withheld pending notification of next of kin.

A motive for the double shooting was unknown at this point.

Anyone with information on these shootings was asked to call LBPD Homicide Detectives Peter Lackovic, Sean Irving or Oscar Valenzuela at (562) 570-7244. Tipsters cal also call L.A. Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477. All tips can be made anonymously.

–City News Service

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Sheriff’s homicide detectives Monday were investigating the mysterious death of a woman in La Puente.

Authorities were notified of the death in the 13200 block of East Gyna Lane, according to Deputy Kimberly Alexander of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau.

The woman was pronounced dead at the scene, Alexander said.

Few details were yet available. No age nor description of the victim was released in the Sunday morning incident.

Sheriff’s homicide detectives asked anyone with any information regarding the woman’s death to call them at (323) 890-5500.

–City News Service

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A Long Beach man was in custody Tuesday on suspicion of fatally stabbing his 72-year-old roommate.

The crime occurred about 2 a.m. Monday in the 1400 block of East Third Street, the Long Beach Police Department reported. William Wilson, 52, was booked on suspicion of murder, and was held on $2 million bail.

Officers found the victim, whose name was being withheld pending family notification, suffering from a stab wound to the upper body and summoned paramedics. He died at a local hospital.

“The investigation found that two roommates got in an altercation and one was stabbed,” according to a police statement.

Wilson was arrested at the scene.

–City News Service 

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