Montebello investigation update

On June 21, 2008 at 11:45 pm the Montebello Police Department received numerous calls of shots fired in the 100 block of East Madison Ave.  The incident took place at a residence that was hosting a graduation party.

During the party several individuals were involved in an argument that resulted in gun shots.  One group was invited guests and the other was not.  The preliminary investigation reveals that this crime appears to be gang related, however it is important to note that neither of the victims were involved in the confrontation nor members of the groups that were at odds. 

Juan Garcia 44 years old from Riverside County and Albert Garcia 12 years old also from Riverside County (father and son), succumbed to injuries that they received as a result of being shot.  Both received gunshots to their upper torsos.  A male adult was treated at the scene for a gunshot wound in the lower torso; a female adult was taken to Monterey Park Hospital for a gunshot wound to her arm.  The names of the adult victims are being withheld at this time.   

The preliminary suspect information is 2 to 3 male Hispanics, wearing light colored shirts and dark colored pants.  They were said to be between 15 and 20 years of age.  After the shots were fired, the suspect (s) fled on foot southbound on Poplar Avenue and out of sight.  Further information to follow when it becomes available. 

Montebello Police Detectives have worked this case around the clock and have interviewed many witnesses and are actively pursuing leads.  Montebello Police Chief Daniel Weast has met with the City Administrator and Members of the City Council, all of whom have pledged all available resources to identify, locate and apprehend the individuals responsible for this tragic incident.   

Montebello Police Crimes Against Persons Detectives are investigating this case.  Anyone with information regarding this incident can contact Detective Ray Sulcer at (323) 887-1253 or Detective Kelly Gordon at (323) 887-1256

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The face of an innocent casualty

11207-albert-thumb-300x225.jpgHere’s the face of the boy who was shot to death at a backyard party in Montebello this weekend.

Albert Garcia, 12, and his father Juan were gunned down at a home on the corner of Madison and Poplar Saturday evening about 11:45 p.m., according to police.

In this picture Albert is third from left. He leaves behind a grieving mother and a 10-year-old brother.

 

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The Geneva Ellroy murder

 

From the San Gabriel Valley Daily Tribune June 23, 1958:

Blonde Suspect Sought

DIVORCEE MURDERED

Woman Strangled by Cord and Stocking

11203-ellroy1-thumb-300x221.jpg

EL MONTE — A blonde woman with a pony tail is sought today as the suspect in the murder of an El Monte woman.

The body of the victim, strangled with a cotton cord and one of her stockings, was found yesterday in a lane leading to the Arroyo High School here.

She was identified as Mrs. Jean Ellroy, 756 Maple Ave., a 37-year-old divorcee and the mother of a 10-year-old boy. The blonde woman being hunted by police was seen with her Saturday night in a cocktail bar at 11721 E. Valley Boulevard., where Mrs. Ellroy’s car was discovered yesterday.

Driven to Lane

Sheriff’s Inspector R.T. Paronsonm said the woman was apparently strangled elsewhere and driven to the lane, which is known as Kings Row.

Pearls from a broken necklace led to the body, which was sprawled in an acacia thicket across from the high school athletic field.

She was dressed in a torn blue-print dress, but wore no undergarments, A navy blue coat covered the nude lower half of her body. The stocking on her left leg was pulled down to her ankle and her brassiere lay in ivy next to her body.

News Report

The victim was identified by her landlady, Mrs. George Krycki, 36, of 700 E. Bryant Road, who heard a news report of the finding of the body.

Mrs. Krycki described the divorcee as a “very fine person …a quiet woman who neither drank nor dated men .. a good mother to her boy.”

Detectived said there was an asphalt mark on the victims left hip, indicating she was dragged along pavement at some other spot. There were no marks on the pavement or in the ivy where the body was found.

With Husband

Her son was with her divorced husband, Armand Lee Ellroy, 60, an accountant of 4980 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, during the weekend. Ellroy was unable to give police a clue to the murder. He said he had been divorced from her about four years.

The slaim woman’s body was found by three Babe Ruth baseball league coaches who were walking to the schools’ baseball diamond with a group of ball players yesterday.

The coaches were identified as Herman C. Warner, 52, of El Monte; Richard Grinnold, 44,  abd Kendall E. Nungesser, 46, of San Gabriel.

Mrs. Ellroy, a redhead, was employed as a nurse by the Aero Dynamics Corp. in Los Angeles. 

Continue reading “The Geneva Ellroy murder” »

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A grieving family left in wake of Montebello tragedy

This comes from the mailbag: (Sent by Chrisa Christy an aunt of Albert Garcia)

“Wait! Take a picture of my good side…”  

These were excited words from a vivacious, adventurous, 12 year old boy named Albert Garcia.  He loved his brother, Dominic, 10, and taught him all his best skateboarding tricks much to the weariness of his resilient mother, Willene Garcia.   

Albert, Dominic, and Willene have learned a lot about resilience in the past 8 years.  A single mother, Willene put herself through school to learn computers and eventually obtained a position with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. 

 
Trying to give her boys a better chance she moved away from the harsh reality of life in the city for a single mom and two young boys all the way to the East Coast.   

“You have to take a chance sometimes.  You never know.”  Willene watched her two boys play in the ocean that day, happy and content.  They didn’t seem to have a care in the world.  Two weeks after the sun filled day in the Atlantic Ocean, the Garcia family once again faced the smog and congestion of the city.   

The following weekend brought a reconnection with Albert and Dominic’s father, Juan Garcia, 44.  The boys had not seen their father in over a year.  With most of Juan’s family in Puerto Rico, Albert and Dominic were happy to spend the weekend with their father getting to know his life.   

Albert and Juan Garcia were shot Saturday night, June 21st 2008, while attending a Quinceaera in the 100 block of East Madison Street in Montebello, California. 

Sunday afternoon Willene Garcia was taken into a small room and shown a “picture” of young Albert Garcia for identification purposes.  He and his father, Juan were pronounced dead at 12:30 a.m. on June 22, 2008 at Beverly Hospital.  

Funeral arrangements are currently scheduled for Albert Garcia to be buried on Friday, June 26 2008 in Riverside. 

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Darwin Award

The California Highway Patrol reported a man broke his back after falling from a freeway overpass about 9:45 p.m. Saturday. The man reportedly had a can of spray paint clutched in his hand as he lay on the freeway near the Main Street off-ramp from the Northbound 5 near downtown Los Angeles.

Here’s a story about the extremes some taggers will employ for art’s sake.

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Tuesday’s column

Terrorism claimed the life of a 12-year-old and his father visiting Montebello this past weekend.

Yes. I said it. Terrorism.
How else do you describe an attack on a party of 70 or so people gathered in a back yard to celebrate a graduation.

Killed were Albert Garcia, 12, of Hemet, and his father Juan “Jay” Garcia, 44, of Perris. Two others were wounded in the attack including a 23-year-old woman and an unidentified man.
The 9:50 p.m. ambush occurred Saturday while friends of Maria Soto gathered at her home in the 100 block of East Madison.

Partygoers feasted on chicken wings, barbecued ribs, pasta salad, meatballs and chips and salsa.

There was a D.J. There was dancing. There was Bud Light. There was a cake acknowledging the high school graduation of Soto’s 20-year-old blind daughter, Rosemary.

It could have been any party anywhere in the San Gabriel Valley on a sweltering summer night.

“We were happy one minute and then it turned into a nightmare,” Soto said. “It was horrible.”

Soto pointed to a dark blood stain in the dirt next to a small rose bush in her back yard.

“You don’t know when it’s going to hit you,” she continued. “Please. When are they going to stop devastating our families and our children?”

Every day we send young men and young women off to foreign countries because we’re told they are keeping terrorism at bay.

Maybe we’re keeping Islamic extremists out of the United States. But what is our government doing about terrorism in our own back yard?

There are no daily briefings, no green zones, no troop surges. I haven’t heard presidential candidates Barack Obama or John McCain say a word about fighting local terrorist gangs.
Yet young men and women like Albert Garcia are being shot at — sometimes wounded and sometimes killed — by remorseless killers.

I strolled around the neighborhood where Garcia and his dad were gunned down. Graffiti marred the sidewalks.

“Free Clumsey,” read one.

Graffiti also marred street signs, garden walls and even the whitewashed wooden siding of Soto’s raised foundation house.

Just a few miles north, where San Gabriel Boulevard leads to the Montebello mall, taggers from Pico Viejo, White Fence and El Monte Flores have clearly marked their turf.

I asked Montebello police Chief Dan Weist if his community could stomach the slaying of an innocent 12-year-old. I asked if he thought there was a gang problem in his town.

“It’s not as bad as you say it is,” came the reply.

Mayor Bill Molinari said he was “sickened by an event that’s never happened in our history.”
As I watched heat waves rise from the asphalt on Madison Monday, I heard the chimes of an ice cream truck in the distance.

I listened as the driver turned onto Madison and passed me. A sign above the dash said “Caution. Children.”

The song continued.

“It’s a small world after all. It’s a small world after all.”

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Saturday heat wave = five homicides one suicide

Over the weekend there were five homicides and one suicide recorded in local cities. The first incident involved a man who shot and killed his girlfriend before killing himself on the 605 near Telegraph Road Saturday afternoon.

Later on, four San Gabriel Valley homicides occurred within a six-hour window.

Here’s a timeline and brief description of each:

VIOLENCE TIMELINE:

1. Saturday, 9:11 p.m.: ROWLAND HEIGHTS — Harrison Alexander Smith II, 33, of Rowland Heights was fatally shot while standing in front of a friend’s house. Smith, who was at the home to celebrate a 1-year-old boy’s birthday party, was pronounced dead at the scene in the 1400 block of Calcarlos Avenue. Witnesses said Smith was beckoned from the home by a woman he’d been dating, then shot by the woman’s ex-husband.

2. Saturday, 11:45 p.m.: MONTEBELLO — Juan Alberto Garcia, 44, of Perris, and his son, Albert Anthony Garcia, 12, of Hemet died at a local hospital shortly after they were shot while attending a high school graduation party for a blind girl. As about 70 revelers danced in a backyard in the 100 block of East Madison Avenue, someone openened fire on the group, killing the Garcias and wounding two others.

3. Sunday, 3:00 a.m.: AZUSA — Willie Flores, 22, of Baldwin Park was shot with a shotgun in the 5600 block of Fenimore Avenue. The shooting occurred near where a party had been held earlier in the evening, but detective were not certain Monday whether the shooting and party were related.

 

 

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Twelve-year-old boy dead in Montebello attack

A 12-year-old boy visiting from New Jersey and his father were gunned down in a Montebello backyard Saturday night.

The attack outside a home in the 100 block of East Madison in Montebello occurred at a graduation party for the resident’s blind daughter. In all four people were shot. The father and son were killed and two others suffered gunshot wounds.

A resident of the home, Maria Soto, said the attack occurred about 9:50 P.m. Saturday night as 70 people gathered in the backyard to celebrate her daughter Rosemary’s graduation from High School.

“I heard somebody shout, they shot him,” Soto said. “And when I walked out in the backyard there was my nephew with the child in his arms.”

Party goers took the mortally wounded boy, identified as “Albert” from New Jersey and his father “Jay” of Ontario to nearby Beverly Hospital where both were pronounced dead.

Monday morning, Albert’s blood still stained the dirt surrounding a small rose bush in Soto’s backyard.

 

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Father, son dead in shooting

This just in:


MONTEBELLO – A father and his 12-year old son were killed after being
shot Saturday night, officials said.
The victims, whose names were not released, died at the Beverly
Hospital emergency room, Monetebello police Sgt. Luis Lopez said.
They were two in a total of four victims involved in the shooting
incident, which took place just before midnight on Saturday in the
100 block of East Madison Street.
A third man was treated at the scene, and a fourth woman was taken to
Monterey Park Hospital for a gunshot wound, Lopez said. She was later
released.
Police released few details about the incident late Sunday, saying
they did not want to “jeopardize the on-going investigation.”
Authorities did confirm they had interviewed several witnesses in the
case.

Sorry we don’t have more but we just got this information not too long ago. I’m sure there will be a follow up on this Monday. This reminds me a lot of the father-son shooting in Baldwin Park last year that claimed the lives ofPedro Estrada andJose Luis Estrada.

These homicides round out a weekend of death in the San Gabriel Valley. A man was shot and killed in unincorporated Azusa and another man was shot dead in Rowland Heights this past weekend as well.

More to come.
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Gas station argument turns deadly


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Another blast from the Tribune crime archives. This story was published Dec. 6, 1968.

TORCH DEATH

Youth Faces Murder Trial

A 19-year-old West Covina youth will go on trial for murder Feb 17. accused  of throwing a lighted match on the gasoline-soaked clothing of a customer last Aug. 25 at the filling station where he worked.

Presiding Judge Carlos N. Teran of Pomona Superior Court set the trial date this week for Frederick A. Steiner of 3526 Holt Ave.

Steiner is charged with murdering Kenneth Kinsley, 20 of 4702 N. Harlan Ave,

Prosecutors charge that Steiner squirted gasoline on Kinsley during an argument at the station at 3202 Baldwin Park Blvd., after Kinsley  refused to pay for two of three cans of transmission fluid. The first two leaked out of the car.

When Kinsley returned from washing in the station rest room and grabbed a tire iron, more argument erupted. About this point, Steiner allegedly threw the match on Kinsley, igniting his clothing.

The victim died five days later in County General Hospital of third and second degree burns on 60 percent of his body. He was married and the father of two children.

 

 

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