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I wonder could it be a cop????
In Fullerton which is right next to Anaheim, Brea and Plaentia
the Fullerton Police beat homeless
Kelly Thomas
to death!!!
Source
Fourth O.C. transient slain
The man is found dead behind an Anaheim fast-food spot. Police detain a suspect who was chased by bystanders.
By Mitchell Landsberg and Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times
January 14, 2012
A homeless man was stabbed to death behind a busy fast-food restaurant in Anaheim late Friday, the fourth such killing in Orange County in the last month, and police quickly took a man into custody for questioning.
The suspect was being chased by two bystanders when police caught him on La Palma Avenue about a quarter-mile from the scene of the crime, according to Sgt. Bob Dunn, an Anaheim police spokesman.
Authorities were cautious about linking the latest killing to the previous three, but said the suspect bore a resemblance to a man being sought in those deaths, which have been called the work of a serial killer. Investigators said about 50 witnesses were being interviewed about Friday's crime, and Orange County sheriff's deputies were using bloodhounds to pore over the scene for clues.
Asked if the man detained Friday looks like the man filmed in a surveillance video around the time and place of the first killing, on Dec. 20 in Placentia, Deputy Anaheim Police Chief Craig Hunter said, "Yes, in a general sense, he does."
However, he said police were not assuming they had solved the serial killings. "We are certainly not letting down our guard," Hunter told reporters at an impromptu news conference near the crime scene.
According to the deputy chief, police received word at 8:17 p.m. of an assault in progress, and rushed to the scene behind a Carl's Jr. restaurant on La Palma and Imperial Highway. There, they found the body of a homeless man with stab wounds near a trash bin.
The victim was not identified by authorities, but Krista Schegetz, 42, of Anaheim said she knew him as John.
She said he was the only homeless man who frequented the Carl's Jr. restaurant.
Appearing shaken and teary-eyed, she said she had known him for six years and gave him care packages at Christmas and Thanksgiving.
"He couldn't be nicer," she said.
Police cordoned off a large area around the crime scene, which was in a busy commercial area of restaurants, a movie theater and a grocery store.
The series of killings has prompted a major search, with police from Anaheim, Placentia and Brea joining forces in the investigation and increasing patrols in areas known for attracting the homeless.
Detectives have enlisted the public's help, releasing grainy footage from a security camera showing a man police described as dressed in black and "lying in wait" about the time of the first
attack, in Placentia.
That attack, near a shopping center, claimed the life of James Patrick McGillivray, 53.
Investigators said they were looking for a white, four-door, late-model Toyota Corolla seen in the surveillance video.
So far, the primary lead is the footage from the security camera.
Police said the man in the footage appears to be about 18 to 25 years old, with a thin build and of average height.
On Dec. 28, Lloyd Middaugh, 42, was found near a riverbed trail in Anaheim. Two days later, Paulus Smit, 57, was killed outside the Yorba Linda city library.
Police have been urging homeless people to seek shelter and have gone into homeless encampments throughout Orange County warning those living there that a killer is on the loose.
Authorities have also conducted unusual roadblocks.
On Tuesday, police stopped and interviewed drivers across the street from the Placentia shopping center where McGillivray was killed, looking for information in the case.
They conducted a similar roadblock Friday afternoon outside the Yorba Linda library — hours before and a few miles from the scene of Friday night's slaying.
mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
nicole.santacruz@latimes.com
Source
Killing of homeless man launches huge police dragnet in Anaheim
January 13, 2012
Another Homeless Man Found Stabbed to Death in Orange County
Police closed off a swath of Anaheim as officers searched for the killer of a homeless man who was found behind a Carl's Jr. restaurant late Friday.
Anaheim police set up a one-mile perimeter around the location and were going through nearby neighborhoods, including a mobile home park. While police were questioning some people near the intersection of Imperial Highway and La Palma Avenue, no arrests have been made.
“We have several detentions going on, and we have a search of the scene going on,” said Sgt. Bob Dunn, an Anaheim Police Department spokesman.
Dunn said the man was believed to have been killed about 9 p.m. Friday. He declined to say what type of weapon was used and said that although there were detentions, no one had been identified as a suspect. The victim was not immediately identified.
It's also unclear if the death is related to the cases of three homeless men killed in recent weeks.
Each of those three stabbing victims, authorities say, was alone when attacked. James Patrick McGillivray, 53, was killed near a shopping center in Placentia on Dec. 20; Lloyd Middaugh, 42, was found near a riverbed trail in Anaheim on Dec. 28; Paulus Smit, 57, was killed outside a Yorba Linda library on Dec. 30. Authorities have said the homicides are the work of a serial killer, and have released grainy photographs captured from surveillance video that show a male suspect dressed in dark clothing.
A white, late-model Toyota Corolla is also a vehicle of interest. Police have been urging homeless people to seek shelter and have gone into homeless encampments across Orange County warning those living there that a killer is on the loose.
Source
Vulnerable homeless men try to foil Orange County killer
Three transients have been stabbed to death since last month. Some are banding together for protection, and police and missions are helping.
By Christopher Goffard and Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times
January 7, 2012
Cary Singletary is 6-foot-2, an ex-boxer who once worked nightclub security, alternating coffee and water to stay alert through the small hours. Now, encamped on the streets of downtown Santa Ana, he's the unofficial sentry for what he calls "my people," a group of homeless whose wary existence is now shadowed by a new peril: a serial killer.
"Hopefully, they'll get the sick-minded coward," said Singletary 52, speaking of the string of stabbing deaths of middle-aged homeless men in Orange County that began just before Christmas. Singletary stood in a parking lot Thursday night clutching a safety kit — a whistle and flashlight, both donated by the Orange County Rescue Mission.
Singletary said he fears that the killer, who has attacked in neighboring Anaheim, Placentia and Yorba Linda, might strike next in Santa Ana. So he is up all night, drinking coffee, keeping watch for strangers. For company, he listens to R&B on his headphones. He sleeps in two-hour shifts on the public bus.
"If that serial killer wants to come at us, he'll have his hands full," said Singletary, who has been homeless for six months. "We've got some soldiers out here. I'm just one of them. If that whistle goes off, you'll have a whole army of homeless on him."
Across the county, at the urging of authorities, many of the homeless are seeking beds at emergency shelters, or making sure to sleep in groups outdoors, and taking pains to make themselves less conspicuous on the streets and riverbeds. Many say it is just another version of a skill they have practiced for years — survival — in a dangerous milieu. In some cases, efforts to help are complicated by mental illness, paranoia and a deep-seated fatalism.
Each of the three homeless stabbing victims, authorities say, was alone when he was attacked. James Patrick McGillivray, 53, was killed near a shopping center in Placentia on Dec. 20; Lloyd Middaugh, 42, was found near a riverbed trail in Anaheim on Dec. 28; Paulus Smit, 57, was killed outside a Yorba Linda library on Dec. 30.
What motivates the killer is a subject of furious speculation. David Deisher, 52, who has been homeless in Santa Ana for about a year, said his first thought was that the killer must be a Satanist making blood sacrifices. Or maybe it's a "thrill killer" who will have to keep escalating the attacks to achieve satisfaction, he added. Others on the street said the slayings might be a gangland initiation.
Sgt. Mike Lynch is one of eight cops at the Anaheim Police Department assigned to warn the city's homeless to be vigilant. He said he's seen some success. Some are pooling their money to rent motel rooms. Around the parole office on Coronado Street, there are usually dozens of transient sex offenders camped overnight in old cars and trailers, but on a recent night he found only a few.
Making his rounds Thursday afternoon, Lynch found 39-year-old Ronnie Zupsic, homeless and suspicious, sitting alone under a shelter at a city park. He had a knife wound on his arm and a fractured hand from a recent fight.
"Have the cops talked to you in the last couple days?" Lynch asked.
"No."
"Have you heard about the murders?"
"No."
Once informed, Zupsic offered an immediate theory about the killer's identity: the guy he'd recently tangled with. "I bashed him in the head, and he sliced me with a knife," Zupsic said, but his description left the nature of the dispute impossible to make out.
The sergeant dutifully wrote it down, one tip among many, and urged Zupsic to seek a bed at one of Orange County's armories. There are two, in Santa Ana and Fullerton, with 400 beds between them; they have seen a reported 40% spike in usage in recent days.
"I don't stay at the armory. They try to hurt me," Zupsic said. "I hide behind bushes, mostly, because I have people after me." He said he avoided the company of other transients too. "I don't stay in packs with these people. They're nutty."
He insisted he could handle himself, though, hinting at a military background. "I'm secret co-op. I can't disclose. You see 'Jarhead'? You're looking at him."
The sergeant searched his belongings, found no illegal drugs or weapons and again urged him to be careful.
"So I'm in danger out here is what you're telling me?"
"You're in potential danger, yes."
Along the riverbed trail where Lloyd Middaugh was stabbed to death, the sergeant found bicyclists and joggers, but few homeless people. "I think word is out," he said.
Not far from the crime scene, however, a 64-year-old man named John Berry, with a scraggly white beard and a fisherman's cap, lay on his back under a tarp on the riverbed trail. He's been living here for months, the sergeant said, immovable despite repeated warnings. Berry said he avoids shelters and isn't afraid of being knifed.
"I just like to stay outdoors," he said. "A guy can get killed crossing the street. I've been as careful as I can, watching and everything."
On his patrol, Lynch found two men who camp in a strip mall behind a Magnolia Avenue liquor store. He urged them not to be predictable and to keep hidden at night. "Try to tuck yourself away," he said. "Maybe mix it up. Move around a little bit."
One of the men, Steven Scott, 51, had two black eyes because of what he said was a fight with a guy who tried to steal his shoes. He said someone always kept lookout at night. "If I can help it, I'm not gonna let my friends get slashed," he said. "If it looks kinda snaky, we check it out."
Some, like Dan Warner, 55, who stood in line for a bowl of donated chili Thursday night in a downtown Santa Ana parking lot, said he was braced for a confrontation, and not especially worried about the killer. "I got my belt to wrap around his neck. I got the Lord. Believe me, he ain't gonna come around me."
Larry Haynes, the director of Mercy House, which works with the National Guard to run the seasonal shelters, said that in more than 20 years of working with the homeless, he has never seen a crime in which a predator targeted such a vulnerable population.
"If we don't create some sort of housing solutions for these guys, they are going to die," he said.
There are few shelters specifically for single men in Orange County, and the region lacks a year-round emergency shelter, with the winter armories open just 149 days a year.
Randall Lee Hooper, 54, has been homeless since his teens and has been staying at the Fullerton armory for the last two weeks. He said he was recently released from a hospital where he was treated for a beating he received during a vodka blackout. When sleeping outdoors, he said, he picks spots where people can't sneak up behind him, and where he can hear leaves crunching as people approach.
"It's inevitable," Hooper said of the killings. "I'm surprised there's not more." He said he used to work as a guitarist and a night watchman, but doubts he'll ever work again. He's not looking, anyway.
He was heading to the 91 Freeway in Anaheim, ready to raise a sign for food.
"I'm not scared of anything," he said. If a killer found him, he said, he'd have no complaints. "I just figure if it's my time, it's my time."
christopher.goffard@latimes.com
nicole.santacruz@latimes.com
Hmmm ... wonder how many innocent Iraqi woman and children this guy murdered???
Source
Suspect in O.C. killings of homeless men is an Iraq war veteran
By Nicole Santa Cruz and Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writers
January 14, 2012, 9:16 p.m.
A 23-year-old former Marine who some say was distraught after combat service in Iraq has been named a suspect in the serial killings of four homeless men in Orange County.
Itzcoatl Ocampo of Yorba Linda was chased by bystanders Friday after the most recent stabbing death behind a fast-food restaurant in an Anaheim shopping center parking lot. Ocampo remained in police custody without bail Saturday and is expected in court on Tuesday.
"We are extremely confident that we have the man who is responsible for the murders of all four homeless men in Orange County," Anaheim Police Chief John Welter said at a news conference Saturday. Police said they will seek four counts of murder next week.
Authorities did not specify a motive for the killings, which began on Dec. 20 and sent fear through the homeless community. However, a relative and a friend of the suspect described a young man who appeared to be deeply troubled after his return from service in Iraq in the summer of 2010.
"When he came back from Iraq, he was sick," said his uncle, Ifrain Gonzalez.
For the last year, he had been telling relatives that he was seeing and hearing things, Gonzalez said.
The last time Gonzalez saw his nephew was at a Christmas Eve party. Ocampo, he said, had told a cousin, "I did something terrible, but don't worry."
It was four days after the killings had begun.
Brian Doyle, a friend from high school, said Ocampo told him he had been kicked out of the military. A Marine Corps representative could not be reached Saturday for confirmation, and Anaheim police declined to discuss Ocampo's military service.
Since Ocampo's return, he had socialized with Doyle from time to time, drinking beer, smoking cigars and talking.
He was arrested Friday evening after bystanders chased him down about a quarter mile from the shopping center where police found the body of John Berry, 64, near a trash bin behind a Carl's Jr. restaurant.
On Saturday, a makeshift memorial of balloons, flowers and oatmeal cookies stood at the site of the homeless man's death, near La Palma Avenue and Imperial Highway. Mourners described him as a familiar and friendly presence outside the restaurant.
Berry had a long white beard and often ended a conversation with a blessing. Friends said he was an astronomy buff and carried a well-thumbed Audubon guide, as well as a Bible. Berry enjoyed identifying the fowl visiting nearby waterways, said friend Bill Emery. "One day he pointed out a duck and said, 'That's a cinnamon teal.' "
Berry was less forthcoming about his own family. He told some people that they lived in Costa Rica and others that he was from back East and that his father was a physician.
With a serial killer targeting homeless men, friends and acquaintances said, they worried for Berry's safety.
At first, Berry said he wasn't scared. He was interviewed earlier this month by a Times reporter at the camp along the nearby Santa Ana River bed where he had been living for months under a tarp. He said he was safer there than in a shelter.
"I just like to stay outdoors," Berry said. "A guy can get killed crossing the street. I've been as careful as I can, watching and everything."
Police had warned him to leave, but he refused.
In his final days, however, Berry grew more afraid.
Marilyn Holland, 51, who lives in a mobile home park near the shopping center, said that she saw Berry on Thursday and that he told her he thought somebody was stalking him from the trees along the riverbed.
She said she planned to buy him a prepaid cellphone but never got the chance.
Holland and others said he would be missed. "He knew everybody around here by their first name," she said.
Linda Maher, who also lives in the mobile home park, said she talked to Berry on Friday and told him to be careful.
"God bless you," he replied.
At an 8 p.m. vigil for Berry on Saturday, a crowd of more than 100 people gathered to pay respects. Some held candles, while children passed out yarn necklaces with plastic military toy figures as charms. A recording of the Beatles' "Yesterday" played.
Shaun Smith, a homemaker from Yorba Linda, set up a table where she handed out candles. "I used to say. 'John, what do you need?' and he said, 'Nothing. I like to go to sleep under the stars and wake up to the birds,' " she said. "He liked his life."
A task force of local police departments, the Orange County Sheriff's Department and the FBI had been investigating the stabbing deaths for nearly a month, and determined quickly that they were looking at the work of a serial killer.
The other victims were James Patrick McGillivray, 53, who was killed near a shopping center in Placentia on Dec. 20; Lloyd Middaugh, 42, whose body was found in Anaheim on Dec. 28; and Paulus Smit, 57, who was slain in Yorba Linda on Dec. 30.
Ocampo was born in Mexico and moved to California with his family when he was 1, according to Gonzalez, his uncle. His 2006 graduation photograph in the Esperanza High School yearbook shows a young man with close-cropped hair in a jacket and tie. Below his portrait is the quote, "Walk the streets I walked alone, then sit and judge me."
At the time, according to his uncle and his friend, Ocampo had one goal: getting away from home. His parents, who both worked in factories, were splitting up, and their house in Yorba Linda was being foreclosed on.
So Ocampo joined the U.S. Marine Corps.
It did not go well. "I feel alone in the middle of the desert," his uncle remembered Ocampo telling him in a phone call from Iraq.
When he returned to the U.S., Ocampo moved into a rented bedroom that he shared with his mother and a younger sister and brother in Yorba Linda. His main activity was playing video games, Gonzalez said. Things got worse when he learned a good friend had been killed in Afghanistan.
Gonzalez said appointments to get his nephew psychological help had been made and canceled several times.
In high school, Ocampo had been reserved and "a little goofy," Doyle said. But when he returned home from military service, he seemed like a different person.
"You could just tell something was stressed about him," Doyle said. "I just wanted to be a friend to him."
Ocampo also donated money to help make a documentary about wounded Marines, according to a website for the unfinished film, titled "Still in the Fight."
Among those who made the pilgrimage to Berry's memorial site on Saturday was a homeless man who identified himself only as Kevin.
Even with the arrest, Kevin said he remained uneasy.
"I don't feel too safe to see my friend has passed away," he said. "But in God's giving grace, let's hope they got the right guy."
nicole.santacruz@latimes.com
alan.zarembo@latimes.com
Ocampo 'wasn't done with killings,' officials say
Interesting the cops have not presented a sheard of evidence indicating
that this guy was planning to kill more people.
I wonder are they making it up so they will look like heros
for arresting a man who was ready to kill hundreds of
homeless people???
Source
Ocampo 'wasn't done with killings,' officials say
By Hailey Branson-Potts, Christopher Goffard and Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times
January 18, 2012
He would select the homeless men and hunt them down, prosecutors said, waiting for the perfect moment to end their lives.
He hung out at the same Yorba Linda library as one of his alleged victims, scrolling through job listings on a computer. And he stalked his final victim after seeing the man's photo with a Los Angeles Times article about the killings of homeless men, authorities said.
After he was arrested, detectives said, they found evidence that 23-year-old Itzcoatl "Izzy" Ocampo had already selected future victims.
"He wasn't done with the killings," said Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, who didn't specify how investigators were certain that more victims had been targeted. "We know that he had selected others and why.... He appeared to like the press coverage."
Orange County prosecutors outlined their case against Ocampo on Tuesday. The former Marine from Yorba Linda was charged with murder with special circumstances, making him eligible for the death penalty. Ocampo, who is being held in isolation on a psychological watch, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Santa Ana.
His attorney, Randall Longwith, said he was finally allowed
to see Ocampo on Tuesday afternoon, but only after getting a court order.
"They indicate he sleeps most of the day," Longwith said. "He was curled up in a ball under a blanket in underwear, no shirt, no pants. He looked like a wet cat — a scared, wet cat. It wasn't much conversation."
Members of Ocampo's family said they can't believe he's the killer, adding that he was generous to the homeless and frequently gave food and money to panhandlers.
But prosecutors accuse Ocampo of a "serial thrill-kill spree," outlining each of the killings in graphic detail and saying that the attacks became more furious and violent.
The first killing occurred about 8:15 p.m. on Dec. 20, when Ocampo walked into a Placentia strip mall wearing a dark sweat shirt with a hood pulled over his head, prosecutors said. They said he approached James McGillivray, 53, a homeless man who was lying behind the complex.
Ocampo knelt on McGillivray's chest and stabbed him more than 40 times in the head, neck and upper torso, continuing the attack even after his victim stopped struggling, prosecutors said. A surveillance camera installed two days earlier by a property management company captured the attack, which proved "key to the case," Rackauckas said. McGillivray's body was found the next morning.
Prosecutors said Ocampo had planned the slaying,
as he did with the next victim,
Lloyd Middaugh, 42, who was taking shelter under a bridge
by the Santa Ana River in Anaheim when he was attacked just before midnight Dec. 27. Middaugh was found the next morning with more than 50 stab wounds to the head and torso, prosecutors said.
Three days later, Paulus "Dutch" Smit, 57, arrived at the Yorba Linda Public Library, where he was a well-known presence. Also known as a regular was his accused killer, a local whose family said spent time at the library reading and scanning job listings.
Smit's daughter, Heather Smit-Rayo, said her father called her just after 3 p.m. that day, sounding upset. He told her his bicycle, which had his bedroll and medications, had been stolen while he was at the library reading an article.
Authorities told the family they believe Ocampo stole her father's bicycle before killing him. Late that afternoon, Smit's body was found near the library with more than 60 stab wounds.
Similarities between the killings led investigators to suspect a single attacker was responsible, and a task force involving local authorities and the FBI was formed.
Roadblocks were set up, and twice — in Placentia on Jan. 10, and in Yorba Linda three days later — Ocampo drove through them without arousing suspicion; he was calm, authorities said.
Prosecutors said he appeared to drive through the police checkpoints deliberately, the last time just hours before his arrest.
Police blanketed the region, warning the homeless to seek emergency shelter and to stay in groups. Many heeded the warnings.
John Berry, 64, who had camped for months along the Santa Ana River in Anaheim, was one who did not.
"I'm not too worried," he told a Los Angeles Times reporter who accompanied police on a ride-along as they warned the homeless to be cautious. Berry said he didn't like to stay in shelters and had friends to look out for him.
"I feel like God will take care of me — it's all in God's hands," he said
Berry's name and photograph appeared in the Jan. 7 edition of the newspaper, which Rackauckas said the killer used to select Berry as a victim.
"The evidence is going to show in this case that the defendant specifically sought out this victim for participating in this article, that he relished the media attention of the crime, and he stalked the victim until he got his prey," Rackauckas said. He held up a copy of the paper and pointed to the story with Berry's photo.
Berry called Anaheim police in the days before his death, saying that he felt like someone was following him, Anaheim Police Chief John Welter said.
"It's unfortunate that we did not get to him before the suspect did," Welter said. He said police were receiving hundreds of tips and leads, and "there were literally hundreds of police officers around the county searching for" the killer.
Ocampo approached Berry about 8:15 p.m. on Jan. 13 near a Carl's Jr. restaurant on La Palma Avenue and stabbed him repeatedly, the top prosecutor said, calling it the "most brazen" of the attacks.
Witnesses called 911, and bystanders chased Ocampo into a nearby mobile home park, where police arrested him with blood on his hands and face, prosecutors said.
Nearby, investigators found a single-edged, 7-inch KA-BAR Bull Dozier knife that Ocampo is believed to have used in the killings, they said. The knife could sever bone "without chipping or breaking the blade," the top prosecutor said.
hailey.branson@latimes.com
christopher.goffard@latimes.com
nicole.santacruz@latimes.com
Police believe Ocampo involved in slayings of woman, son
I wonder if there is any REAL evidence linking Ocampo
to these murders, or if the cops just want to blame him
so they can take credit for solving two more murders.
I guess the logic of the cops is that since Ocampo murdered
a few homeless guys, then he almost certainly committed
every other murder in Orange County that occured a few
miles from where he lived.
Of course that logic stinks, but when you want the public
to think of you as a hero that logic is as good as any to
blame the murders on Ocampo.
Well I was both wrong and right in my guesses above.
From the
article
that follows this one it seems like
the cops INITIALLY arrested the WRONG guy in this
murder case.
Eder Herrera
was falsely arrested for murder because he was at the wrong place at
the wrong time.
It now turns out that Ocampo is probably the
real killer based on DNA testing.
Source
Police believe Ocampo involved in slayings of woman, son
By Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times
February 3, 2012
Police say they have connected Itzcoatl Ocampo, the man charged with stabbing four homeless men to death, to the Oct. 25 slayings of a Yorba Linda woman and her son.
Anaheim Police Lt. Julian Harvey, commander of the task force investigating the killings, said in an interview Thursday evening that there is "significant evidence" leading authorities to believe Ocampo was involved with the slayings of Raquel Estrada, 53, and Juan Herrera, 34, who were stabbed to death in their Yorba Linda home.
Ocampo was arrested Jan. 13 after he was chased by bystanders after allegedly stabbing John Barry, 64. Barry was the fourth homeless man to be killed since Dec. 20. The stabbings frightened the homeless community and inspired many to go to shelters.
"We've developed evidence that leads us to believe very strongly that Mr. Ocampo was involved in the double murders" of Estrada and Herrera, Harvey said.
Eder Herrera, 24, was arrested on suspicion of killing his mother and brother as he was driving away from a friend's home the morning after the slayings. He pleaded not guilty Jan. 23 but remains in custody.
Harvey said the Orange County district attorney's office has evidence to keep Herrera in custody and would not specify Ocampo's relation to the crimes. "It does not mean Mr. Herrera is not involved," he said. "Part of our investigation is to prove or disprove Mr. Herrera's involvement."
Police would say only that there is a connection between Herrera and Ocampo, without indicating what the connection might be.
"We want to be confident as does the district attorney's office that we have the right people in custody for this crime," Harvey said.
Harvey said the proximity of the Oct. 25 crime scene on Trix Circle to Ocampo's home — less than one mile — and the method of killing spurred investigators' interest in the case. "It's a strong link," he said.
He would not comment on the type of weapon used in the Oct. 25 slayings.
A family friend of Eder Herrera, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said he was close to his family. Many were perplexed to learn he had been arrested.
"They were shocked," she said, adding that Herrera hung in the same circle as Ocampo. "The boys were all friends."
Harvey said the task force has sorted through more than 1,800 tips in the case.
nicole.santacruz@latimes.com
We don't need no stinking evidence to arrest a murder suspect!!!
Looks like the cops arrested the wrong guy in this murder case. DNA tests will probably free Eder Herrera, whom I guess the OC cops arrested, not because they had any evidence linking him to the crime, but because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and therefor, "must" have been the killer.
This reminds me of the Phoenix Buddhist Tempe Murder case where 4 kids from Tucson were arrested for the murders, despite not a sherd of evidence linking them to the crimes, other then a confession the cops forced out of them. The Tucson kids were later released, when cops discovered evidence linking the murders to two Phoenix kids.
Source
DNA key in case against Ocampo, D.A. says
By Nicole Santa Cruz, Los Angeles Times
February 4, 2012
A "significant DNA link" convinced prosecutors Friday to drop charges against a man accused of killing his mother and older brother in October and instead has connected suspected serial killer Itzcoatl Ocampo to the crimes.
At a hastily called evening news conference, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said Eder Herrera, 24, would be released from Orange County Jail and that two additional murder charges would be filed against Ocampo on Monday.
However, he cautioned, "We're not saying that Mr. Herrera is not guilty."
Ocampo, 23, is already accused of fatally stabbing four homeless men in northern Orange County, what authorities say was part of a weeks-long stabbing rampage that began days before Christmas and ended with his arrest Jan. 13. One victim was stabbed more than 60 times.
Rackauckas noted similarities between the deaths of the homeless men and the Oct. 25 slayings of Raquel Estrada, 53, and her older son, Juan Herrera, 34, at their Yorba Linda home. Estrada was stabbed more than 30 times while Herrera had more than 60 wounds.
He also said DNA found on items taken from Ocampo's Yorba Linda home matched a profile from the double homicide.
"This case has now expanded from murdering random vulnerable strangers to murdering people he knew," Rackauckas said.
Eder Herrera and Ocampo were classmates, Rackauckas said, graduating together in 2006 from Esperanza High School in Anaheim.
In addition, Ocampo lived about a mile from the Herrera home.
According to a friend who has knowledge of the case, Ocampo visited the Herrera home days before the killings to spend time with his buddies.
The friend, who requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said Ocampo's perplexing mental state was noted.
Rackauckas said Estrada's body was found in the kitchen. Prosecutors believe that Juan Herrera tried to escape out the front door, where police found a large amount of pooled blood.
His body was found in the hallway of the home. Investigators did not find evidence of forced entry.
At 11:30 p.m., Brea police responded to a 911 call from an unidentified person who said they heard strange noises coming from the home.
Eder Herrera, who owned a small business with his older brother, was arrested the next morning as he drove away from a friend's house. Last month, he pleaded not guilty to the crimes.
Rackauckas said Friday that there had been "significant evidence" resulting in charges against Herrera.
On that night, Herrera was driving randomly in the area with a friend. "His behavior was in general suspicious," Rackauckas said.
In addition, a witness saw a person he believed to be Eder Herrera dragging something from the front door threshold back inside.
Also, near the spot where the anonymous 911 call was placed, surveillance video showed a person who looked like Herrera walking, wearing shoes with a distinctive side pattern that looked like the shoes he was wearing when he was arrested.
Rackauckas said Herrera also made no effort to check on his mother and brother, despite driving by the crime scene with his friend and seeing police cars in front of the home.
That friend urged Herrera to call his family members on their cellphones. They didn't answer.
A task force continued to investigate the crimes, but Rackauckas said that as of Friday afternoon, that there was "no longer sufficient evidence to hold Mr. Herrera in custody."
At 4:45 p.m., charges were dismissed against Herrera, who was facing 52 years to life in prison, but Rackauckas said that the "door is open" regarding new charges.
Randall Longwith, Ocampo's attorney, said he had not spoken with his client regarding the latest charges. "To me, it doesn't fit," he said.
Ocampo will be arraigned Monday morning.
The homeless murders shot fear through the transient community and were the first serial killings to shock the region in more than two decades.
After Ocampo's arrest, family and friends recalled how he apparently had sympathy for the poor and, despite being unemployed and broke, donated to the homeless.
They also said after he was discharged from the Marines in June 2010, he seemed different.
nicole.santacruz@latimes.com
Opps, we arrested the wrong guy for murder.
Opps, we arrested the wrong guy for murder. That is something that you will never hear the Yorba Linda police say, after they falsely arrested Eder Herrera for the murders of Raquel Estrada and Juan Herrera.
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Published: Feb. 9, 2012 Updated: 8:42 a.m.
Why was man held 3 months in mom's, brother's killings?
By DENISSE SALAZAR and LARRY WELBORN / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SANTA ANA – Eder Herrera spent more than three months in the Orange County Jail accused of stabbing his mother and older brother to death inside their Yorba Linda home in October.
But he was released after prosecutors suddenly dropped the charges against him and lodged them against his former friend – Itzcoatl "Izzy" Ocampo, charged in the serial killings of homeless men.
Herrera, 24, was released from jail Friday evening, where he had been held without bail since his Oct. 26 arrest the morning after Brea police found the bodies of his mother, Raquel Estrada, 53, and his brother Juan Herrera, 34, in pools of blood in their home in the 4200 block of Trix Circle.
Herrera, who pleaded not guilty to the charges of special circumstances murder last month, faced 52 years to life in state prison.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told reporters after last week's developments that there was "significant evidence" that led to the police arresting Herrera and to prosecutors filing murder charges. Rackauckas said Herrera's conduct was "very suspicious" the night of the slayings.
Among other things, Rackauckas said, a witness told police he saw a person he believed was Eder Herrera dragging something from the front door threshold into the house on the night of the slayings. Based on blood evidence, it appeared that Juan Herrera had tried to escape out the front door after he was stabbed but was dragged back inside by the killer.
A RANDOM DRIVE
On the night of the double killings, Eder Herrera was driving randomly with a friend. He drove by his house and saw yellow police tape and police cars, Rackauckas said.
"His friend wanted to know if he wanted to check on his family. He declined. He didn't want to go in," Rackauckas told reporters after Ocampo's court appearance Monday.
His friend then talked Herrera into calling his family members on their cell phones, Rackauckas said, but when they didn't answer, Herrera made no attempt to follow up.
In addition, Rackauckas added, surveillance video showed a person who looked like Eder Herrera walking near the spot where an anonymous 911 call was made at a pay phone at about 11:30 p.m. The person was wearing tennis shoes with a unique logo that resembled the shoes Herrera was wearing when he was arrested the next morning.
Spots were also discovered in Herrera's car that appeared to be blood, but prosecutors last Friday learned that there was no blood in the car.
Detectives on the Orange County serial killings task force later discovered evidence that shifted the focus of the Estrada/Juan Herrera slayings to Ocampo. They re-examined the killings on Trix Circle, which took place two months before the first attack on homeless men, because of the similarities in the attacks and the number of deep stab wounds to all victims.
DNA LINK
Police also searched Ocampo's home in Yorba Linda, about one mile from where Estrada lived with her sons, and found an article of clothing that led to a "significant DNA link" to the double killings, Rackauckas said. Both Estrada's and Juan Herrera's DNA were found on the clothing, he said.
Even though he was released from custody, "Eder Herrera has not been eliminated as a suspect," Rackauckas said, adding that the case is still under investigation.
Ocampo, 23, was charged Monday in an amended complaint in the slayings of four homeless men in December and January and with killing Estrada and her older son. Ocampo, who graduated from Esperanza High School with Herrera in 2006, appeared in court Monday, but his arraignment was continued to March 16.
After Herrera's release from jail, he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from the Enforcement and Removal Operations, said Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for the federal agency.
Herrera told officers he had entered the country illegally, and federal officials checked his background for previous immigration and criminal offenses, she said. He was released a short time later and was issued a notice to appear before an immigration judge.
Herrera could not be reached for comment and his extended family declined to comment.
Deputy Public Defender Huy T. Nguyen, Eder Herrera's lawyer, said he could not comment because the case is still under investigation by law enforcement. He also said he has advised his client not to discuss the case with anyone.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3709 or desalazar@ocregister.com
Itzcoatl Ocampo killed the homeless because their presence was a "blight" on the community
Itzcoatl Ocampo targeted the homeless because "they were available and vulnerable," and that he believed he was performing a public service because their presence was a "blight" on the community.
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Grand jury transcript offers chilling view of O.C. serial killer
By Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times
March 16, 2012
He joined the Marines to become a killer, police said, and studied anatomy to be swift and effective. And he set a goal — 16 slayings, if possible — of becoming one of America's prolific killers. "I knew that I had the killer gene," Itzcoatl Ocampo told detectives.
The chilling portrait of the accused Orange County serial killer emerges in a grand jury transcript that offers the most detailed look yet at the prosecution's case against the 23-year-old Yorba Linda man and his alleged "serial thrill-kill" rampage that left six people dead, including four homeless men.
Anaheim Police Det. Daron Wyatt told grand jurors that Ocampo's "demeanor would change, and he seemed to get excited" as he described the attacks to police after his arrest in January.
Ocampo told police he joined the Marines in 2006 with the hope of learning to kill, but he was disappointed that during a six-month tour in Iraq he drove a water truck and never saw combat, according to the transcript of the February grand jury hearing.
"He felt in order to become a real Marine, he needed to kill," Wyatt testified.
The detective said Ocampo also invoked Charles Whitman, the former Marine who killed 16 people in Texas in a 1966 rampage. Ocampo, the detective said, also aspired to kill 16 people, including the homeless "and people who he believed had wronged him."
The Iraq War veteran said he targeted the homeless because "they were available and vulnerable," and that he believed he was performing a public service because their presence was a "blight" on the community. "He did say that he felt it had to be done," Wyatt said.
The former Marine confessed to killing the first victims, Juan Herrera, 34, and his mother, Raquel Pacheco, 53, whom police had earlier identified as Raquel Estrada, after sneaking into their Yorba Linda home Oct. 25, according to the transcript.
Ocampo said he stabbed Pacheco with a butter knife as she lay on the couch watching TV, finally switching to a second knife when the first one bent, according to the transcript.
When Herrera emerged from his room, Ocampo stabbed him too, authorities said.
"He went on to say that he was hoping one of them would ask him what he was doing there, because he wanted to respond by telling them ... 'I am here to kill you,' " Brea Police Det. Philip Rodriguez testified.
According to the transcript, Ocampo said he grabbed bleach from the kitchen and poured it on his victims' hands to destroy possible evidence, and dipped a butcher knife in Herrera's blood and put it by Pacheco to stage the scene as a domestic fight.
Police said Ocampo told them he killed Pacheco and Herrera because they had been rude to him, and that Pacheco's younger son, Eder Herrera, had broken off their longtime friendship. Eder Herrera was originally charged with the slayings, but the charge was later dropped.
Police said Ocampo then turned his attention to the homeless, killing James McGillivray, 53, in a Placentia strip mall Dec. 20. A surveillance video shows the attacker rounding a corner, coming straight for McGillivray as he lay on the pavement, then straddling him and stabbing him.
Police said Ocampo planned the slaying carefully, leaving his backpack, a spare sweatshirt and glasses nearby before putting on gloves and sneaking up on his victim. Police said he retrieved his backpack, pulled a clean sweat shirt over his bloody clothing, then left his bloody clothing in a bag in the hall and washed it at a laundromat the next day.
Several nights later Ocampo said he spotted Lloyd Middaugh, 42, on a bedroll reading a book by a riverbed in Anaheim, according to the testimony.
Ocampo said he waited until the man appeared to fall asleep and then killed him in a roughly five-minute attack.
"As the attack was going on, [Ocampo] said that Mr. Middaugh asked him what he was doing," Wyatt said. "And he replied that he was there to kill him. He said that he then asked Mr. Middaugh why he was homeless. And Mr. Middaugh replied that he had been homeless all of his life."
After the attack, Ocampo said he stopped at a 7-Eleven to buy some beef jerky, which he ate in the parking lot before walking home to his mother and younger siblings.
Police said Ocampo killed Paulus Smit, 57, in a stairway outside the Yorba Linda library Dec. 30, after stealing the man's bike to make sure he couldn't escape.
As media attention over the homeless slayings grew, police said, Ocampo seized on a photograph in the Los Angeles Times to select John Berry, 64, who slept by the Anaheim riverbed, as his next victim.
After stalking him for days, police said, Ocampo ambushed Berry in a parking lot Jan. 13 and stabbed him to death. Police said a witness chased Ocampo into a nearby mobile home park, where he was captured.
Ocampo said he believed he deserved the death penalty for the killings, detectives said.
"It is the stuff that movies are made of," prosecutor Susan Price told grand jurors in seeking the six-count murder indictment. "Because rarely do you find anyone that is so evil, so sophisticated, and so determined to end another person's life."
christopher.goffard@latimes.com
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