[ad_1]
LOS ANGELES – (AP) – A Texas man, suspected of killing three people and seriously injured four people in a series of attacks against sleeping men in Southern California – most homeless – had long criminal history and had been expelled from the states six times, immigration officials said Tuesday night.
Ramon Escobar, 47, who was himself homeless, may have targeted the victims to steal them, Los Angeles police captain William Hayes told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.
Escobar could be charged on Wednesday with murder and attempted murder in connection with a series of attacks of a week.
Meanwhile, Houston authorities have investigated the disappearance of his aunt and uncle.
Escobar was held without bail, but US immigration and customs officials have detained an inmate if he is released, the agency said.
Escobar was expelled for the first time from the country in 1988 and was expelled to his homeland, El Salvador, six times between 1997 and 2011, said ICE in a statement Tuesday night.
He was released from custody of the ICE last year after appealing his latest immigration case, said ICE, but the agency did not not indicated its current legal status.
Escobar has six convictions for burglary and illegal reintegration, ICE said.
Hayes called Escobar a "violent predator" and said the investigators thought he had gone to California from Houston after his relatives disappeared in Los Angeles and suburbs of Santa Monica. he was conducting attacks on random victims.
Escobar was arrested on Monday after a man sitting on a sidewalk was beaten unconscious and he was deprived of some of his belongings, the Santa Monica police said. This victim remains in a coma.
Police will ask prosecutors on Wednesday to charge Escobar with three counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder, officials said.
It was not known immediately if Escobar had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
Houston police said in a statement that Escobar was interested in last month's disappearances by 60-year-old Dina Escobar and 65-year-old brother Rogelio Escobar.
Dina Escobar's pickup truck was found in Galveston, Texas, a few days after searching for her brother. She was last seen on August 28, two days after her brother's disappearance, the statement said.
The Texas authorities have said they want to tell him about the disappearances.
Escobar spent five years in jail for robbery from the mid-1990s, Hayes said. Texas records show Escobar has had arrests for vehicle burglary, trespassing, arrest, public intoxication and two assaults, most recently in November 2017. This case has been described as a misdemeanor.
Dina Escobar's daughter, Ligia Salamanca, told KTRK-TV in Houston on Tuesday morning that her cousin, Ramon Escobar, had never been considered violent and was not a source of trouble for the family.
"She loved him as a son," said Salamanca about his mother's devotion to Ramon Escobar.
Salamanca said that he was looking for work and needed a place to stay. He was greeted by his uncle, who disappeared a few days later.
Investigators believe that Escobar was the man who used a baseball bat to hit the heads of three homeless people sleeping in the streets of downtown Los Angeles before dawn on September 16, police said. a statement. Two are dead
It was recorded on a surveillance video ransacking their pockets and belongings.
Two homeless men sleeping on the beach were hit in the head early on September 8 and September 10, leaving one of them in critical condition, officials said.
Steven Ray Cruze Jr., 39, of San Gabriel, was beaten to death. Another man who was apparently sleeping on the beach was found dead under the Santa Monica wharf on September 20th.
The authorities first described him as homeless, but his family and friends said that the father of two, who liked to fish on the pier, was working in the nearby ports of Marina del Rey and sometimes camped under the pier.
___
Follow Weber on https://twitter.com/WeberCM.
___
Associated Press authors Robert Jablon and John Antczak in Los Angeles, David Warren in Dallas, and researcher Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this article.
[ad_2]
Source link
