Arson Suspect’s Room Yields Care Home Residents’ Property

Property allegedly stolen from victims of the fire that claimed four lives at a Southwestern Los Angeles board and care home over the weekend was found in the room of the man suspected by police of starting the fire.

Police investigators found three purses, 22 silver dollars and an unspecified amount of paper money in Walter Evans Jr.’s room at the rear of the board and care home on West 25th Street, Detective Richard Marks said Monday. The goods were identified as belonging to two of the elderly women who survived the fire, he said.

Despite the discovery, Marks said, “there is no clear indication that (theft) was a motive for the fire.”

Marks noted that Evans, who also was a boarder at the care facility, suffers from an undetermined but readily apparent mental disability. “We’ve heard nothing from the other boarders that establishes what could have happened to set him off to have done this,” Marks said.

Marks said investigators planned to ask the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office today to file murder and arson charges against Evans. Booked on suspicion of murder the day of the fire, Evans remains in police custody.

The charred remains of two victims who had been unidentified since Saturday were tentatively identified by police Monday as Vertice Cameron, 83, and Cherry Brooks, 90.

Another victim, Marian Martin, 96, is in serious condition at Westside Hospital. Three other women escaped the fire unharmed. The only other injured victim, Anthony Jackson, 37, was treated and released from County-USC Medical Center the day of the fire.