Suspect and Companion Found at Anaheim Motel : Man Arrested in Connection With Girl’s Death

Los Angeles Sheriff’s homicide detectives arrested at an Anaheim motel a 30-year-old man wanted in connection with the killing of a 17-year-old girl in the Angeles National Forest last January, authorities said Saturday.

Ralph David Schilling was arrested without incident late Friday at the Ha’penny Inn at 1800 W. Lincoln Ave., Anaheim. Schilling’s companion, Anna Costello, 23, also was arrested at the motel, an Anaheim police spokesman said.

Schilling was booked at the Anaheim police station on suspicion of murder and the woman was booked on suspicion of aiding and abetting, the spokesman said. No bail was set.

The two were transferred to Los Angeles County Jail.

Deputy Rick Adams, a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s spokesman, said Schilling is suspected of killing Chantel R. Houston of Vancouver, Wash.

Deputies found the girl’s partly decomposed body Jan. 16 in the national forest off Little Tujunga Road about 10 miles north of the Foothill Freeway.

An autopsy showed she had been fatally shot.

When the body was found, detectives found no identifying papers. Her identity was not learned until investigators issued a composite drawing of the girl.

An Anaheim police spokesman said he did not know the relationship between the two suspects. He said Los Angeles sheriff’s investigators had received a tip that the pair were at the motel.