Suspect, 24, Sought 5 Months After Killing
Detectives are seeking a 24-year-old Central American immigrant in the March shooting death of a Canoga Park man during a gambling dispute, Los Angeles police said Friday.
Manuel Castellano was charged with murder in an arrest warrant Friday, Detective Pat Conmay said.
Castellano is suspected of shooting Enrique Mendoza, 32, several times after a late-night argument March 31 in the parking lot of the Loehmann’s Plaza shopping center at Victory Boulevard and Tampa Avenue.
Castellano lived in El Salvador before moving to this country. He had lived in North Hollywood, police said.
Mendoza had won some money and wanted to leave an illegal gambling game in a garage in the 7300 block of Tampa Avenue, Conmay said, and Castellano and another man offered him a ride home.
Witnesses reported that Castellano drove to the parking lot and shot Mendoza. The driver of a delivery truck found the body the next morning.
The gambling spot was “like a club” of mainly Latinos playing low-stakes card and dice games, Conmay said.
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