Local News in Brief : Murder Case Dropped
Orange County prosecutors said Friday that they will not seek murder charges for a third time against a 19-year-old transient who had been suspected in the death of a Los Angeles police officer’s wife.
Citing a lack of evidence and a “re-evaluation of the investigation,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mel Jensen said Scott Michael Katzin was no longer considered a suspect.
The decision marked an abrupt turnabout in the investigation of the April 29, 1986, strangulation killing of Marie Andrea Malmgreen.
Prosecutors had filed murder and sexual assault charges twice against Katzin, but both times judges dismissed them after preliminary hearings because of a lack of evidence.
Mrs. Malmgreen, 38, was found dead in the back seat of her abandoned car near a Fullerton park. She had disappeared the morning of April 22 shortly after she took her teen-age daughter and 12-year-old son to school.
Katzin was arrested about two months after the killing. After the charges were dismissed the first time, prosecutors immediately refiled them and kept Katzin in jail.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
