Handyman Held in Two Church Beating Deaths

A handyman has been arrested in San Diego County on suspicion of beating two women to death at the Rosemead church where he worked, authorities said Sunday.

Rickey Darnell Owens, 35, described as a transient, was arrested Saturday night after he was stopped by U.S. Customs officials at an inspection station at San Ysidro at the Mexican border and turned over to San Diego police, officials said. Owens was taken into custody without a struggle after officers recognized him from a bulletin issued by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Owens was returned to Los Angeles on Sunday night and booked at the Men’s Central Jail.

Sheriff’s detectives said they are searching for a white 1986 Pontiac Sunbird bearing the license plate 2GFP389, which belongs to one of the victims and was stolen from the church parking lot.

Employed as Custodian

Owens was employed as a custodian-handyman at the Chinese for Christ Los Angeles Mandarin Church on Del Mar Avenue in Rosemead in exchange for room and board, church officials told sheriff’s investigators.

The badly beaten bodies of church bookkeeper Harriet Baden, 61, of Temple City, and clerk Ruth Lee Leung, 64, of Los Angeles, were found about 1 p.m. Friday in separate areas by a church member who had an appointment with the women. Both women had been beaten to death with a blunt instrument, Sheriff’s Sgt. Gus Risinger said.

“I got out there to the scene, and it really made me sick,” Risinger said. “We see a lot of people dead, shot once to the head or something, but I’d never seen anything like this. It was a vicious, vicious murder.”

Owens had been seen regularly at the church for the last week, but disappeared Friday afternoon, investigators said.