Woman Suspected in Ordering Fatal Shooting Arrested

An East Compton woman whose children were involved in a dispute with a neighbor’s children was booked for investigation of murder Thursday for allegedly arranging to have a gang member shoot up the neighbor’s home, killing a 6-year-old girl and her father, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department investigators said.

Leeann Welch, 31, was arrested at her home in the 3600 block of Josephine Court in the unincorporated area of the county, deputies said. George Carter, 27, the man believed to have shot into the home April 17, is being sought.

Irma Saucedo and her father, Salvador, 39, were killed when a gunman sprayed their home with bullets from an AK-47 assault rifle, deputies said. The shells penetrated the two-bedroom stucco house’s walls, windows and a steel security door, wounding Irma’s mother, Maria, 39, her brother, Martin 13, and a cousin, David Sanchez, 7.

“Welch’s children had apparently been involved in a dispute with the Saucedo children earlier in the day,” Deputy Van Mosley said.

Welch was apparently dissatisfied with the way deputies, who were called to the scene, quelled the argument, Mosley said. She then allegedly called Carter and asked him to come to her home and “settle it,” the deputy said.

Welch met Carter, who was allegedly carrying the rifle, and an unidentified man at the curb, Mosley said. She then “walked him next door to the Saucedo house and pointed it out to him,” the deputy said.

Mosley added that Welch then yelled to other neighbors on the street, “You better get off the street. He’s got a gun.”

She ran back to her home, and Carter unleashed his lethal fusillade on the house, Mosley said.

Carter and the unidentified man fled, investigators said, but they are believed to be in the Los Angeles area. Sheriff Sherman Block earlier said Carter is a parolee with “a lengthy criminal record for drugs and robbery.”

Martin Saucedo, who received a minor stomach wound in the shooting, blamed the attack on a simmering dispute over a Kansas City Royals baseball cap he wears that bears a street gang’s blue “colors.”

Investigators, however, said they were unable to corroborate Martin’s claim.