Suspect in 2 Slayings Found in Jail

A suspected cocaine dealer and street gang member who allegedly settled a neighborhood dispute by shooting and fatally wounding an East Compton man and his young daughter with an AK-47 assault rifle four months ago was found Wednesday.

George Carter was sitting in Los Angeles County Jail under an assumed name, sheriff’s deputies said.

Carter, 29, had been held under the alias George Taylor since his arrest four days ago for an outstanding traffic warrant, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said.

Authorities said a comparison of fingerprints taken when “George Taylor” was booked and Carter’s own fingerprints proved that the two men were the same. Officers would not discuss what led them to compare the prints, saying they did not want to harm the search for another suspect in the shooting.

Carter was named by authorities as the principal suspect two days after the April 17 shooting. County supervisors offered a $10,000 reward for his capture and conviction, and law enforcement bulletins with his picture had been circulated throughout the Southland.

The rifle attack, in which 20 to 30 bullets were sprayed into a home in the 3600 block of Josephine Court, fatally wounded Salvador Saucedo, 39, and his 6-year-old daughter, Irma. Saucedo’s wife, Maria, 39; Irma’s brother, Martin, 13, and a cousin, David Sanchez, 7, were wounded.

Sheriff’s investigators allege that Carter shot up the two-bedroom stucco house as a favor to Leeann Welch, 31, a neighbor of the Saucedos, whose children had been involved in a dispute with the Saucedo children.

Welch was arrested at her home a month after the attack. She is still being held without bail on murder charges.

Sheriff’s investigators said the dispute between the Saucedo and Welch children occurred the day of the shootings. They said that deputies came to the neighborhood to quell the argument but that Welch was not satisfied and called Carter and “asked him to come to her home and settle it,” Deputy Van Mosley said.