2 Bodies Found in Lopez Canyon Tied to Lake View Terrace Killings

The deaths of two men whose bodies were discovered Thursday dumped in a remote part of Lopez Canyon were connected to the fatal shooting Sunday of a mother and her daughter at a suspected rock cocaine house, police said.

The decomposing bodies of the two men, who appeared to have been shot to death, were found in heavy brush about 80 feet off Lopez Canyon Road, a mile north of Lake View Terrace.

A passing California Highway Patrol officer discovered the bodies at 10:30 a.m. after stopping to investigate a foul odor, police said.

Police had not identified the two men Thursday but said their deaths are related to the shooting deaths Sunday of Lorretha Anderson English, 23, and her daughter Chemise, 2, of Seaside. Detectives would not elaborate on the connection.

The mother and daughter were killed while sitting in a car outside a suspected rock cocaine house in the 11400 block of Wheeler Avenue in Lake View Terrace. English’s 1-year-old son, Carlos, was slightly injured by flying glass during the shooting.

“What we have here is quite possibly connected to our case,” Detective Al Ferrand said. “We had been looking for at least one other victim. Here we have two.”

The bodies were found in an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County, but the Sheriff’s Department turned the investigation over to Los Angeles police detectives working on Sunday’s case because of the connection.

English and her daughter were apparently shot while they waited for one or two people who had gone inside the house, police said. After the 5 p.m. shooting, the unidentified gunmen jumped in the car with the victims and drove off, abandoning the car in an alley half a mile from the house.

When police were called by neighbors, they found the house abandoned. Inside blood and other evidence indicated at least one other person had been shot in the house and taken away when the gunmen abandoned the premises.

“There was strong evidence that someone was killed in the house,” Ferrand said.

Police said they have not determined what the motive was for the Sunday shootings. The Wheeler Avenue house, fortified with steel doors, iron grates on its windows and other security devices, was twice raided by police in 1985. A small quantity of cocaine was seized in each raid, and two men were arrested.

Police and neighbors said the raids ended drug activity at the house until this summer.

Neighbors said that in the last few weeks they had begun noticing frequent visitors to the house and had occasionally heard gunfire. Narcotics officers said they were unaware of drug activity at the house before Sunday’s shooting.

Police have declined to say whether they determined who was living in the house at the time of the shooting.