Ailing Murder Suspect Found at Hospital

A woman sought since July in a Panorama City double murder was arrested in suburban Chicago on Tuesday when she attempted to seek medical treatment for sickle-cell anemia, police said.

Los Angeles detectives said Charisse Brown, 33, was arrested by police in Oak Park, Ill., after she checked into West Suburban Hospital. She has been charged in Los Angeles with the July 17 slayings of Jewel Prude, 34, and Shirley Marie Johnson, 35, who were fatally shot at an apartment in the 8100 block of Lennox Avenue.

Los Angeles Detective Steven Hooks said Brown was known to be suffering from sickle-cell anemia, and police had asked hospitals and physicians in the San Fernando Valley to contact them if she sought medical treatment.

Alerted by Physicians

Hooks said Oak Park police arrested the woman after being alerted by West Suburban physicians who learned she was wanted when they contacted a Valley hospital where Brown had previously been treated. Police declined to identify the hospital.

“We knew she was sick and it was only a matter of time before she would have to seek treatment,” Hooks said. “When a doctor from out there called the hospital here to get information on her case, he was told, ‘Call the police; she’s wanted.’ ”

Brown, who is also pregnant, was being treated at the hospital where she was under arrest, but her exact condition was not released.

Police said the motive for the double slaying was a domestic dispute. Brown had lived with Prude in the apartment on Lennox Avenue, but he asked her to move out a few days before the slaying, police said.

Johnson was apparently in the process of moving in with Prude when the shooting occurred, detectives said. The couple had been out shopping July 17 when they returned to the apartment to find Brown, who apparently still had a key to the apartment, waiting inside with a gun, police said.