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Gunman’s Rampage Leaves 1 Woman Dead, 2 Wounded

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Times Staff Writers

The rampage began about 12:10 a.m. Thursday in a parking lot in Rowland Heights, where 39-year-old Leslie Benevides is said to have been talking with a woman.

Benevides suddenly shot the woman--believed to be his girlfriend--leaving her in critical condition, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

Then, investigators said, Benevides drove to a nearby home, where he shot two more women, killing one and critically wounding the other.

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About an hour later, deputies said, they found Benevides--owner of a small trash-collection business in the Hacienda Heights area--passed out in a back yard lawn chair at the Artesia home of a former girlfriend after she called to report a prowler.

Investigators said that while Benevides “has a history of drug abuse and violent behavior,” they know of no motives for the attacks.

However, the former girlfriend told a reporter that Benevides had threatened her life when they broke up in December and she believes that she was next on his list Thursday morning.

Too Scared to Talk

The woman, who asked not to be named, said she was “extremely afraid of both Leslie and his friends”--too scared to talk about it.

“If I could tell you the things I knew,” she began, before lapsing into silence.

Another acquaintance of Benevides said more.

“He was real jealous about women, and he could get mad real easy,” said Robert Crasco, 18, who worked for Benevides’ trash business for several years.

“I don’t figure him shooting nice people like that,” Crasco said. “But when he’s drinking, he can be pretty mean.”

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The dead woman was identified as Maxine Vance, 34. The other woman shot at the Vance home--Bobby Stoddard, 18--underwent surgery at Whittier Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital.

The woman shot in the parking lot, whose identity was not released, was in the intensive care unit Thursday at Queen of the Valley Hospital in West Covina.

Homicide detectives said that, according to witnesses, Benevides had been talking to the woman in the lot at Colima Road and Azusa Avenue when he fired a single shot from a rifle. The woman was struck in the head and collapsed on the pavement as Benevides fled in his car.

About five minutes after the shooting, Crasco drove by the Vance home in the 1400 block of Greencastle Avenue and noticed Benevides’ car in the driveway.

“I didn’t think anything of it, because Les is a friend of Maxine’s husband, Jerry,” Crasco said.

Unaware of Visitors

Crasco said he was unaware at the time that there were two other visitors in the Vance home--Stoddard, who had been the subject of Benevides’ advances in the past, and Billy Brownlee, Stoddard’s boyfriend.

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Crasco said he was watching television at his home, two houses away, about 15 minutes later, when Brownlee, who had been asleep in a back bedroom at the Vance home, dashed in the front door to say that two people had been shot.

“We ran back over there, and there was Maxine, lying on the couch . . . shot in the head,” Crasco said. “Bobby was on the couch, too, shot in the chest and the mouth. . . . Bobby was moaning. Maxine was quiet. . . .”

Crasco said he called sheriff’s deputies, and they, in turn, called for ambulances.

Deputy Van Mosely said that although Stoddard was unable to speak, she wrote Benevides’ name on a piece of paper before undergoing surgery.

Several hours later, the former girlfriend in Artesia, who described her relationship with Benevides as a long and bitter one, heard a knock on the front door of her home in the 11600 block of East 186th Street. She said she got up, looked through the peep hole and saw only a shadow.

“Thank God he ducked,” she said. “If I’d known it was him, I’d have opened the door.”

Frightened by the shadow at the door, the woman called sheriff’s deputies.

The deputies said they found Benevides unconscious in the woman’s back yard. His battered trash truck, parked nearby, contained the 9-millimeter rifle believed used in the shootings, officers said.

A radio check revealed that Benevides was being sought in the Rowland Heights attacks. He was booked at the sheriff’s Lakewood station on suspicion of murder and jailed without bail.

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