Neighbor Arrested in Slayings

Responding to a report of a woman’s scream, Covina police arrived at a residential complex on Prospero Drive to discover the body of Alexandria Hickman, 24, sprawled on her bedroom floor in apartment 4. She had been stabbed to death.

Then, seeking a possible witness, investigators went next door to apartment 3. The tenant did not answer. After learning that she had not shown up for work, officers broke down the apartment door. Inside, they found the body of 42-year-old Deborah Converse. She, too, had died of multiple stab wounds.

Six hours later, the man who lived in apartment 5, on the other side of Hickman, 24-year-old Martin Anthony Navarette, was in custody, booked for investigation of the two murders.

Detectives said Thursday that they still have not determined a motive for the slayings, which occurred early Wednesday. But they said Navarette had recently been picked up on suspicion of burglary and several guns were believed missing from Converse’s apartment.

Neighbors, who asked that their names not be used, said Navarette had moved into the modest, 8-unit complex on the quiet residential street last August.

“He was always in trouble with the police,” one of them said.

The same neighbors described the murder victims--both of whom lived alone--as “kind, quiet people who were nice to the kids and everyone else who lived here.

“It’s hard to believe something like that could happen here,” a neighbor said. “We’re all kind of walking around in a daze.”

Lt. Gil Leslie of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s homicide division, which was called in to assist in the investigation, said the murders were discovered after Covina police got a call at about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday from a man who lived in the apartment complex.

“He said he heard a woman screaming and the sound of breaking glass,” Leslie said.

The arriving officers said they were directed to apartment 4, where they found Hickman’s body.

“There were signs of a struggle,” Leslie said. “A window at the back had been broken.”

The search for witnesses led to Converse’s next-door apartment. The woman didn’t answer the door, but Covina police said that Converse, nervous about a burglary at her apartment the day before in which a videocassette recorder had been stolen, had told friends she might not spend the night in her home.

Leslie said detectives checked with Converse’s employer, a Pasadena auto dealer, asking that they be informed when she arrived for her job as a service representative.

“When she didn’t show up, we decided we should be concerned,” Leslie said.

At 2 p.m. Wednesday, sheriff’s investigators broke down the door to apartment 3. Like Hickman, Converse was found sprawled in her bedroom. But, unlike Hickman, deputies said that Converse appeared to have been sexually molested.

Leslie said initial tests indicated that Converse died shortly after midnight. Hickman apparently died about three hours later.

Several witnesses said they saw a man running from the front of Hickman’s apartment moments after the screams and the sound of the breaking glass.

According to Leslie, their descriptions of the man closely resembled Navarette, who lives next door to Hickman with his girlfriend and their two children. Leslie said that when officers questioned the girlfriend, she told them Navarette had not slept there that night.

The suspect did not show up for his job at a paint company Wednesday morning, according to detectives.

“That night, at about 8 o’clock, we found him at his mother’s home in Covina,” Leslie said. “He was arrested without incident.”

The officers said Navarette, who was ordered held without bail, had been released over the weekend after being arrested last week on suspicion of burglary.