Teens Sought in Killing Linked to Crime Spree

Two teen-age gang members wanted in the brutal shooting death of a pregnant Huntington Park woman have been linked to a series of nighttime armed robberies and rapes since January, authorities said Friday.

The suspects--identified by police as Walter Steve Scott, 18, and Glenford Brooks, 16, of South Los Angeles--are suspected in at least five Los Angeles-area armed robberies in which they allegedly entered their victims’ homes at gunpoint. In three of those robberies, female victims were raped before the gunmen fled in stolen vehicles, police said.

Police point to similarities in the way the crimes were committed as the link between the incidents. Also, in most of the incidents, the victims have identified Brooks and Scott as their attackers, based on police photos.

Warrants have been issued for the arrest of the pair on murder, robbery and rape charges stemming from at least three of the incidents--the one in Huntington Park and two earlier cases in San Gabriel. A common theme in the attacks has been the gunmen’s practice of remaining in the victims’ homes for an extended time to goad and terrorize them, Huntington Park Detective Tom Weselis said.

In the Huntington Park case on Feb. 27, the two intruders allegedly stayed in the home for more than two hours, finally shooting 24-year-old Silvia Enriquez when she tried to resist their efforts to force her into a side room, Weselis said.

Enriquez and her 8-month-old fetus died while the attackers ransacked the home, escaping with televisions, a videocassette recorder and numerous other valuables, Weselis said.

“They’re spending a lot more time in the victims’ houses than normal,” the detective said. “There’s a terrorizing factor. They’re scaring the hell out of these people--that’s what they’re doing.”

Police--now involved in a widening manhunt--are investigating a similar attack late Thursday night in Long Beach, where two residents of Claiborne Place, just outside the exclusive Virginia Country Club, were followed into their homes by armed robbers shortly after 9 p.m., according to Long Beach Police Sgt. Todd Muilenburg.

In that attack, one intruder forced a woman upstairs and sexually assaulted her while the other held her husband at gunpoint and stole an unknown amount of money, jewelry and guns, Muilenburg said.

No shots were fired during the incident.

The attackers apparently fled in a stolen four-wheel-drive vehicle after the couple’s adult son came home, confronted them and ran to summon help, the sergeant said. The abandoned vehicle was later found in Inglewood.

Victims of Thursday’s incident, who were shown photos of Scott and Brooks, were unable to identify the two as their attackers, Muilenburg said. But, he added, the pattern of the crime--including the stolen vehicle, the style of entry into the home and the sexual assault--fits previous crimes already linked to the suspects, including two cases in Long Beach earlier this year.

“We do feel there are a lot of similarities,” Muilenburg said. “We still feel there is a connection between these crimes.”

Long Beach Detective Lianne Osendorf said the most recent attack was almost certainly a “copycat” crime or one carried out by “associates” of Scott and Brooks, perhaps other members of the 5 Deuce Crips street gang. Police said Scott and Brooks are members of that gang.

Scott, who has a criminal record for residential robbery and rape, was described as 5-feet-8, about 140 pounds with a medium-length Afro hairstyle, police said. Brooks, who also has a criminal record as a juvenile, is 5-feet-7, 140 pounds with a noticeable overbite, police said. He is said to speak with an accent.

The search for the pair now involves police in Huntington Park, Los Angeles and San Gabriel. The investigation of the crime spree is widening to cases from last year, which may raise the total number of attacks to a dozen or more, according to San Gabriel Police Detective Kenneth Butler.

Butler declined to say how many other cases were now being reviewed or where those cases originated, but he described the pattern of attacks by saying: “It appears they’re becoming more and more violent.”

The first known attack occurred Jan. 27 in San Gabriel, where a couple were accosted late at night in their driveway, Butler said. They were forced inside at gunpoint, the wife was raped and property was taken, including a VCR and $425 in cash.

Two days later, three women were examining a house for sale in the 100 block of West Arbor Street in Long Beach when two men entered, forced them at gunpoint into a back room and robbed them, Osendorf said. One woman was taken into a bedroom, where the men “took turns raping her,” the detective added.

During the incident, one woman’s purse was spilled and one man--allegedly Scott--left fingerprints on a bank card, which helped police obtain an identity and a photograph, Osendorf said.

Later, police files helped connect Brooks with Scott, authorities said.

On Feb. 24, a second robbery in San Gabriel occurred when a couple were approached at their front door and were forced inside. The wife was raped, Butler said. The intruders took about $1,900 worth of jewelry, electronic equipment and coins and escaped after stealing the couple’s Volvo sedan with the license plate 2HBU492, the detective said.

The Volvo allegedly was used in Long Beach during a Feb. 25 robbery on Paramount Boulevard, police said, in which three adult victims were bound and blindfolded.

The Volvo allegedly was used again in the Feb. 27 incident in Huntington Park, Detective Weselis said.

Victims in the two Long Beach, the two San Gabriel and the Huntington Beach robberies were able to positively identify the suspects from police photographs.

Weselis declined to say which suspect was identified as the triggerman in the murder. Each suspect faces two murder counts in the case, since the fetus was considered old enough to survive outside of the mother’s womb.