2 Victorville Teens Identified as Slaying Victims

Homicide investigators have identified two Victorville-area teen-agers whose bodies were found in a car on a dirt road in the Antelope Valley, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said Friday.

Investigators believe the youths were shot to death elsewhere, then driven to the desert and abandoned in the 1978 Oldsmobile near the San Bernardino County line, Sheriff’s Lt. Bill Nottingham said.

The victims were identified as Jessie L. Wells, 17, and Robert Curtis Cheatum, 18, both of the Victorville area, said Deputy Dean Scoville. Wells was the owner of the car, according to state vehicle records.

Detectives concentrated their investigation in the Victorville area Friday, pursuing leads that indicate the slayings may have been gang-related, Nottingham said.

Authorities said the victims may have attended the same high school, but it was not clear if they were students at the time of their deaths. They had been dead about one or two days when deputies in a sheriff’s helicopter saw the car.

Nottingham said further examination of the bodies revealed that both victims were black teen-agers, despite initial reports that they were two men in their late 20s, one black and one white or Latino.