Ex-UCLA Medical Center Aide Convicted of Murder
A former UCLA Medical Center employee was convicted of murder Friday in the slaying of a co-worker and the wounding of his supervisor in the hospital’s patient escort center last February.
A Superior Court jury deliberated just over two days before convicting Brian Keith Major, 19, of the first-degree murder of Diondra Ann Pichou, 22, of Gardena and the attempted murder of Nora S. Arellano, 30, of Los Angeles. The two women were shot shortly before 6 a.m. Feb. 19 in the Westwood hospital’s patient-escort dispatch office.
Major faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Authorities said the motive for the shooting was Major’s anger at his supervisor over pending discipline resulting from his job performance as a patient escort.
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