Couple Killed Outside Apartment Identified : Violence: Man was fatally shot while sitting in a parked car. Woman in the driver’s seat was slain after she tripped while fleeing.

Authorities Wednesday identified the bodies of a man and woman killed outside a Lancaster apartment complex.

A Los Angeles County coroner’s spokesman said a fingerprint check determined that the woman was Latonya Walker, 23, of Adelanto, a town near Victorville in San Bernardino County.

The man, also identified through fingerprint records, was identified as Ronald Greene, 22, of Upland, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Rich Erickson said.

The victims were sitting in a parked car just after midnight Tuesday when a man armed with a .44-magnum pistol approached the rear passenger window and shot Greene in the head, investigators said.

Walker, who was in the driver’s seat, ran from the car but tripped, deputies said. She begged the gunman not to shoot, telling him that she had three children, witnesses reported. But the man fired three times, striking her in the head, hand and upper torso, deputies said.

The gunman then walked a short distance away, placed the weapon on the ground and continued walking, deputies said. Investigators later recovered the gun. They also discovered that Greene was carrying several thousand dollars when he was killed.

“Detectives believe the case may be narcotics-related,” Sheriff’s Deputy Benita Hinojos said Wednesday.

The slaying occurred outside an apartment complex in the 43400 block of 32nd Street West.

“In years past, we’ve had a lot of problems there with narcotics trafficking and gangs,” said Sgt. Bob Denham of the Antelope Valley sheriff’s station. “But for the last several years, it’s been very quiet over there.”

No further progress on the case was reported Wednesday. The Los Angeles-based homicide detectives assigned to the case were out of town, attending an investigators’ convention, the sheriff’s homicide bureau said.