Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Transient Arrested in Fatal Desert Fight

Sheriff’s deputies on Friday arrested a 28-year-old transient on suspicion of murdering another transient in a desert fight.

Deputies were also investigating a separate violent incident in which a 17-year-old youth was seriously wounded by gunfire.

The stabbing victim, a transient whose name was withheld pending notification of his family, was involved in a fight with Kevin Nudell at 10:10 p.m. Thursday in a desert area near 32nd Street West and Avenue M, said Sheriff’s Deputy Diane Hecht.

Nudell was arrested in a parking lot just blocks from the crime scene and booked on suspicion of murder. Bail was set at $1 million, according to Deputy Rich Erickson of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau.

The victim, who was stabbed in the abdomen, was taken to Antelope Valley Hospital, where he died at 4:15 a.m. Friday, Hecht said.

In the second incident, deputies arrested two men in connection with the shooting early Thursday of Matthew Montague, 17. Deputies said Montague answered a knock at the door of his family’s house in the 44000 block of Kirkland Avenue, talked briefly to two people at the door, then was shot.

Montague remained in serious condition Friday at Antelope Valley Hospital with two bullet wounds, said Investigator John Kalita.

Kalita said the injured youth has been unable to talk about what the dispute in the doorway of his house concerned.

On Thursday, deputies arrested Jeffrey Burgener, 18, of Lancaster, who was jailed at the Antelope Valley station on suspicion of attempted murder and possession of illegal drugs. He was also being held in connection with a no-bail warrant issued because of an unresolved Juvenile Court case, Kalita said.

Deputies also arrested Robert Russo, 19, of Lancaster on suspicion of attempted murder. He was being held in lieu of $570,000 bail.

Kalita said Burgener is suspected of driving Russo and a second suspect to Montague’s house and waiting in the car while the shooting took place. Russo is believed to be one of the two people who fired at Montague in the doorway, the investigator said.

“The second suspect is known, and I’m trying to find him now,” Kalita said.