Murder Suspect Dies of Burns
A suspected murderer who caught on fire after leading police on a high-speed chase through the streets of Encino died Monday at a Los Angeles-area hospital, police said.
Kenneth Louis Brown, 29, of Van Nuys, who suffered second- and third-degree burns over most of his body following the Jan. 30 crash, died in the jail ward of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, said Detective Rick Swanston of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Brown, who was wanted in connection with the killing of Henry Antonio Romero, 22, of Northridge, and the wounding of Armando Reyes, 22, of Sylmar, started to flee after patrol officers spotted him in a late-model Mercedes-Benz.
After running a red light, Brown collided with another car, then struck a fire hydrant and bounced into a tree, his car bursting into flames in the 5400 block of Balboa Boulevard. He stepped into a spouting hydrant to extinguish the flames and fled into a school parking lot, where he was arrested.
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