Carasi Pleads Not Guilty in Mall Killings

A North Hollywood man pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he and his girlfriend plotted the Mother’s Day slaying of his mother and an ex-girlfriend at a Universal CityWalk parking lot.

Paul Carasi, 30, was arraigned Friday in Beverly Hills Municipal Court on two counts of murder with the special circumstance of multiple murders that makes him liable to the death penalty.

A preliminary hearing was scheduled for July 20.

Carasi, who was arrested and released days after the May 14 slayings, was rearrested Wednesday when DNA and other tests on blood found at the scene linked Carasi to the killings of his mother, Doris Carasi, 61, and former girlfriend, Sonia Salinas, 29, authorities said.

Carasi’s current girlfriend, Donna Kay Lee, has pleaded not guilty to similar charges. Lee was arrested May 19 while recovering in a hospital from wounds she said were inflicted by a robber on a freeway near CityWalk. Investigators now believe those wounds were self-inflicted.

Sheriff’s investigators have said they believe there was “pre-planning and collusion” between Carasi and Lee in the attack, which occurred as Carasi, his mother and Salinas were returning to their car after Mother’s Day dinner at a restaurant at CityWalk, the urban-themed amusement arcade in Universal City.

Carasi initially told investigators that he was knocked unconscious by an unseen assailant. He later said he’d feigned unconsciousness after a struggle, and when he opened his eyes, the women were dead.

About 15 minutes after the attack, Lee--bleeding from a gash in the abdomen--phoned for help from a call box on the Hollywood Freeway about four miles from CityWalk. Investigators found a bloody butcher knife, bloody clothes and other items belonging to Carasi, his mother and Salinas on the shoulder of the freeway near Lee’s car.

Detectives have speculated that Lee was trying to get rid of the items but accidentally locked herself out of the car, forcing her to call for help.

Lee, Salinas and Carasi worked together at a Bank of America data-processing center in Los Angeles. After Carasi and Salinas broke up, he and Lee moved in together in the same North Hollywood complex where Carasi’s mother lived. Salinas and her 2-year-old son by Carasi often visited Carasi’s mother.

Authorities still do not have a specific motive for the slayings but previously said that relations were strained between Carasi and his mother and Salinas, and also between the two victims and Lee.