South Bay

TRIPLE MURDER CASE: The death penalty will be sought against a 21-year-old man charged in the recent slayings in Carson of a toddler and two women, one of whom was six months’ pregnant, authorities said Wednesday.

The district attorney’s office filed four counts of murder Wednesday against Leon Haney III because legal precedent allows fetuses as young as 8 weeks old to be counted as separate murder victims, said Det. Mike Scott, one of three investigators in the case.

Officials with the coroner’s office, however, said experts have not yet determined if the fetus, known as “Baby Evans,” would have been viable on its own.

The charges come just two days after the early morning slayings, in which each victim was shot repeatedly and dragged onto the front lawn.

Haney has confessed to the murders, Scott said, but has given no indication of why he allegedly took a 9-millimeter handgun and shot his second cousin, 2-year-old De’Ajanae Morgan; her mother, 19-year-old Shanta Evans, and her great-grandmother, Hazel Petty, 69.

“In this day and age, people sometimes kill just to kill,” Scott said.

Haney remains in custody without bail while a defense attorney is selected, Scott said.

The suspect was picked up about six hours after the slayings at a gas station a mile from the home that he allegedly was attempting to burglarize.

Haney, a grandson of Hazel Petty, moved into the victims’ home about a week ago after tensions forced him to leave his mother’s home, also in Carson. “There was some difficulty within that family,” Sheriff’s Lt. Derry Benedict said, but he did not elaborate.

At the time of the slayings, the suspect was on probation for holding up a Torrance convenience store in June, authorities said.