Suspect Arrested in Robbery, Shootings

The way police told it, Southwest Los Angeles home-invasion robbery suspect Carlos Hawthorne was trying to throw detectives off his trail.

Hawthorne, 20, was one of two men who allegedly invaded Vanessa Arlene Sells’ home Sunday, shot her and her daughter, and fled in their champagne-colored 1992 Lexus--leaving the mother in critical condition.

Police said Hawthorne called them about 7:30 p.m. Monday to report that he had seen three men running away from a Lexus near the 2500 block of Clyde Avenue in Culver City.

Police officers from the LAPD’s special-problems unit responded to Hawthorne’s call and spotted the Lexus. Meanwhile, Hawthorne remained on the phone with a communications operator who was able to determine where he was calling from: a phone booth at 3560 La Cienega Blvd., less that a mile from where the car was found.

The officers found Hawthorne at the phone booth, still talking to the operator and with the keys to the Lexus in his hand, and detained him. When they searched his pockets, they found a silver necklace and a bracelet that matched the description of jewelry that had been stolen from Sells’ home. They later booked him on charges of robbery and attempted murder.

“He kind of cinched himself. . . . I don’t know what he was thinking,” LAPD Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker said at a Tuesday news conference. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t very good.”

Officials at UCLA Medical Center, where both Sells, 46, and her daughter, Kristian Forte, 16, were taken, said that the mother remained in critical condition. Sells was shot in the head; doctors believe her spinal column was damaged as well, said hospital spokeswoman Jacquie Michels.

Forte, who was listed in fair condition, was also shot in the head, Michels said, but was only grazed.

Police described Hawthorne as a gang member. They said he and the other suspect--described as a black man in his 20s, weighing more than 200 pounds with a “short, natural haircut”--knocked on the door of Sells’ home and asked for her by name. When she opened the door, they forced their way in and tied up Sells and Forte, stole several items from the house, and shot both of them in the head before fleeing in Sells’ car.

Police say the suspects selected the house randomly.

“Be sure and know who is at the door,” Kroeker warned citizens during the news conference.

Anyone with information about the home invasion robbery is asked to call detectives at South Bureau Homicide at (213) 237-1310 or (213) 485-2504.