2 are dead in car crash, apparently by gunshots
What began with police responding to an auto accident in Pasadena became a double murder investigation Saturday, with the twist of a Good Samaritan passerby who was injured as she attempted to stop a thief who stole her car to make his getaway from the accident scene.
It began about 11:30 p.m. Friday, when a car hit a light pole in an affluent area on San Rafael Avenue, just south of Colorado Boulevard.
When police arrived, they found one man dead in the front passenger seat of the 1990s model Honda and another mortally wounded in the back seat. Both had been shot several times, said Lt. Joe Bale of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. The injured man died at Huntington Hospital.
It wasn’t long before police learned that a woman, who had come upon the accident and stopped to give assistance, had had her Ford Mustang stolen by the driver of the wrecked Honda.
Pasadena Police Lt. George Wiley said the woman was hurt as she tried to stop the man from stealing her car, which held her 12-week-old puppy.
“She was trying to get the guy out of the car,” said Wiley, who was at the scene Friday night. “It’s rare that a Good Samaritan would stop and then have the person she’s trying to help turn on her.”
Wiley said the woman, whom police did not identify, had several scrapes and an injured foot, possibly caused by the car’s back tire rolling over it.
She was found lying in the street by a passing motorist, Wiley said, and they called police from a nearby house. The woman’s car was found nearby, wrecked, but with the puppy safe inside.
The driver of the Honda, described as a Caucasian or Latino man in his 20s, remained at large Saturday.
Wiley said police hadn’t determined how or where the two dead men were shot or whether the car crashed because the third man was shot as well.
Neither of the dead men had been identified as of Saturday night.
Autopsies were pending.
Wiley said the woman would probably remain unnamed, at least for now.
*
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
