Shooting suspect turns himself in

A man suspected of killing his girlfriend in front of her two sons walked into a police station in South Los Angeles on Monday morning and turned himself in, police said.

Sharon Carter, 31, died almost immediately after being shot in the head while driving in the 9600 block of South Compton Avenue about 5 p.m. Sunday, Los Angeles Police Department authorities said.

Carter was driving her boyfriend Stephen Mark Picart, 33, and her two sons, 4 and 14, when the couple began fighting, authorities said. Investigators allege that Picart pulled out a gun and shot Carter.

The car went out of control and smashed into parked cars, and Picart fled, investigators said. Carter was pronounced dead at the scene. Relatives said Monday that she was pregnant. Neither of the boys were injured.

A short time after the shooting, the 4-year-old greeted his uncle at the police station by pointing a finger to his temple, imitating the shot that killed his mother, said Dwayne Loughridge, brother-in-law to Carter. “He’s been crying a lot,” Loughridge said.

The older boy “is not saying a whole lot, not talking a whole lot,” Loughridge said. “But he said, ‘Uncle, I cannot help that nightmare from playing back in my mind.’ ”

Both children were very emotional after the shooting, said LAPD South Bureau homicide Det. Sam Marullo. They have been placed with relatives. Neither child was Picart’s.

Carter and Picart were both bus drivers. She worked for the Big Blue Bus service of Santa Monica, according to Det. Nate Kouri, and he drove Los Angeles Unified School District students for a contract bus company called First Student, according to district officials. Police officials said they knew of no history of domestic violence between the pair, and family members echoed that.

South Bureau Chief Charles Beck credited “intense pressure from detectives” and community involvement for Picart’s arrest. Police received calls about Picart’s whereabouts, Beck said. At a news conference late Monday, Loughridge thanked Picart for turning himself in, and said members of Picart’s family helped convince him.

Sharon Kane, a Beverlywood parent of a child at Community Magnet School at the edge of Bel-Air, said she received a principal’s voice mail Monday saying that a bus driver had been involved in a news story, and that the school would not discuss it but would have a psychologist on campus for distressed students.

Kane said she believed she recognized Picart’s picture on the news. “He was a really good bus driver,” she said. “He was there on time and he knew all the best routes to take . . . It’s sad and it’s also scary.”

Picart had not yet been charged as of Monday afternoon, and remained in the LAPD’s 77th Street Division jail near Broadway and Florence Avenue, where he had turned himself in.

Although domestic-violence killings comprise a small percentage of all homicides, Carter’s death was one of a handful to occur in South Los Angeles recently. Other recent cases include the killing of Sophia Broussard, 38, who was found stabbed five dozen times in the Crenshaw area Sept 8. and the Aug. 7 killing of Jarrod Sellars, 32, by his girlfriend, who then turned the gun on herself. In that case, the couple’s three children witnessed the crime.

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