Triple slaying in Benedict Canyon tied to Chicago gang violence, LAPD says
Los Angeles police detectives have taken into custody three suspects in connection with a gang-related triple slaying outside a Benedict Canyon home this year.
After months of investigation that led detectives to a Beverly Hills high-rise, where a getaway car had been spotted, police arrested three men they say carried out the Jan. 28 attack, which left three dead and four others critically wounded.
The ambush shooting was carried out by three Chicago gang members and motivated by events in that city, Los Angeles Police Capt. Jonathan Tippet said at a news conference Friday.
Daries Stanford, 28; Dontae Williams, 22; and Dejean Thompkins, 28, were arrested in Chicago; Gary, Ind.; and New York City, respectively, with the help of local police and the FBI. Thompkins was apprehended Wednesday.
All three are awaiting extradition to Los Angeles, where they will face multiple murder charges, police said.
Las Vegas man is charged in 98-count federal indictment with hate crimes and murder for May 2022 shooting at a Taiwanese Presbyterian church in Orange County.
Authorities also have linked the men to another L.A. slaying that occurred a month before the Benedict Canyon attack. Detectives are continuing to investigate who else may be involved in the alleged murder plots.
The Benedict Canyon shooting occurred outside a short-term rental home in the 2700 block of Ellison Drive, a street of large hillside homes north of Beverly Hills. Neighbors reported seeing several cars driving away minutes after gunfire rang out around 3 a.m., police said.
Detectives released a crime alert with information they had gleaned from witnesses and surveillance video from the scene. The suspects were last seen driving a blue, four-door Tesla with damage to its right front fender and no license plates, police said. That vehicle was tracked to a condo complex in the 8600 block of Wilshire Boulevard, where one of the apartments was searched in March for forensic evidence connected to the shooting.
Tips from members of the public who saw the suspects’ vehicle in and around the West L.A. and Beverly Hills area led investigators to the apartment complex on Wilshire. A warrant to search the apartment was obtained after it was connected to the Tesla.
Thanks to those eyewitnesses and other evidence, Los Angeles Police Department detectives working with Beverly Hills police, Chicago police and the FBI built a picture of the alleged movements of the three accused gunmen, Tippet said.
The suspects flew to Los Angeles shortly before the attack and stayed briefly, delivering the deadly barrage of gunfire with two guns before flying out of the state, Tippet said.
The shooting targeted other people who were with the three women after returning from a bowling alley that night, according to Tippet, who said that the motive stemmed from activity in Chicago and that the three suspects had flown to Los Angeles with the intent of killing their targets.
Residents were left shocked after a fatal shooting during a gathering in the quiet cul-de-sac of Benedict Canyon, a neighborhood north of Beverly Hills.
“The violence that occurs in Chicago today is having an effect on all of us,” Tippet said. “We are saddened by this horrible loss of life. We hope the arrest of those responsible for these acts will bring some comfort to the families.”
Those who were killed — Nenah Davis, 29, of Bolingbrook, Ill.; Destiny Sims, 26, of Buckeye, Ariz.; and Iyana Hutton, 33, of Chicago — all had roots in the Chicago area, police said. The lifelong friends died in a hail of gunfire that peppered their rented Porsche SUV.
Hutton was trying to get into the music business before she was killed and was said by a friend to be in L.A. for an album release. Davis, one of Hutton’s best friends, was a mother who once worked as a nurse. Sims was a mother of three and a hairstylist who grew up in Illinois before moving west with her family.
Earlier the night of the shooting, the trio had visited a bowling alley before returning to their rental home, according to friends interviewed by The Times.
Artist Mick E. Finnz, a longtime friend of Hutton’s, wondered whether something had happened at the bowling alley to set off the deadly events. But Tippet said detectives found no evidence of any altercation.
The suspects in the triple homicide have also been tied to the Dec. 22 slaying of Julian Bynum in North Hollywood. Bynum, 30, was visiting from Chicago when he was shot multiple times shortly before midnight on the 6800 block of Simpson Avenue. LAPD detectives initially said he was killed during a narcotics purchase, but they now believe he was targeted.
Joseph Iniguez, the chief of staff for Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón, said Thompkins has been charged with four counts of murder — three each for the Benedict Canyon shooting and one in connection with Bynum’s death — and six counts of attempted murder.
Williams and Stanford are charged with three counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder with a semiautomatic weapon. Investigators won’t say at this stage if they were involved in Bynum’s slaying.
Because of the “incredible loss of life, we have decided to file special circumstance allegations and gun enhancements in this case,” Iniguez said. “We cannot allow these tragedies to go unanswered.”
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