Man charged with killing mother and 4-year-old girl in Long Beach won’t face death penalty
The Oklahoma man accused in the fatal shootings of a Long Beach woman and her 4-year-old daughter will not face the death penalty if convicted, prosecutors announced Monday.
Brandon Colbert, 23, who appeared in court Monday for a hearing on whether he was competent to stand trial, collapsed after the proceeding, according to Greg Risling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. The competency hearing was postponed to May 30.
Prosecutors say Colbert, of Tulsa, Okla., hid behind a concrete sign before leveling a shotgun at Carina Mancera, 26, and Jennabel Anaya, 4, as they returned home from grocery shopping on Aug. 6, 2016. Colbert is accused of firing the blasts that killed the mother and daughter, before firing an additional shot at Mancera’s longtime boyfriend, Luis Anaya.
The last shot missed, and Anaya was not injured.
The killings mystified Long Beach investigators for months. But late last year, DNA from a spent shotgun shell found at the crime scene was matched to Colbert, who had been arrested by Los Angeles police in an unrelated car theft case.
Prosecutors have repeatedly declined to comment on a motive in the slayings, or say whether Colbert knew the victims.
In 2014, Colbert was diagnosed with schizophreniform disorder, meaning he was presenting symptoms of schizophrenia but not for the six-month period necessary for a formal diagnosis, according to medical records reviewed by The Times. He has insisted on representing himself at trial over the objections of both a defense attorney retained by his family and a court-appointed attorney who attended his pretrial hearings.
During a series of hearings, Colbert has appeared confused and unnerved at various points in the courtroom. He has largely trafficked in conspiracy theories, repeatedly insisting that his arrest is part of a larger scheme to frame him for the killings.
During a March preliminary hearing, Colbert insisted that Mancera and her daughter were still alive.
“I don’t believe these people are actually dead because I said this is like a Hollywood movie and I’m not an actor and I don’t want to play this game,” he said, according to a court transcript.
Colbert’s trial was scheduled to open this month, but Superior Court Judge Jesse Rodriguez ordered him to undergo a competency hearing.
Colbert had never been to California and did not know anyone here, according to his family. He boarded a California-bound Greyhound bus from Tulsa on Aug. 3, and arrived in Los Angeles the next day, police said.
Mancera and her daughter were killed two days later.
To read the article in Spanish, click here
For more news on crime in Southern California, follow @JamesQueallyLAT and @marisagerber on Twitter.
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