3 men arrested and charged in slayings of 3 women in L.A. neighborhood
Three men have been arrested and charged with murder in connection with the killings of three women in a Los Angeles neighborhood this year.
Dejean Thompkins, 28; Dontae Williams, 22; and Daries Stanford, 28, were each charged with three counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder in connection with the Jan. 28 shooting in Beverly Crest, which killed three women, authorities announced Friday.
It's not clear whether the three have retained counsel. The Los Angeles County public defender's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
The men and their victims were from the Chicago area, Los Angeles police and prosecutors said at a news conference Friday.
"One thing that can be said is that the violence that occurs in Chicago today is having an effect on all of us, and we’ve become aware that it’s affecting other states as well," Police Capt. Jonathan L. Tippet said.
Tippet said the three suspects are "involved in" and "connected to" a gang but did not provide further details, The Associated Press reported.
The men were arrested in April and May in Chicago; Gary, Indiana; and New York City, authorities said. Charges were filed May 8 to trigger arrest warrants, prosecutors said, although the filings were not announced until Friday.
The victims have been as Iyana Hutton, 33; Nenah Davis, 29; and Destiny Sims, 26.
The three women were returning to a vacation rental from a concert in a vehicle early that morning when shots rang out in what prosecutors described as an ambush of semi-automatic gunfire.
They were not the targets, Tippet said, according to the AP.
Four other people were injured and survived, officials said. Two others were uninjured despite having been targeted, prosecutors alleged. A possible motive was not revealed.
The women were pronounced dead at the scene.
The violence rocked the Beverly Crest community of eight-figure estates that house many celebrities. The neighborhood is north of Beverly Hills.
Officials said Friday that one of the suspects, Thompkins, faces an additional murder charge. He is accused of gunning down a man identified as Julian Bynum, 30, outside an apartment complex in nearby North Hollywood on Dec. 16.
Prosecutors say the three defendants face special circumstance allegations that could mean life without the possibility of parole if they are convicted. Thee circumstances include lying in wait and committing multiple murders, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office alleged in a statement Friday.
"This is another example of the widespread damage that can be done by gun violence," District Attorney George Gascón said in the statement. "We must do more — whether it is through legislation or education — to stop mass shootings."
Arraignment will be scheduled in the coming days, Gascón's office said.
The arrests came as Chicago grapples with another deadly spring, including back-to-back weekends last month when the number of shooting victims was in the double digits.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
