You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. KFI AM six forty heard everywhere on the iHeartRadio app On any given day in southern California, hundreds of investigators are working more than ten thousand unsolved cases. That's thousands of friends and families who have lost loved ones, thousands of people who got away with a crime, and thousands of murderers who still walk the streets. Killers who may be your neighbor, go to your church, or could be dating a close
friend. For the next two hours will highlight cases that have gone cold, baffled investigators, or just needs that one witness to speak up. This is unsolved with Steve Gregor, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide cold case number zero one nine DASH one eight four five nine DASH two eight one two DASH zero one one the shooting death of some Monday, Demetrius brackten. Detective rich Tomlin had reached out to me. He said he had a case that goes back a
few years and he said this one is puzzling. In broad daylight. Demitrius Bracken, who was not a gang member, was gunned down while saying goodbye to a relative in front of a home on Parmerley Avenue in Compton, and all they've got to go on is a shooter with a bizarre haircut and a crappy picture of a getaway suv. So we meet up with Tomlin in the cold case unit of the Homicide Bureau in Monteree Park. He takes us back to December thirtieth, twenty eighteen. It's one thirty five pm. It was
a Sunday. Demetrius and a relative had just left demetrius mother's home. The relative had not seen Demetrius in a while and walked Demetrius out to his car while they were standing outside. Suddenly, Demetrius looked up with a panic look in his face, pushed his relative out and said run. Shots rang out approximately twelve and Demetrius and the relative were struck and fell to the ground.
A cousin that lived in an area heard the gunshots, got into his car, drove over to his relative's home and saw the two on the sidewalk. He quickly, instead of waiting for paramedics, decided to place them both in his truck and drive them to the hospital, Martin Luther King Hospital. There. Unfortunately, Demetrius passed away one hour after the shooting. Where did this happen. This happened in the two thousand block of North Parmley Avenue in Compton.
For the listeners, Parmley Avenue is a north south street and it was bordered by Central Avenues to the west, Nestor Avenues to the east, and the street immediately south is one hundred and thirty fourth Street. Okay, So this particular area in Compton, can you describe the neighborhood? What kind of neighborhood. It's a midle class neighborhood with single family residents. Again, a longtime neighborhood. People grew up there, lived there and stay there their entire
lives. When you were talking about this relatives, can you at least tell us if the relatives is a man or a woman. Is a male relative? Okay? So you've got the male relative along with Demetrius Brackens and they're walking out to the front of this home on the two thousand block of North Parmly And was there any kind of a description You said that Demetrius had this
panic look on his face. Did he sort of know his attacker? You think witnesses say that a young man walked north towards them from one hundred and thirty fourth Street on the east sidewalk. The relative had their back, had his back turned from the suspect, and Demetrius was facing the suspect. We were not sure if he recognized who it was or he just saw that something is not right here, but he uttered the words run to the relative and
at that point shots rang out. Now there are witnesses and the suspect has been described as a young African American male, approximately eighteen to twenty two years of age, about five foot five to five seven, one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty pounds. He was wearing a black and ray windbreaker and skinny jeans. There was also he was light skinned complexion. His complexion was light skinned. He was clean shaven, and he had what we call
a fro hawk. Now, a fro hawk is different from a mohawk. If you're familiar with the mohawk. Basically, a person has their head shaved and it's just a strip of hair running down the middle from front to back. A fro hawk is a little bit wider, the hair is up and they're not completely shaved on the sides. But there's hair on the sides, but the fro is a wider strip and it goes further back from the front
to the rear. Oh got it. Okay, So this individual, after recklessly and I say recklessly shooting because two parked vehicles near where they were standing were also struck, turned south, ran to one hundred and thirty fourth Street, and witnesses see him enter into the rear driver's side of a suv. The suv speeds away south excuse me, speeds eastbound one hundred and thirty fourth
Street and out of view. There were witnesses who saw the individual get into the vehicle, and they said there was at least two others persons inside of the suv. They were both described as African American, approximately twenty to twenty five years of age. One was driving and the other was in the front. The such a shooter got into the rear driverside seat. Okay, so there was already a getaway car. So you know, Detective, this sounds like to me, then this was a targeted attack. You have to keep
that is the dilemma with this. One would say that because of the brief time that the mister Demetrius and the relative were outside that someone was in the air looking for something or someone. Now that being said, so the immediate thought is we have to delve into demetrius background. What was he about? And you know, Demetrius has some bumps and bruises along the way of life.
However, he never's been to prison, He's never had any type of violence or violent history in his background, and so that in itself says, well, he doesn't have any obvious apparent enemies, so what else could it be? The relative also, the way it was, the way it happened with his back turned, it's hard to believe that the shoe to it. Actually if the let's say the relative was to target, it's kind of hard
to believe that that person was only because of how they were standing. Would when would the attacker have seen the person and decide, Yeah, this is who we're going to go after. So then let's try to visualize this. You've got the two guys that are walking out from this house. You've got Demetrius and his relative. They're walking down a sidewalk. Someone comes up on him. Does he come up on him from the street, or does he come up on him from the sidewalk. He walked up, approached on the
sidewalk. On the sidewalk, So how far away was the car parked or the suv? The suv the suspect ran approximately two house lengths down. Okay,
so they park further down. He walks up on the sidewalk, obviously on the side Demetrius standing, which would have been if you're looking at the house, would Demetrius have been on the right or the left, on the left side, on the left side, so then he comes up on this side on the left side as you're looking at the house, he would have come up on the left side and then open fire, hitting Demetrius, fatally
hitting him. Now do you think the relative was hit by eront gunfire like you know, random, I mean the external gunfire, or do you think the relative was also part of the target. I think the relative was part of the target only because the shots, as I said, it was prosimbly twelve from a semi automatic handgun. They were in a grouping, and so one would say they were standing so close together that we don't know what the killer thought, but I'm sure as he's shooting, he's got to believe that
he possibly could hit the relative. Also Before we go to break, I want to tell you about an update. The La County Board of Supervisors and the Compton City Council have come together to offer a combined reward of twenty thousand dollars for the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the shooting death of
Demitrius Brackens and the attempted murder of his relative. If you have any information about this case or any others, press pound two fifty on your cell phone and just say the keyword unsolved and leave us a message, or as the red microphone icon on the iHeartRadio app, and also leave us a message when
we come back. I want to dig a little deeper because you mentioned earlier that sometimes you have to go back and look at who the victims were in this case Demetrius Brackens, and you say you had to kind of peel back the layers of his life. So we'll do that. We'll explore more of the case from twenty eighteen in Compton, but first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on CAFI AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty
on demand, I Am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. Listening on the app, you can send us a tip about a case, a story idea, or a comment about the show. Just have the red microphone on the app and record your message.
Welcome back. We're inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau talking with cold case Detective rich Tomlin about the case of Demetrius Brackens, a forty six year old black man who was gunned down in front of a home in the two thousand block of North Parmerley Avenue in Compton back in twenty eighteen, so detected before the break. We were talking about how you sometimes have to go back and peel back the layers of the victims, of those who were killed.
And in this particular case, what do we know about Demetrius. You said he wasn't he hadn't gone to prison. He really wasn't a bad guy per se on the surface, But do you know anymore about him just talking to family members, that he was more of a lowner and that he sometimes would touch with his family, but he was as far as seeing them in person. However, he was consistent in staying through telephone contacts, and what
have you married? Demitrius was not married. He's approximately he was forty six years of age. He was older. And again because of his age, one would say, again, you have to look at all angles of a shooting. What's a possible angle? Could this be a gang shooting? Let's say, per se, he's got no gang ties, he's an older gentleman. Again, the timing of the murder. Of course, violence can happen anytime, at any moment of the day, but this is a Sunday.
This is at one thirty five in the afternoon. I don't think. Well, again, I can't say that for sure, but it's kind of shocking, and that's what it is. All murders are terrible, but this is shocking. The time of day it occurred, where it occurred, and that the amount of gunshots that were fired. So could this have been mistaken identity? Because that happens a lot. Again, this is why we are pleading for the public to help. We don't know, We have no idea,
no definitive idea of why this occurred. But obviously, and I have to reiterate again, this is one thirty after on a Sunday, afternoon, there are people out there are people in the area, as people who stepped forward and gave a description of the individual, people who stepped forward and identified the
suspect vehicle. We feel very strongly that there are people who actually know who are who is responsible for the shooting, and we are asking the public's assistance to help, because if it's not safe to walk out of your home at one point thirty in the afternoon on a Sunday, when is it safe to walk? Detective, based on your experience, who shoots a forty six year old man? Again, That's why I don't want to speculate, because that's
exactly That's exactly it. Who would shoot a forty six year old man? Okay? So then could it have been the relative that was the target all along? Based on our investigation so far, we do not believe that the relative was to target any indication. You know, and I know you've thought about all this stuff, but I mean in fidelity, you know, gambling, debt, all the different things that could come up. We have looked into his personal life as far as there's no gambling. We have looked into
his relationships and to see if there's a possible motive in that area. But again right now and it's been three years coming up with three years, and we're not any closer to getting our answers. And again I can't emphasize enough that we believe strongly there are people out there that know well clearly if someone was and who was able to provide this detailed description of the shooter witnesses in the area. So there were people outside saw there are people who are attempting
to help. So without a doubt, let's go back down here. So the shooter's described as African American, eighteen to twenty two years old, five foot five to five foot seven, about one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty pounds. At the time of the shooting. The shooter was wearing a black and gray windbreaker jacket and skinny jeans. He has described as light skinned, clean shaven, with a fro hawk, and you've described a fro
hawk where it's a little white than a typical mohawk. And this is a guy that ran up on these two individuals open fire, then ran back and got into the driver's side backseat of an suv right in that neighborhood. With three years ago, would there have been any sort of ring video or any kind of home surveillance video, Yes, and we've we've obtained whatever video we could, but nothing that showed the actual shooting or the suspect. Now,
you provided a photo to our team as well. Can you describe what's in that photo and we'll be posting that. Okay, the suspect entered into a black suv and we believe that it is a black Tahoe unfortunately, and that was video surveillance camera that captured it. Unfortunately, the license plate number is not visible. What year tahoe approximately is approximately a twenty twelve. And there is a ten thousand dollars reward. The city of Compton came up with a
ten thousand dollars reward on this case. Now, it's been my experience people do not come forward because of the reward. People come forward because of the tragedy that happened, the lack of a better term, the ridiculousness, the senselessness of a shooting like this. And we are again the plea is for someone who specifically knows these individuals or secondhand, thirdhand knowledge, but knows who
is responsible, to step forward. We feel that we have enough witnesses in the area that if we are able to actually identify the shooter, those witnesses will be able to select them in a photo lineup. Do you think that that person out there the suspected shooter. Do you think they still have the same look, the same frohoc and all of that. I would have to imagine after three years that the person probably no longer looks that way, just
through aging. Would the vehicle also? I would imagine it has probably been sold by now. However, we can always backtrack. There's always a DMV registration. We have ways of placing the vehicle at the right time with the right individual. Rich Tomlin, detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau Cold Case Unit. Thank you for your time and we'll get all this posted and I hope you get some phone calls. Thank you. Before we
go to break, I want to tell you about an update. The La County Board of Supervisors and the Compton City Council have come together to offer a combined reward of twenty thousand dollars for the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the shooting death of Dimitrius Brackens and the attempted murder of his relative. If you have any information about this case or any others, press pound two fifty on your cell phone and just say the keyword unsolved and leave us a
message. Or press the red microphone icon on the iHeartRadio app and also leave us a message. Coming up a case involving a thirteen year old boy in a nineteen year old both executed inside a laundromat in Linwood. But first, this is unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFI AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is unsolved. To reach the Unsolved team through the iHeartRadio app, press the red microphone and leave us a story, idea tip, or comment, or simply press pound two fifty on your cell phone and say the keyword unsolved. Los Angeles County Sheriff's homicide case number zero nine two DASH zero three five zero eight, DASH two five one seven DASH zero one one the execution. It's a nineteen year old Jose Merlows and
thirteen year old Migual Clades. We're talking now with Detective Sean McCarthy. He's with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Cold Case Unit within the Homicide Bureau. We're inside Homicide Bureau headquarters in Monterey Park. We're talking about a case going back to March eighth, nineteen ninety two, the death of a thirteen year old and nineteen year old. Let's get started with a quick overview of the case. Okay, this homicide occurred in the city of Lynnwood at Long Beach
Boulevard and Cedar Avenue. It's it's your typical coin operated laundromat self serve. It's open most of the day, but generally it closed around seven thirty. In this particular night, it was a Sunday night. The business closed to employees by the name of Miguel Perez and Jose Merlos. They began their shift
after the business closed. They worked as clean up people, janitors if you will, and generally speaking, they would lock the front door sometime around seven thirty, but they would allow customers to remain who were still doing their wash. They would leave the back door open most of the time to give those customers access and access point to leave once they were finished. On this particular night, I can only assume that's what happened based on my review of the
case file, because I was not one of the original investigators. Sometime after seven point thirty, and I'm assuming the regular customers left, someone entered the business or were led inside the business, and at some point they produced firearms. They led both Miguel and Jose at gunpoint into a rear office, and
they executed both of them. And I'm saying this with not a lot of certainty, but there was some evidence to indicate that the motive was robbery, because some of the washing machines had been tampered with in the area where money would be inserted, and there was some coins apparently missing. But I'm not going to sit here and tell you that that definitively was the motive in this
case. Okay, I got to ask you something. It just kind of struck me when you said they took these two young men, this boy and this young man to the back and executed him. Would you please describe your definition of in this case. And I don't mean to be flipping about it, but as opposed to just going in and robbing a place and just shooting these folks. What in your mind defines this as an execution The way that
they were murdered. They were both shot in the chest and the left side of the chest we call we would call it it referred to in law enforcement as the ten ring on a target at a range. That's the area where the ten the tenure is low located. That was just a random These two kids, and I refer to them as kids because one was nineteen, one was thirteen. They didn't just shoot them as they were running out of the
business, try to trying to escape from whatever crime was being committed. They were led back there into that office and they were shot in an area of the body that clearly indicates, in my opinion, execution. And you provided a few moments ago, and we're not going to be posting these photos online, but you are showing me photos from the file. And obviously it's a very sad sight when you got these two young people behind and it looks like
in this you say office area. But what would be the purpose of this, I mean, why, detective, do you take a thirteen year old and a nineteen year old to a back room execute them in the commission of
a robbery. I mean, why do you do that? My opinion only Okay, if you look at the front of the business, there's there's large windows, right if they were if they would if they were to kill them, there potentially people on the street in Long Beach Boulevard is a very busy street in Lynnwood, they would be seen and somebody would call the police.
The gunshots would be heard, would be more likely be heard if you if you lead them into a back office, it's more securecluded, it's more insulated from the noise of the gunshots in that room, and it would eliminate anybody witnessing the shooting and potentially identifying the suspect. Being that this is nineteen ninety two, you were not the original investigator on the case. You have to you kind of have to piece this together like you do all cold cases that
you did not have a hand in originally. But you have to take the notes of previous investigators. You have to put this together in your mind, and do you go through these different scenarios on what you think might have happened based on your experience and what you know that's in front of you. Do you have enough to connect some dots or do you have to take some leaps.
I don't know if you and I have had this discussion before, but early in my investigative career, especially my investigative career homicide bureau I had, I was being trained by a much more experienced investigator and we had a case that had a lot of suspects and had a lot of theories, and I asked my mentor, is it wrong to theorize in a criminal investigation? And
his answer was no, we all theorize. We're all human beings. We look at a particular incident, and we ultimately theorized in some ways as it relates to the case. Right, And some theories sound really great, but he says, the bottom line is you have to have evidence to back up
that theory. So to answer your question is, yeah, I looked at this case and I immediately started theorizing based on it the pictures that I'm looking at, based on my experienced But it's all meaningless unless you have evidence to back it up. And right now, in this case, we have very
minimal evidence to point at anybody in particular. When we come back, let's talk about some of those theories and let's take a little deeper on what could been the motive and maybe based on some of those theories in your experience, maybe some possible suspects. But first, this is unsolved with Steve Gregory on I AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. Hey, I AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve
Gregory and this is Unsolved. You can reach the Unsolved team on email. Just send us a message unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com. That's Unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com. Welcome back with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Homicide Bureau in Monteree Park, and we're in a conference room speaking with cold case Detective Sean
McCarthy. Before the break, Detective, we were talking a lot about theories and about some of your experience when you crack open one of these cold case files and sometimes in a you know, I can't imagine, you don't know what's on the other side of that folder. When you open that folder, you have no idea what you're going to be looking at. You may have stacks and stacks of information and you may just have few pages so you have to take whatever's in front of you and try to put fresh eyes on an
old case. In this particular case, we're talking about the shooting deaths of Miguel Perez, who was thirteen years old and Jose Merlows, who was nineteen years old. They were cleaning up a laundromat on March eighth, nineteen ninety two, just after ten o'clock on twelve five oh Long Beach Boulevard and Lynnwood. And I've seen photos of the crime scene you showed me where these two
young men were shot execution style. You said, so theories when you look at this in this particular case, what dots did you connect as a theory? Okay, the most as we spoke in the previous segment, the most obvious theory, based on minimal evidence, is that the motive was robbery.
In this case, there were some wash machines that had been tampered with they were self But the reality is it wasn't like they ransacked the whole place, emptied every washing machine in the place, and there was a lot of washing machines in this place like there are and most self served. There was only a few that were tampered with so the obvious theory or motive is robbery.
But based on my experience, I find it hard to believe that they led these two young I look them ass children a thirteen year old into a back room and shot them execution style. I have to look deeper into that, and I refused to just accept robbery for a few quarters in this type of a murder, I just I got to look at other options and could it be robbery? Yes, And I'll tell you why if we haven't discussed this. This area of Lynwood extremely high crime rate with vastly different types of criminals.
You have high prostitution on Long Beach Boulevard, high narcotics use, narcotic sales, you have. It's saturated with street gangs, both Hispanic and Black, a high vagrant population. I know that's a big topic in twenty twenty two. Trust me in nineteen ninety two because I worked that area when Firestone Station and Linwood Station merged in ninety two years later, in nineteen ninety four, I was at Firestone Station and this is in Linwood, but when we
emerged, it became one big station. So for the next few years before I went to homicide bureau. I worked this area. I know this area well, and it is an extreme it's even today, it's an extremely high crime area with vastly different types of criminals. So is it possible that somebody who was whacked down on drugs or whatever went in there just just to rob the place to steal a few coins to go get a small amount of cocaine. It's possible, but I don't think that's the likely likely motive. It's
a possible motive, but I don't think it's the likely motive. Now, if if you're asking me, do I have a motive that I'm leaning that I'm leaning heavily on, the answer is no. Okay, then let me let me pose a couple of things. So, first of all, you told me that the the laundromat, based on the notes, the only door, the only entrance exit was back door, and that was that was generally what would happen. The two employees, the victims in this case, would
begin their shift at at seven point thirty. They would lock the front door. That was regular and for obvious reasons, is the high crime area. And I would like to note too that this you know, with these photos you showed me at the front of these All these windows have a lot of very heavy bars onto them, so that already indicates it's an area that's that's of concern in terms of robbery and burglary. So what I'm getting at is the front door was already closed. The back door was the only door open.
Do you believe that? Again, and only based on your experience and whatever you might have seen in the notes the shooter or shooters, did they come into the laundromat or were they among those that were allowed to stay in there? And sort of were they lingering in there? Do you think or do you think they came in there? I honestly believe either as a possible
responsibility. And do you think again, with an execution style murders and the fact that there was very little money taken actually taken, and it's all in quarters planned or spontaneous, I think there was there was some planning and what I mean by that, And I'll reveal a little bit about the original investigation. There was two male black adults that were seen by a witness shortly before
the morning murder that were loitering near the business. That witness said they honed in on these two and watched them for several minutes, and at one point they walked up to the window and they peered inside. And is that a form of casing the place could be? I think I think this was done by somebody who lived in the in the general area of the laundromat, who knew the workings of the business. I don't think it would take a whole
lot of casing to figure out they close at seven point thirty. There's no real supervision there, or generally there's two young employees that come in and clean up, and with very little casing, they would realize pretty quickly that they allow customers that haven't finished their wash to stay and exit through the back door. So it wouldn't take much planning to figure out that we can get inside this place very easily, very easily by just going through the back door.
Because I'm sure some of those customers who use that regularly they verbalized it to their friends, and so I'm sure a lot of the community knew that they were nice enough to leave the busines and it's open for them to finish their laundry and exit through the back door. We're talking with Sean McCarthy. He's a detective in the Cold Case Unit of the Los Angeles County Chaf's Department's Homicide Bureau. When we come back, more of the case of the two murders
inside the laundromat in Lynnwood. But first, this is unsolved with Steve Gregory k i AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand k i AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is unsolved for inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau in Monterey Park at a conference room talking with cold case detective Sean McCarthy about the murders of Miguel Perez, thirteen year old Hispanic Jose Merlos, a nineteen
year old Hispanic. Both were cleaning up a laundromat in the twelve hundred block of Long Beach Boulevard in Lynnwood. The date March eighth, nineteen ninety two, just after ten pm. A detective, I know in these cold cases, you deal with so many of them. I know in La County you have a ton of different cold cases, and you know you're only so many people. I know that you have to maybe some criteria might have to crop
up in order for you to reopen a case. Was there something about this case after all this time that jumped out at you that said we need to revisit it. Yes, what was that? I received a telephone call from I won't identify this person, but it's a very credible and reliable source that both me and my partner, rich Tomlin have a friendship with. This person told us that they have a friend through their wife who actually grew up on
Inland. Would in relatively close proximity to the laundromat, and they were very they were of elementary school age at the time of the murder. We were directed to this witness. We interviewed interviewed the witness and they told us the story. Basically, the story is that they were a young child. They were at a gathering, a small gathering. They overheard three people, actually four people talking about the murder. It was relatively soon after the murder,
so it was a topic. It wasn't unusual that that topic came up because everybody in the neighborhood knew about the murder. But the conversation is what take their interest and basically, in the conversation, and I'm not going to reveal
any more than this. The statement was made that both victims pled for their lives prior to being executed, and that became an important statement to me as an investigator to indicate that that person who was in that conversation and made that statement either was a participant in the murder, or had conversation with somebody who was a participant and made that statement to them, or could have been just rumor could have been could have been you're grinning, yes, because there's more
to this story. And the more that I can reveal is is the statement was made in the setting where a person, a very strong person of interest was identified in nineteen ninety two, and I would say he bordered on being a viable suspect. So that person of interest who was interviewed and identified by investigators in nineteen ninety two was also the person in this conversation that was overheard by this elementary school witness. Okay, So why was that person interest never
pursued beyond that he is being pursued today. And what I mean by that is he's still a person of interest. I can't speak for the investigators in nineteen ninety two, there's nothing in the case file. The person of interest
was interviewed. The person of interest made some denials about being inside the business around the time of the murder, and then recanted and admitted that he was inside, but his alibi was I was just helping a woman out that he didn't know her last name, So apparently they contract this woman out to verify his story, and that was his and he lived in the area, and he basically said, yeah, I was in there after he denied it, but I was helping this woman out with their laundry and I exitd the back
door like all the customer Lake customers did, And at that point, for whatever reason, the interest in him seemed to stop. Now, I'm not going to criticize the original investigators for stopping the investigation on him. Maybe there was some other things that were said that were never documented that convinced them that
he was not to the point of being a viable suspect yet. But when I interviewed this with this thirty years later, and this told me this person of interest was part of this conversation that they overheard, he immediately jumped back to being a very strong person of interest and were in the process of continuing the investigation with him as a focal point. How old would this person of interest be now in his fifties and you know for a fact that he's still
alive. I do is he in LA counting? He is? Have you made contact? No? And there's reasons for that because, as I said before, there's multiple people involved in this conversation that was overheard, and we have to be very delicate about how we approached this. So if we interview one, he doesn't run back to the other ones and say don't talk to the police. They're inquiring about that, so we have to. So you're basically implying that there is more than one person involved in this crime. I
feel strongly about that, and I can't get into why. When we come back, we'll see if we can squeeze any more information on a Detective McCarthy. But first is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFI AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand, KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is Unsolved. To learn more about this case and others, go to our website at KFIAM six
forty dot com slash unsolved. That's kfi AM six forty dot com slash unsolved. Welcome back. We're inside Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau, the Cold Case Unit, talking with Detector Seaw McCarthy about a case going back to nineteen ninety two. March eighth, just a little after ten pm, thirteen year old Miguel Perez nineteen year old hose Marlows both shot execution style in the back of a laundromat. They were there to clean up, that was their
job. And this was in the twelve thousand block of Long Beach Boulevard and Lynwood. Detective. First of all, is the laundromat still there? Yes, it is still there after all these years my knowledge Now, this was just after ten o'clock at night. What's around that laundromat? Were there any witnesses? I mean, when you hear gunfire and how many shots were fired total? I don't know that anybody heard the gunshots. I will say this, the victims, victims were shot one time. Eache. I don't want
to get any further, and that's fine. A compromise so then did anyone see anybody run out of the building or leave the area? I know I didn't mention this in their earlier segments, but both victims lived in an apartment complex that adjacent to the laundroma. Oh, so they only had to walk
a short distance to work. They lived with other family members. One of the other family members was entered viewed after the murder, and and and just for for information purposes, the Miguel's I believe it was Miguel's father discovered the bodies. He was the one who discovered the bodies. He walked. I believe he tried to get a hold of one of the victims. One of them. Uh, one of them was married to the other one's sister.
So both victims were living in this apartment with other relatives with Miguel's family okay, Jose was married to one of the sisters. Got it Okay. So during the interview with with one of the family members, they said that around the time of the murder, they heard some, uh, some noise. They they went out in a balcony or looked out of an upper floor window and they saw two male black adults climbing over the wall behind the laundromat and
enter a small, dark compact vehicle. Prior to entering the vehicle, one of the mail dropped a handgun onto the pavement and frantically grabbed it and got into the vehicle. The only other thing of interest would be is that this witness was certain that there was young children in that car because they could hear crying from young children as they entered the car. And that's the vehicle left southbound and Long Beach Boulevard And based on my review of the case, file
was never found. Would the timeline fit. Yes, so that witness saw it well, presumably moments after it happened in that ten o'clock area or that ten o'clock timeframe. Yes. So before the break, we were talking about a person of interest, possibly persons of interest, and you said there's someone you're focusing in on. Now. Is that person African American? Yes, so at least you have that part to go with. Let me say this,
the person of interest is African American. Other people involved in the conversation that we spoke in the other segment where the statement was made, there was there was at least one that was of another race, a different race. Other than African American. Okay, yes, not Caucasian. Not Caucasian, okay. But because you know, if the witness said that she saw two African Americans leaving, presumably there might have been someone else in the vehicle or
just the children. I'm not going to dispute what a witness said. Well, our have you talked to that witness lately, the witness to the one that saw the two people leave the building? No, okay, I was just curious if that person is still around. Have you spoken to any of the family of Perez or Marlow's. See, you're very good at your job,
Steve. But I said, there was a conversation that was overheard, and the group in the conversation, the person of interest, was part of that, and there was another person in that conversation that was not African American.
But what I didn't say was if I believed that that person was a co conspirator, because I do not believe that that person was a co conspirator, and I cannot get into it, so that would lend credibility to the witnesses statement to male blacks, it's possible that the person of interest is one of those is one of those male blacks, and then somebody another African American is also involved, and we're pursuing that avenue and we are looking at another
person of interest that may have been the second person. But the person that was not African America involved in the conversation. We don't believe he had any role in the murder, but we believe his role would be able to provide us information on what he knows based on that conversation in that group. Isn't it frustrating to have to dance around all this without just telling us what you're really thinking. Yeah? Yeah, So that said, I know you're trying
to unpack this and still preserve the integrity of the investigation. I appreciate your position, So I'm going to move on. I want to ask you something else about the laundromat itself. You said that you don't think robbery was a motive, and these poor too young. I stand correct that I believe robbery is a possible motive, but I don't know you were leaning somewhere else. Yeah, I'm leaning that, And this is just my own compassionate nature.
Is I've dealt with a lot of pretty hardened criminals, and when you march to young kids back into a room and execute them for apparently a handful of quarters. That's frowned on in the criminal community. You just don't do that unless you're mentally ill, whacked down on drugs, or there's a motive that
we don't know about, you know. So I refuse to just buy robbery as a motive in this case unless it's somebody who's mentally ill, was really whacked down on drugs, or just it was some sort of a thrill kill. You just don't murder young kids like that. And criminals, hardened criminals, you know, they have their limits too, And I believe this based on my experience, it's really teetering on being off limits. We're gonna talk
more with Detective Sean McCarthy from the other county Sheriff's Department's homicide Bureau. But first, this is unsolved with Steve Gregory on CAFI AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand if I AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is unsolved. To leave us a comment, hit pound two fifty on your cell phone and say the keyword unsolved, or press the red microphone button on the iHeartRadio app.
Welcome back. We're inside the Los Angeles County Shriff's Department's Homicide Bureau in Monteree Park in a conference room talking with cold case Detective Sean McCarthy about the tragic shooting deaths of Miguel Perez, thirteen years old and nineteen year old Jose Merlos. They were both cleaning up a laundromat on March eighth, nineteen ninety two, just after ten pm in the city of Lynwood on Long Beach Boulevard.
Detective you said that the laundromat still exists. This address is twelve zero five zero Long Beach Boulevard, and we're looking at photos of it and it has a lot of bars on the wrought iron bars are all over the front part of it, the side windows. And at the beginning of this case you were talking a little bit about the fact that the front door would have been locked at this time because the boys were cleaning up and they were allowing customers
to stay in there. They left the back door open so customers could come and go as they were finished for the night. And somewhere along the way one possibly more people came in, brought the nineteen year old and the thirteen year old to a back room, executed them, and then took some quarters. You said it looked like there had been some quarters missing. You've also mentioned that robbery, while a possible possible motive, is not where you were
leaning. So I want to ask you something. You got to unpack these cases, and you said gang activity. It was an all time high down there a number of both black and Hispanic gangs. Who was the owner of this property and does the owner play any role in this? And the owner of the business or the owner of the property. I'm just gonna be honest with you. We haven't. We haven't touched on that in our investigation yet.
And what I mean by that is is that we're pursuing the person of interest in and invest in trying to determine the context of the statement that was made in and I know you're you're you're focused on who pulled the trigger. I'm focused on why. I'm kind of going down the why since since you said that robbery is a possible but not likely motive, I'm wondering who owned the business? Was there a property dispute or was our business dispute? Do
you know anything about who owned the business? Okay, I'm going to fall on this sort of a little bit here and give you I know you're aware of this, but your audience isn't aware of this. You've aired several of these, and you've made it clear that the cold case unit is made up of what I think. We're down to ten people now and we're all part time employees. We're all retired homicide investigators from the sheriffs who are back on
yearly contracts. So we have ten investigators. We have nineteen thousand cases in our libraries and one hundred year history of Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, nineteen thousand homicides and of those nineteen thousands, over four thousand are cold cases. So we have plenty of work, right, and each investigator is investigating in the area of twenty cases, and those are twenty cases that we believe can be solved. That you know, you've got a triage in this business. That's
just the reality of it. We're not We're a very large department where we're not a department that handles two murders a year, and we can focus all of our attention. So we have to go with the cases that are most solvable and the leads that are most prevalent in that case file based on the
review of the case file right now. And we have multiple other cases that are either have been filed and are in the adjudication process or on the verge of being filed, and we have to dedicate as much as we can equal time to each case. So on the surface, you might say, well, why in this case haven't you talked to the to the owner of the
manager to see if there's another possible motive. We would love to do that, Steve, but right now we have to focus on the leads that we have, exhaust those leads, and then maybe at some point determined is this case is it? Is it? Are we out of leads and we have to move on or do we go into a different area and look for a
different motive. We're not there yet. So the short answer is, after I just gave you a long answer, is is that we haven't had the time to look in the possibility of a different motive or a different reason in this case. And I want your audience to understand that that it's very frustrating for us too. I wish we only had one or two unsolved cases and we could focus all of our time on that. You know, no, I totally understand that. I just it just as I sit and listen to
you, because you provide, as you've done many times. You provide these synopsis for us to read and look at it, and I'm formulating questions, and you know it's it's I guess it's part of the investigator geek in me, investigative reporter geek in me. But I'm trying to I'm trying to figure out things along the way. And that's when you told me that the robbery
was a possible motive but not a likely motive. I kept thinking, well, what, what the hell would somebody walk in there and shoot a thirteen year old boy and a nineteen year old young man execution style in a back room? To me, that seems like that was a could be a message too, that maybe this was some sort of a I'm going to give you a complete hypothetical here, and I want to make a clear it's a hypothetical. Sure. One of the most frustrating things about investigating a homicide cases you
never get to talk to your victim. You know nothing about your victims, right right. You gather information on your victims based on what other people tell you. We don't know what's going on in their lives because we can't interview them, So we have to we have to use other avenues to find out about our victims. Complicated with where this murder happened in an extremely high crime
area with vastly different types of criminals, prostitution, narcotic sale. Is it hypothetically possible that one of these kids got themselves into a mess with the drug dealer over narcotics. We have no evidence to indicate that, but it's a possibility because of the different types of criminal and the area that this occurred at. And what complicates a case like this more this is your classical like and I'll give you an example, high profile cases, everybody wants to help you
out. People come out of the woodwork to help you out. A case like this, nobody wants to help you out because of fear, because of not being want to be portrayed as a snitch, because it's a in a quote unquote ghetto area. No, I don't want to say nobody cares, but the willingness to help out an investigation is much less in a case like
this, and then complicate it with all the possibilities here. I don't know how many murders that I've handled in the past where you have a theory, you have some evidence to back it up, not enough to go to the district attorney, and then when you ultimately solve it, it's it's completely different from the theory that you that you were working on. And that's why you know. And this may sound corny, is our job, as corny as
it sound, but it's the truth. It's to get to the truth right, whether it exonerates the person we're looking at or whether it focuses more more guilt on them. But the last thing I want to do as an investigator is prosecute an innocent person. Okay, hold that thought. When we come back, we'll wrap up with final thoughts. It's detect to Sean McCarthy the La County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau. This is unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFI
AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand, KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is unsolved. You can always contact the team on the iHeartRadio app through the talkback feature. Just press the red microphone and record your message, tip
or show idea. Welcome back. We're wrapping up the case of the murders of Miguel Perez, a thirteen year old Hispanic boy, and Jose Merlos, a nineteen year old young Hispanic man, both gunned down execution style in the back of a laundromat in the twelve thousand block of Long Beach Boulevard in Lynnwood. It happened March eighth, nineteen ninety two, just after ten pm.
And we're talking now with the cold case detective who has reopened the case, Sean McCarthy with the La County Sheriff's Departments Homicie Bureau, and we're inside headquarters there in Monterey Park. Detective. Before the break, you're explaining the fact that these cold cases are incredibly frustrating because you can't talk to the victim anymore, you can't find out what happened, and you've got sometimes very limited information
to go off of inside of a case file. In this particular case, you do have some interesting photos, you've got the notes, you've actually got a person of interest. You're farther along today than investigators were back in nineteen ninety two. Right, I believe we're a little farther along. It's bringing us back to particular people that were persons of interest in nineteen ninety Now, let's clarify because when you were presenting that before, a couple segments back on
the person of interest. Let's see if we can break that down and tighten it up little bit. So you were called recently by someone that is a friend of you and another of your colleagues, your partner, Rich Tomlin, also a cold case detective. That person said that there was a conversation at a party, and what was overheard is that these two young people before they
were executed, had pled for their lives. Correct. That was a statement made during that conversation right between those individuals, which tells you as an investigator that that individual has to have some sort of intimate knowledge of this, and that can only happen in one or two ways. They were there, or
they know who was there and got first hand information. And then there's the random possibility as a rumor, you're operating on the first two that it's either someone who was in the room or someone who knows someone who was in the room, right, right. And the reason I'm I have a stronger feeling about that is because one of the persons involved in the conversation was a person of interest in the original in the original case or the original investigation. Correct.
Is that unusual when you've got someone that was a person of interest long time ago and now they're a person of interest again? No, And let me explain. I would say seventy five percent of the cases we review there's a person of interest or persons of interest, or in a lot of cases, viable suspects, but they just couldn't produce enough evidence to take it that the attorney, or they did take it to the district attorney, and the
district attorney didn't feel that there was enough to proceed with prosecution. So that person of interest is just glaring you right in the face when you open the case file. And a lot of times when you reopen a case file, you're like, why didn't they pursue a little bit harder and dig harder. But each investigator in this room out here now almost ninety active investigators. That's not the cold case detectives are handling around ten cases a year, and I
remember when I was out there on that floor. You have that case where that person of interest is staring you in the face, but you don't have enough to go to the district attorney, and you hang onto that case. You don't send it back to the calcase unit because you're going to get back to it and you're going to solve that case. And then all of a sudden, fifteen years go by and you haven't really had a chance to go back to that case, and then it goes back to the cold case unit.
And I completely understand why you hang onto that case. But the reality is, sometimes maybe it would have been better to take that case to the cold case unit, knowing that you weren't going to be able to get back to it because you're handling new cases every two weeks or so, that maybe the cold case detectives who may have had the time to work it when it was much more fresh and solvable, if you will, but I'm not a big believer in the old theory. If you don't solve it in forty eight
hours, they odds go way down. Sometimes I believe in a lot of cases, time is your ally. And if you want me to explain why time is your ally, I will, But I know you're running. No, that's another conversation for another day. But that's certainly interesting to me considering their TV shows called forty in Margens. Yeah, and those shows frustrate me
because time is in many cases your ally. Well, you know, what is the threshold now that you have this person of interest and you seem pretty confident that this person can lead you somewhere, just based on your facial expression and the way you talk about it, what threshold do you have to meet to get something like a wiretap for this person? Well, the threshold is is that you exhaust all other investigative options because it's very intrusive when you're listening
to somebody's phone calls. So when you go to a judge with the wiretap, Afford David, there is a list of things that he's going to ask you if you've done in your investigation that could have mitigated an intrusive wire tap. So the threshold is very high to get a wire tap, and that's why we're doing all these things in these cases. So if we do feel a wire tap is the next logical step. We can go to that judge and say, and we've done all these other investigative options, got it well,
Detective, Always a pleasure. I always appreciate your time and we're happy to help. I hope that this shakes some trees and gets you some information and helps you put this one to bed. Thanks, always a pleasure. Sean McCarthy, Detective, Elle County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau Cold Case Unit. Thank you for your time, and that's going to do it. Unsolved is a production of the KFI News Department for iHeartMedia, Los Angeles. Robin Bergalucci
Program director Chris Little, news director. The program is produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez. Our field engineer is Tony Sorrentino. Our technical director is David Callaway. Our digital producer for this episode is Michelle Cube. Our social media producer for this episode is Lena Chappelle. This is KFI AM six forty KFI AM six forty on demand