Break in cold case leads to 39-year-old man, now facing murder charge in L.A. Juvenile Court
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At a Juvenile Court hearing this week in East Lost Angeles, sheriff’s deputies led shackled defendants into a courtroom reserved for youths accused of serious crimes.Most were baby-faced teenagers wearing orange jumpsuits.
Then they brought out a 39-year-old father of four.The man, Victor Perez, is accused of killing a woman in Hollywood in 2003.
But because he was 17 at the time, Perez, who has pleaded not guilty, is being prosecuted as a juvenile — at least for now.At a hearing on Monday to justify keeping Perez detained, prosecutors revealed some of the evidence that led to his arrest in 2022.
California After a shooting in L.A.’s Fashion District, detectives sifted through encrypted messages to track down a sophisticated but clumsy band of thieves.They identified the suspects, including two who turned up dead.
But what they were after — and who organized the job?Whereas many cold cases are solved with DNA testing, detectives said it was old-fashioned police work — talking to informants and eventually to Perez himself — that led to an arrest in a case that had gone unsolved for 19 years.The killing occurred around 10:30 p.m.
on Nov.28, 2003.
After eating Thanksgiving dinner at the home of a family friend, Rosalba Acosta, 42, piled into her family’s silver F-150 truck along with her husband, daughter and two sons.Her husband, Jose, had been drinking, so after backing the truck into the street, he switched seats with Rosalba, who was planning to drive the family back to the San Fernando Valley, their son Louis testified Monday.
She was about to pull away from the curb when Louis, who was sitting next to his mother, heard shots.Louis testified he turned to see a car behind them.
Someone was leaning out the front passenger window, pointing a handgun.Louis saw muzzle flashes and the truck’s rear windshield exploded.
He yelled at his mother to drive.She lay...