June 11, 2023 • 65 mins
On May 4th, 2006, at around 10:00 PM 60-year-old Security Guard Frutoso Anguiano was on duty at the Northgate Gonzalez Market on 831 Hacienda Boulevard in La Puente, CA. As the store was about to close Anguiano went to the rear of the store and up to a second floor break room where he was met by four Hispanic men. Anguiano was handcuffed and stabbed fifty-two times. Surveillance video shows the four men mingling around the store prior to closing and then disappearing into the back. The video didn’t show the murder but caught the men coming down the stairs wearing masks and holding the gun they had taken from Anguiano. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Cold Case Detective Shaun McCarthy tells us his working theory on the attack and how DNA might lead him to one of the men who lives in another state.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand, k FI AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.On any given day in southern California,
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hundreds of investigators are working more thanten thousand unsolved cases. That's thousands of
friends and families who have lost lovedones, thousands of people who got away
with a crime, and thousands ofmurderers who still walk the streets. Killers
who may be your neighbor, goto your church, or could be dating
a close friend. For the nexttwo hours, will highlight cases that have
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gone cold, baffled investigators, orjust needs that one witness to speak up.
This is unsolved with Gregory, LosAngeles County Sheriff's Department Cold case number
zero zero six DASH zero seven fourthree four DASH one four three two zero
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one one the murder of sixty yearold security guard through Toso Anguiano. Cold
Case Detective Sean McCarthy gave us acall and said he wanted our help to
highlight a horrific case from La puenteccarthy, who's a friend of the show,
says he knows someone is still carryingthe burden and guilt about the brutal stabbing
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death of Anguiano. So we headeddown to Homicide Gero in Monterey Park where
Detective McCarthy debriefs us on the caseof the grocery store ambush. This murder
occurred at a Northcate Gonzalez supermarket.It's not one of the bigger chains,
but there's numerous Gonzalez markets and inthe creator Los Angeles area. This one
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happened to be in La Pointe onHacienda Boulevard. And I was a part
of this case. I wasn't thelead investigator. I happened to be the
on the assist team, and weprocessed the crime scene and did whatever the
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lead team wanted us to do.But basically we got called out. Got
the call about shortly after ten o'clockin the in the evening to respond.
A security guard at the location hadbeen murdered and it was unknown who the
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suspects were. It was unknown exactlywhen the crime occurred, but as investigation
went on and piecing it together wassurveillance video, we are able to make
determinations on suspects, at least generalinformation on the suspects, the time of
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occurrence. Motive is a big questionmark. There's some some people might say,
as as I go on with this, that the motive is obvious.
I don't. I don't think it'sas obvious is many might think. But
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I think it's it's the most logicalmotive. But basically, what occurred after
we I say we the lete twoinvestigators in me and my partner is somewhere
around nine o'clock two males energy supermarket. Supermarket was still open. The supermark
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closed around eleven o'clock. I believeit closed. There were still people in
the in the market, but nota lot of people because it was getting
later. These two males, initiallyit didn't he would never guess that they
were the suspect. They just appearedbased on dress, to be patrons of
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the market, and they began millingaround the store. No shopping carts,
just young male Hispanics, it appears, and they start milling around the store.
A short time later, approximately tenten after nine, two additional males
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walk in. And if I didn'tmention it about the first two males,
they didn't have specific dress that jumpedout of but one of them was were
in red and the other one waswearing what appeared to be a tan hoodie.
The second two that came in fouror five minutes later weren't all black,
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and they were wearing white baseball hats. At the time, you would
never know that they were related.In fact, other than the close proximity
of the first two that came in, you wouldn't really know if they were
together until later on. But theyall start milling around the store and at
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some point they end up meeting uptogether. And the reason we know that
is is surveillance video inside the storethat was obtained showed them together, all
four of them together what appeared tobe the same four people. We believe
that these there was a certain levelof planning to this. They are seen
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in near the back of the store. Initially there they made no attempts to
disguise themselves, but they were clearlytogether, and that becomes clear probably about
fifteen minutes after they're all in thestore. During that time, one of
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the managers of the store, there'san armed security guard in there. His
name was Frutoso Anguiano. He's asixty year old male worked two jobs.
Day job as a machinist, nightjob as a security guard in the in
the market, and he was askedby a manager to take some fish that
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was left out to take it backto a rear cooler. Now, and
this is all just theory and speculation, but the belief is is these guys
made their way to suspects, madethe way to the back of the market.
They then intended to conceal themselves fora period of time, logically until
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the store closed and most of theemployees were gone, or maybe conceal themselves
until everyone was gone, and thendo whatever they were going to do.
The major portion of the money wasat the front of the store, but
keep in mind when they entered thestore there was still business as usual.
So they make the way to therear of the store. There's a catwalk,
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there's a storage room, there's abreak room upstairs. It's on the
second floor. And we believed theintent was to conceal themselves until there was
a point where it was more manageableto either overtake employees or waited out until
employees were all gone. As Isaid, a manager had asked the security
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guard to take some meat that wasfish that was left out, take it
to a rear cooler, and webelieve in the process of doing that he
stumbles onto the suspects, They overtakehim, They handcuffed him with his own
handcuffs, They take his service weapon, and then something happens. Whether it
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was intended, whether there was somethingthat that sparked it, but one of
them either finds a knife and forwhatever reason stabs as the security guard who
apparently was incapacitated. He was nothreat to him at the point. Once
they handcuffed him and stabbed him fiftytwo times I believe fifty fifty two times.
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Autopsy determined it was overkilled. There'sno doubt about that he was.
He was handcuffed. As I said, he didn't appear to be a threat
to anybody at that point. Andokay, let's pause there because I'm gonna
take a break. When we comeback, he just you've just given us
an awful lot here. So we'retalking with Sean McCarthy, a detective with
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the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments ColdCase Unit, and he's just laid out
a case from twenty oh six,a very disturbing one, indeed, and
we'll talk more about it, butfirst this is unsolved with Steve Gregory on
kf I AM six forty. You'relistening to kf I AM six forty on
demand, kf I AM six fortylive everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm
(09:33):
Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved.Welcome back with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department's Homicide Bureau in Monterey Park.And we're sitting in a conference room inside
talking with Detective Sean McCarthy, amember of the department's cold case unit.
(09:54):
He's a friend of the show.He's presented us a case. Now.
Going back to May fourth of twentyoh six, around ten o'clock in the
evening, four Hispanic men entered thenorth Gate Gonzales Supermarket on Hussieno Boulevard in
La Plente, and somehow along theway they decided to conceal themselves in the
rear of this grocery store, thisHispanic market, and they seemed a detective,
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if I heard you correctly, Theyseemed surprised by a security guard that
came to the rear of the storethat was delivering some fish to a cooler,
and they attacked him after they handcuffedhim with his own handcuffs and stabbed
him fifty two times. Before thebreak, you kind of stopped right there.
You kind of left us on acliffhanger at fifty two times. You
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know, you said they took hisservice weapon also, so he was licensed
to carry a side on the securityguard. In your experience, in your
multiple years of experience, what's unusualabout the way that went down. They
took his gun, they handcuff him, but then stab him fifty two times.
What do you make of that?Okay, what I personally make of
it, And a lot of peopleare going to listen to the show that
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might dispute this. But I believeafter they took his gun, I don't
know. I don't know that theintent was to kill him. Could have
been, but I'm I'm not leaningin that direction. Is is something happened
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between the time they overtook him,incapacitated him by by handcuffing him, and
then something happened in the time betweenbeing handcuffed and being stabbed. Now,
I think an amateur detective would wouldwould agree with this, is that they
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didn't use a service weapon to killhim because it would have drawn attention to
him. There's still people in thestore. That's going to alert everybody,
So they dealt with him in away that was less, was quiet.
It was quieter. Now he couldhave screamed out. I mean he may
have. It was in the upstairs. Apparently he was stabbed in the break
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room and then he was dragged outof the breakroom. And the unfortunate thing
about the the breakroom was there wasno surveillance in the breakroom. I don't
know that if that would have changedanything as far as solom in the case
there was surveillance video. It mayhave given you an idea of motive.
Could have I mean motive for theactual murder, not could for them,
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could absolutely could. And I thinkthat's that's that's the one thing almost for
sure that we could have got outof that. Did he do something?
Did he fight that he? Didhe kick one of him? Did he
what did he do to cause them? Some would argue, and trust me,
this was thought about fifty two times. Very personal, that's right now,
(12:52):
That's where I was headed next.Yeah, but personal murders, you
don't normally bring three other guys withyou. You don't normally go into a
public place to take care of apersonal beef with somebody. The odds of
you getting identified caught or identified skyrocket, it would have been if it was
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a personal If it was a personalattack, and that was the motive,
why not just wait for the securityguard to get off, follow him home,
follow him wherever, and then killhim kill right? And yeah,
But the other thing that keeps comingto my mind is high on drugs.
That's certainly a possibility. What waswas one or more of these guys,
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uh, you know, whacked outon something. I don't know the answer
to that based on their their actionsin the in the in the surveillance video
doesn't appear or it's not obvious thatthey were whacked on on drugs or alcohol.
But it's still a possibility. Andthere's always that he did something to
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provoke one of them, trying tosay, I mean, if somebody overtakes
me, I'm a security guard andovertakes me a handcuffed for me, Well,
what's the next logical thing you're worriedabout. I ain't gonna I'm not
going home tonight, you know.So so fight or flighte fight or flight?
And my guess is it's possible thathe decided I just gotta fight however
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I can, because if I ifI let this go on worst case scenarios,
they're going to kill me anyways,in your based on your experience,
again, does this the way thiswent down? You have already said in
the first segment that you felt thiswas a bit orchestrated and that it was
planned, and that they kind ofhad some sort of you know, they
(14:45):
kind of mapped it out, ifyou will. But the type and brand
of attack, stabbing an individual fiftytwo times like that after they're handcuffed,
does that give you the sense thatthese people are amatures or experts or not
experts, but they've done this before, they are comfortable doing this or did
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or is this the actions of anamateur? I would say, and I
know a lot more about the casethat I can't reveal. The discourse was
this was amateurish in a lot ofways and planned out in some ways.
That's Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, um, And as always,
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you'll tell me off air what youwant to do what you can't tell
me on air. But what Ican tell is the worst part of the
show, by the way, becauseI can't share everything with everybody, but
that's the that's the nature of thebeast here. The one thing that I
can tell you that that evidence indicatesis is that there was a level of
planning to this. They went intothis store likely to burglarize or rob There's
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also evidence to indicate that this wasdone by local suspects what I mean by
local in the general surrounding area ofthe market. There's evidence that they fled,
and when they fled, they wentover back wall into an apartment complex.
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Now does that mean somebody wasn't waitingon the other side of the department
complex and they drove to Pasadena wherethey lived. Yeah, that's possible.
But the evidence indicates and based onsome witnesses testimony, they were local.
Okay, and I'm gonna hold youto that and ask you about that.
But first we need to take abreak. This is unsolved with Steve Gregory.
(16:45):
I KF I AM sixty. You'relistening to KF I AM sixty on
demand can if I am six fortyheard everywhere live on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Steve Gregory and this is unsolved. If you're listening on the app,
(17:08):
you can send us a tip abouta case, a story, idea,
or a comment about the show.Just tap the red microphone on the app
and record your message. Welcome back. We're at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department's Homicide Bureau. Were inside speakingwith Detective Sean McCarthy. He's a member
of the cold case unit. He'sbeen talking about a case going back to
(17:30):
May fourth, twenty six, seventeenyears ago, when a security guard was
overrun, overtaken by four Latino menin the North Gate at the Northgate Gonzalez
Supermarket in La Puente, California.And somewhere in the midst of all of
this, the security guard was stabbedfifty two times and died on the scene.
(17:56):
Before the break, detective, youhad always already walked through what had
happened. But now you're suggesting thatall four of these men are locals.
And I don't know what kind ofa radius do you consider local or within
the surrounding neighborhood, surrounding neighborhood,Okay, So and keep in mind,
and I don't have to tell anybodywho's familiar the Los Angeles area it's a
(18:21):
heavy, heavily populated gang area oron this market, okay, But lat
Point has a lot of gangs,So I don't I'm not going to jump
to the conclusion that this was gangmembers. But it's a it's a it's
it's possible. Well, I wantto go back and discover something because you
said it at the very beginning ofthe show, something that caught my attention
(18:42):
I wanted to talk to about.So I'm going to ask that in a
minute. But to finish what Iwas asking you before, you said that
based on evidence, you believe thatthese guys were locals, and um and
witness statements, so you did havewitnesses. Witness is after the fact,
after the fact, So there actuallyis a witness. And I know I've
(19:04):
showed I've already showed you this,but that is an employee that one of
the suspects is pointing away. Sowhat we're looking at right now for people
to know is, um, I'mlooking at a photo sheet that has four
frames on it that we're extracted fromsurveillance video on May fourth, twenty or
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six, and it looks like oneof this is one of these is in
the nine o'clock hour, and oneof these is in the ten o'clock hour.
And but yeah, you're showing mewe're at least one man in a
tan hoodie with a white hat onis pointing a gun at an employee.
I assume that's an employee at thefoot of the stairs. And we've got
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others showing these suspects walking around inthe supermarket, just kind of wandering around.
And there's even one shot here wherethe man, based on what I
can see on this shot here,he looks like a younger man looking straight
up at the camera, straight upat them, and it's grainy. You
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know, the technology back in No. Six wasn't nearly as good with the
high death as it is today.So I mean, we're going to post
those pictures on the website. Ihope we'll get to if we get permission
to do so, we'll certainly leteveryone know. So what is you talked
about a witness after the fact?So was the stort technically still open after
the murder happened? No. Once, the suspects, as they were pointing
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out this one surveillance floor, theywere coming down the stairs, and in
the earlier surveillance they made no attemptto conceal their identities. They weren't massed
up. But as they're coming downthe stairs you can see in the video
they're now massed up. So whatwe believe happened was and this is a
(20:55):
possibility, and I'm glad you broughtit up because I wanted to touch on
this. You talked about motive.Did they come in there specifically to kill
this security guard. I do notbelieve that, but I believe here's a
distinct possibility. Personal opinion is,as the security guard was bringing the fish
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back to the back of the storeto the cooler, they had concealed themselves.
They weren't expecting anybody, they hadn'tmassed up yet. He surprises them,
potentially recognizes one of them. Theyovertake him, and now we have
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to kill this guy. He knowswho we are. I believe that's a
distinct possibility because they didn't get massedup until after they kill. Well.
See, as soon as you pointedthat out, I was thinking to myself
that maybe this is part of thecalculated move where they wanted to go in
(21:59):
and blame, then look normal,and then disappear. I mean, if
they had these masks or these facecoverings to put on, do you think
they had already planned to do that, that that was part of the play.
That's that's that's another thing I wantedto get to is they came in
the store to look like customer,but based on their actions making their way
to the back of the store,knowing that there was a catwalk upstairs,
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knowing that there was a storage room, knowing that there was a break room,
I believe that's that at least raisesits possibility that they were familiar with
the location. They were familiar withall aspects of the location, and at
least one of them was potentially anemployee or a former employee. So then
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why why go completely maskless out inthe open and why didn't why wasn't there
any interaction with other employees? Ithink there. I think their intention was
is they walked in even if somebodyrecognize them, they're just the customer.
Okay, they're a customer. Theyget to the back, they know where
to conceal themselves. Everything goes toplan, the store closes, all the
(23:10):
employee lead, all the employees leavenow, or if the plan was robbery
and wait until the store closes,and we only got to do a deal
with the few employees, then wemask up, and then we deal with
the employees that are still there.Oh so it was a contingency. Yeah,
it was like a Plan B,Plan B. It could have been
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Plan A all along. They comein, they blend in, even if
they're recognized, they're just in theirshopping. They make it to the rear
of the store. They conceal themselves. Everything goes to plan right now,
the store closes, most of theemployers are gone. All I got to
do deal with as a manager ortwo. Maybe the security guard, but
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maybe he's already sent sent home.Right now, you mask up. Now
you in front the manager. Theydon't know who you are because you're massed
up. You rob him, youget out of there. Everything goes as
plan okay. So but but thesecurity guard screws it up for lack of
a better term, And it's possiblethey now, but why kill him if
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they don't know know, why killhim? That's why I believe we believe
it's it's likely it's somebody familiar withthe store, possibly a former employee or
and they write the security guard theyhadn't massed up yet. The security guard
stumbles onto him, they overtake him. We got to kill him now because
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if we if we allow him tolive, he's gonna he's he knows who
we are, or he knows whoat least one of us are, so
they kill him. We're talking withDetective Sean McCarthy with the La County Sheriff's
Departments Homicide Bureau um Cold Case Unit, and I feel like I'm right in
the middle now of a real timeWho've done it? So when we come
(24:56):
back, we'll talk more about acase from twenty or six and La Puente.
But first, this is Unsolved withSteve Gregory on kf I AM six
forty. You're listening to kf IAM sixty on demand kf I AM six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory. This is unsolved.
(25:26):
We are at the La County Sheriff'sDepartment's Homicide Bureau in Monterey Park.
We've been speaking with Detective Sean McCarthy, a member of the cold case Unit,
and he has presented us a casefrom May fourth, twenty zero six,
seventeen years ago at the North GateGonzales Supermarket at eight thirty one Hussy
Into Boulevard in La Puente, California. And before the break, Detective McCarthy
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and I were sort of, Iguess, for lack of a better word
coming up with our own theories ofhow this might have gone down, because
I've been I'm still looking at andholding in my hands this photo sheet of
four frames from surveillance video that showswhat McCarthy has described as the four suspects
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before they put on face coverings andthen after they put on face coverings,
which I had never really noticed untilyou pointed it out, and mostly because
that's pretty grainy and fudgy. Butyou guys have better technology and you've seen
the video, so you can figurethat out, I'm sure. But before
the break, you were sort ofbreaking down the fact that this security guard
(26:33):
we're talking about as a sixty fiveyear old man who was handcuffed with his
own handcuffs, his service weapon wastaken from him, and then he was
stabbed fifty two times. Detective yousaid that you one of your working theories
is that this security guard may haverecognized one or more of the four men,
right. I believe that's distinct possible, And if that's why they realized
(26:56):
they had to kill it, itwould it appeared that only one individual may
have stabbed demand or do you thinkthey all had a hand in it?
I believe it's one one of them, I also believe, and then getting
into the amateur aspect that one ofyou commented on one of the surveillance pictures
(27:18):
is one of the suspects prior orcertainly after he made his way to the
back of the story actually looked upat the surveillance video. That's very amateur.
And so so somebody led this crew, somebody who was the alpha dog,
right, And my guess is hemade the decision we got to kill
this guy now, right or ifhe reckoned, if the security guard record,
(27:45):
Let's say a former employee was abit player in this, he was
involved in it, but he wasa bit player in it, and he
recognized that guy the alpha dog isstill going to be likely the person who
decides we got to get rid ofit, because he is going to identify
you. You're a weak link,and you're gonna potentially tell him that I
(28:06):
was with you and I was theleader of the pack, and he made
the decision to kill him something.And we were talking about in the last
segment, and I said, Iwanted to go back to ask you about
um. At the very beginning,you were you were giving a description of
these guys, and you had mentionedthat La Punte being a very active gang
area. Did anything on them giveyou an indication of gang affiliation? No?
(28:33):
No, in my opinion looking atthe surveillance video. But keep in
mind, I was the assist team. Our only role in this was the
process, the crime scene assist thelead team that night in the investigation,
and once that night was over withand we all went home. They picked
it up after that and we wenton with our cases, and we had
(28:59):
minimal role in roll in it.Aftercat, I'm basing it on. I
picked this case up at the requestof one of the lead I always when
he retired, and now it's mycase, mine and Tomlins. When did
you get this case? Twenty twentyokay, so about three years ago.
Yeah, but but just to beclear, see my review that surveillance video,
(29:26):
and that's that's my only Do youhave the video still? Yeah?
Okay. I look at those photosand if they are gang members, they
didn't dress a gang members and thatwould have been a smart thing likely to
do. Um. So, basedon just the evidence right in surveillance video,
(29:48):
I would say those guys aren't gangmembers based on what I see in
the video. Okay, doesn't meanthey're not gang members or led by a
gang member. But some things thatI can reveal about the investigation, there
was multiple tips that came in onthis case, and several of those tips
(30:10):
led to specific gang members from thearea, named gang members from the area,
and we're still investigating some of thoseleads. That's where that's where the
gang thing comes in, is istips from the public. That surveillance video,
(30:33):
parts of it was aired back intwo thousand and six. There was
people who called in says that lookslike so and so, that looks like
so and so, so we proceedto investigate them. Some of the leads
have have led to other states wherepotential suspects based on evidence, may have
(30:57):
fled to shortly after to the murder. But having grainny's surveillance videos, the
only witness being dead the security guard, and the only other obvious witness the
(31:19):
employee who got the gun pointed ather. They were massed up, so
that witness was no good in helpingidentify these people. The other and this
is what's going to make or breakthis case. In my opinion, there
was DNA located inside the store,and without getting into detail, there's no
(31:45):
doubt about it. It's the DNAof one of the fourth suspects. Okay,
sure, I go too far downthis path. I gotta go back
and ask you a couple questions.So this one photo that we've described earlier
shows one of the men in thewhite hat and the tan hoodie winning what
you believe is the security guard's weaponat another employee. Is that a female?
By the way, who's that femaleemploy apparently? Uh, you know,
(32:08):
I have to go back into thecase file. I believe it's a
female. Why was she spared?Well, I think they were masked up.
Okay, so you don't think so. I think that their attitude is
and I hate that. I hateto to throw up my opinions. It's
(32:32):
a lot harder. And this ismy opinion, and you may scoff at
it, and the listeners may laughat this. It's a lot harder to
kill a female employee, an innocentfemale employ than it is an armed security
guard. And with that, we'regoing to take another break. This is
unsolved with Steve Gregory on kf IAM six forty. You're listening to kf
(32:53):
I AM sixty on demand. KfI AM six forty heard Everywhere live on
the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregoryand this is Unsolved. If you're listening
(33:15):
on the app, you can sendus a tip about a case, a
story idea, or a comment aboutthe show. Just tap the red microphone
on the app and record your message. We're at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
(33:37):
Department's Homicide Bureau in Monterey Park,inside of the one of the main conference
rooms, speaking with Detective Sean McCarthyabout a case going back to May fourth,
twenty six, around ten o'clock inthe evening, when four Hispanic men
went into the Northgate Gonzales supermarket onHussey and the Boulevard in La Puente and
initially began acting at customers walking around. Surveillance video to shows them wandering around,
(34:00):
up and down the aisles, andthen at some point they make their
way to the back of the store, where detective McCarthy believes they were laying
in wait, perhaps to wait untilthe store closed or until they were fewer
employees. But detective McCarthy believes thatat some point the security guard goes back,
surprises him, and for whatever reason, they stab him fifty two times.
(34:25):
The security guard and kills him,takes the service weapon, handcuffs him.
And in the last hour we talkedabout a lot of different theories,
and you're operating on the you've gotthis case about three years ago, but
you're operating on the theory that thismight have been somebody or these individuals may
have known the security guard, orthe security guard may have known them at
(34:49):
least recognized him. It might havebeen a former employee. And then we
were talking about this employee that wasconfronted after they masked up. So as
soon as and they went into thestore to meet, to meander around,
their faces were completely exposed. Butafter they stabbed this man fifty two times,
they decided to put on face coverings, come down these stairs because it
(35:14):
happened up in a break room,and then confront this employee, point a
gun at her. And you saidthat she was not able to give you
much information. Is she Have youbeen in touch with her since you took
on the case? No, Ihaven't you do? Planet? Is that
something you plant a new point?But we're more focused on a couple of
pretty decent suspects that we could absolutelymake on DNA because the DNA left at
(35:43):
the scene. Based on surveillance video, there's no doubt that that DNA where
it was taken from was touched bythe one of these suspects. Yeah,
because the other thing when you talkabout face coverings, I see no gloves
in their initial entry, but thenI see do I see gloves, Yes,
(36:05):
on this guy and the rail downabout it. So then they put
up gloves and put on them.I believe one steak. I believe they
were going to use these masks atsome point, regardless if the security guard
would have surprised them and then theyhad had to kill them. I believe
they were going to use them aspart of the plan. But the plan
(36:27):
got screwed up by the guard.And then once they kill them, they
were like, we need to putthese masks on now, we need to
get the hell out of here,and we need to make sure that we
just committed a murder that we're notgoing to be identified. So they mask
up, they go down the stairs. Another employee is standing there, the
one suspects points a gun adder andthen they get out of there. That
(36:52):
was the that that changed the plan. Once they kill them, it's like,
now, whatever our motive was,whether robbery, burglary or whatever.
Now our motive is is to getthe hell out of here. So they
didn't get away with any money oranything. No, no, they And
then when you see that the confrontationbetween the suspects and the employee, that
(37:14):
this female employee, how much timeI mean, how long was the confrontation
If you look on the surveillance videothe one suspects looked up at the camera
at twenty one, eighteen hours,nine eighteen hours, they come down the
stairs, massed up and point thegun at the employee at twenty two,
(37:37):
twenty four hours, so six minuteslater, and in that six minute period
they killed the security guard, maskup, come down the stairs with in
my opinion, the attempt just toget out of there now, and that
all happened in a six minute areaand glove up too, glove up to
(38:01):
now the money presumably this was supposedto be a robbery or burglary. You
said the money was at the front. Was it in a sane yeah,
I believe so. I reviewed that. You know, we go long period
of time because we have so manyon some cases and then we've discussed this
on another show. We may gosix months, maybe sometimes a year because
(38:24):
other cases come together and we haveto focus on that. And then when
we get back to a case,a lot of a lot of things you
lose because you haven't looked at thecase in six months to a year,
so you have to refresh yourself.And last night, because I knew what
I was going to be doing thisshow, I tried to cram like for
a test. And I remember thatthe managers saying that the vast portion of
(38:52):
any money was at the front ofthe store, So we believe they made
their way to the back. Theywere familiar with it. They went to
hide. They were going to waituntil things calmed down, the store closed,
they were going to mask up.They were going to go up and
deal with any employees, rob himfor whatever money they could get out of
(39:14):
him, go out and be successfulin their little plan. But things went
awry with the security guard. Andone other thing, Steve, because I
know you're a listeners, somebody's goingto say, well, how do you
know that they didn't handcuff him afterthey killed them. It's possible that they
that they stumble onto him, thatthe security guard stumbles onto him, he's
(39:37):
armed. Okay, we got todeal with him. Really quick here.
They could they have brought the knifein with him. They could have,
but my guests is more likely theyfound a knife there in the break room.
No surveillance video. They have todeal with him because he's armed,
because if he can get to hisgun and then they handcuff him after it,
(39:58):
do I think that's exactly what happened. No, but I have to
consider the possibility that that happened.The more likely scenario is they overtake him,
they handcuff him. Something happens eithereither he recognizes one of them and
they now feel like they have tokill him. But it's not all of
the realm of possibility that they killthem first and then handcuffs him. You
(40:22):
know, it's very common when officersget involved into a shooting, the first
thing they do once the shooting stopsand the suspect is down, is they
handcuff him. I know that apaul's the public, but that's a that's
an officer's safety thing they have totake into consideration. Could that have happened
(40:43):
here where they like killed him,needed they handcuff him just in case he
I mean, after fifty two times, I think that's overkilled. I don't
think that's the likely scenario, butI have to consider the possibility. When
we come back, we'll talk morewith Detective h McCarthy about this horrific murder
in twenty six inside of a supermarket. Butt First, this is Unsolved with
(41:06):
Steve Gregory on camp I AM sixforty. You're listening to kf I AM
six forty on demand kf I AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. We are inside of the La
(41:31):
County Sheriffs Department's Homicide Bureau talking withcold case Detective Sean McCarthy about a case
from twenty oh six that happened inLa Plente inside of a supermarket, the
Northgate Gonzales Supermarket on Hasciana Boulevard,in which a sixty five year old security
guard was killed stabbed fifty two timesby at least one of these four individuals.
(41:57):
We've been talking about a lot ofdifferent angles to this case. Detective.
One of the things I wanted toask you you mentioned in the last
segment about DNA and if I heardyou correctly, and again we're going back.
We're referring to this photo sheet thatwe have that has four frames extracted
from this surveillance video camera. Wereyou able to look at the places that
(42:22):
these individuals touched or brushed up againstand did that help lead you to swabbing
for DNA? And that's in thatlocation led the original iOS? Yes,
right, that's exactly what happened.Okay, they were they were meticulously watching
the surveillance video and one of thesuspects did something with which they collected later.
(42:50):
And there was no doubt that ifthere was any DAN that item,
that it was going to be thesuspects DNA now and the actions of the
suspect led them to collect this sidehow soon after the murder and the collection
of the DNA, I mean howmuch time went by between. It was
(43:10):
moments late, moments like okay,so they were able to see this videotape
pretty quickly, quickly, Yeah,okay, because this is multiple camera angles,
right, yeah, yeah, theseare obviously multiple camera angles. So
now looking at because you also providedsome of the photos from the scene.
These these are actual photos that I'mlooking at of the security guard and in
the state he was left after hewas stabbed fifty two times. I'm looking
(43:34):
at one of the shots here thatshows knife wounds based on that, do
you have any idea or were youtold by the corner or the medical examin
of what kind of knife that was. I was not the lead IO,
so I wasn't at that's okay,But I didn't know if this is information
you had by now or okay,so was there? So I assume no
(43:57):
knife was recovered from the scene.But since the murder took place in a
break room, one of your assertionsis that they could have used a knife
that was in the breakroom. Possible. And with a with a grocery store
in the back that does food prepand stuff, it was probably access to
some sort of er um. Sowhen you collected the DNA, and I
already know you're not going to beable to tell me a lot about it,
(44:20):
But do you think, I mean, did you get an actual DNA
sample? I mean, were youable to get a profile file that was
was obtained? It was entered intocodis and and I think your listeners have
a basic knowledge of it. It'sa database database offenders when they're arrested,
there's certain crimes that they have togive a reference sample at DNA reference sample.
(44:45):
The series of the crime will determinethat that is entered into a database.
So if they've committed other crimes andtheir DNA was left there, when
you upload that profile into codas,they will, they will get a hit
on the sus in this case,and once again this lends credence to the
(45:07):
amateur aspect of this, at leastsome of the suspects. Is when they
uploaded this in the CODIS, therewas no hit. So what that tells
you is that that this particular offenderwho left this DNA had not been arrested
and forced to give up DNA.He hadn't been arrested for a certain crime,
(45:28):
for certain for a certain crime,or if he was a juvenile as
juvenile DNA and a CODIS even ifthey commit murder, that's a good question.
Okay, I would have to researchthat. We'll put that down for
homework for next time. Yeah.But um, yeah, so then so
you didn't get a hit, whichmeans that that this that this individual was
(45:51):
not arrested for certain crimes. Letme ask you this, Um, can
you point out which individual's DNA yougot? Yeah? You can, yes,
point pointed out to me. Wewon't tell anybody. Okay, again,
the amateur aspect of this looking upat the camera, DNA not in
(46:19):
Koda's possibility that he's the juvenile,all these things. Looking at these photos
again now I'm looking back at thecrime scene photos. This is something I
don't think we talked about. Wasthe security guard's body dragged from one location
to another after he was killed.Apparently not very far, but apparently.
I mean there's literally as a trailof smear blood. Yeah, there's no
(46:43):
doubt about from one room out intoa hallway. Do you any idea?
Why don't just by looking? Idon't. I can speculate, and I've
done a whole lot of that inthis hour. I'll tell you something.
It's very disturbing, more than anythingbecause this was presumably of just an innocent
(47:04):
man doing his job. But thatbrings me to the next question. What
do we know about the security guard? I mean, you know, if
you believe that the security guard mayhave recognized one or more of these individuals,
what do we know about this guy? What was his connection? Did
he live in the neighborhood? Imean, what do we know about the
man? His name was Frutoso Anguiano. He was sixty years old or approaching
(47:30):
sixty. He was a family man. He had two jobs. I believe
he worked as a machinist during theday and he worked as a security guard
at the market at night. Inthat area and in a lot of high
(47:52):
crime areas, and I don't wantto I don't want to give you the
impression that this is the highest crimearea, but there is a lot of
gang activity in this area. Yougot gang members who frequent the market.
There's always potential for confrontation for whateverreason, and it's a securities job to
(48:12):
deal with with any disruptions in thestore. It's possible, and we have
to look at us, although it'snot my number one theory is he had
a confrontation with somebody and they cameback to settle the score. But for
obvious reasons, I think that's unlikely. In a very public place, why
(48:37):
not just wait for him to getoff work, follow him home or wherever
and deal with the men. Whyin a very public market, even though
it was later in the evening,why would you take that chance? And
if it was a personal thing,most personal killings are done by one person.
(49:00):
They don't bring three guys along withthem. Because it's a personal thing.
The other three guys likely unless theywere with him that day, had
no beef with this guy, andno no, I just I hate to
interrupt your father, but we dohave to take a break. We'll come
back with more of Sean McCarthy,but first, this is unsolved with Steve
(49:21):
Gregory. I can't find AM sixforty. You're listening to kf I AM
six forty on demand kf I AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Steve Gregory, and this isunsolved. Or at the Los Angeles
(49:47):
County Chef's Departments Sumas Side Bureau ina conference room, we're talking with cold
case Detective Sean McCarthy about a murdergoing back to May fourth, twenty six
in which is sixty year old securityguard stabbed fifty two times by at least
one of four Hispanic men that wentinto the Northgate Gonsala Supermarket on Hussey and
(50:07):
the Boulevard and the plent thing beforethe break and I interrupted you before the
break. We were up against it, and you were talking about the difference
between this being a random act anda personal act and a targeted attack,
a targeted murder, and you've laidout, you know, pretty decent reasons
based on your many years experience thatif this were a personal attack, why
(50:32):
not wait till the security guard getsoff duty? Why not stockument another way?
Why choose a public venue in whichto do it, Why bring three
of your friends? So I thinkit's pretty safe to say, according to
you, that this was not apersonal attack of any kind. That's down
the list of theories. But therethere was information that was obtained from the
(50:57):
original investigators. Frutoso was not theonly security guard at the location. There
was another security guard. I believehe had left. He had left and
what I mean by left left theemployment there. And you know, I'm
only guessing here there because of thelocation, the area, the gang activity
(51:20):
there, that there was probably confrontationsin there, if not on a daily
basis, a weekly basis, Anda witness said that there had been a
confrontation, not with Frutoso, butwith the other security guard, and that
was a possible motive that they cameback for him and they ended up with
(51:44):
the wrong security guard. Like Isaid, that's way down my list of
possibilities. But you have to takethat into concert or maybe it was a
message. Could be it's just asick, twisted message. They're not mess
with anybody. Here's here's here's thethe conservative goal. Here. We have
DNA evidence. We have we arecertain it's from one of the suspects who
(52:13):
appears to be less sophisticated than maybesome of the other suspects. Right,
there's no doubt, trust me,Steve, There's no doubt it's his DNA.
It came off a very personal item. It wasn't like somebody could make
the argument that, oh, thatcould have been touched by multiple people in
the DNA profile was from some innocentpatron of his actions and the item that
(52:43):
had the DNA and it was avery personal item. Well, then is
this something this guy left behind?Yes, oh, look, the case
is twenty years old. It was. It was a the suspect washed his
hands and he used to pay berteland he tossed it at a guards after
the murder. After the murder.There's no doubt it's his d Jesus.
(53:08):
So, so the conservative goal isyou find your donor. You got one
of your suspects based on his actionsin the surveillance video. He was one
of the less sophisticated one. Iwanted to be one of the less sophisticated
ones because he's more likely to squealOnce we get he's more likely to say,
(53:29):
I just was along for the ride. You get, you get to
the leader, right, you gotyou got one of your suspects, right,
But it's unlikely he's going to giveup the others have. Your role
is to get all four. Haveyou rerun the DNA the last time that
was? That's on our to dolist because with fingerprint technology, and I've
(53:52):
learned this in the last and ifyou haven't met Dale fall Kinds, he's
really great. He's a he's ahe's a higher back just like we are.
And he's a outstanding fingerprint guy.Technology is improving literally on a yearly
basis, and the same thing withDNA, and and the possibility too well,
(54:14):
it's it's improved to the point whereit should it should come back as
a hit as technology because it's inthe it's in the database, it's it's
it's already there. So it's alreadyso that it's there. Okay, that's
right, So there should so ifthere was another arrest and this guy had
already been arrest. He may havenever been arrested for a crime that forced
(54:37):
him to give a DNA reference sample. But in the seventeen years since the
murder, you would hope that hewent on with his criminal activity. He
he progressed in his criminal activity,committed a crime that would force him to
give up DNA. But to thispoint that has not happened. And I
can only tell you this. Wehave one suspect, we have two good
(55:00):
suspects. One we already know it'snot his DNA, We've already eliminated him.
It doesn't mean he's not involved inthe murder because there's three other suspects.
The other one has not committed acrime in seventeen years that would force
him to give up a DNA sample. So our goal is to get his
(55:22):
DNA in another way and match itand then gold go old school. But
he's he's currently in another state,and I'm not going to divulge that state,
just like I'm not going to divulgehis identity for obvious reasons. That's
(55:42):
the optimistic lead that we have.But but well, you already but you
have an idea on this guy,then oh yeah, if you know who
you're looking for now, how didyou get the idea from a tip?
From a tip? It was ita tip from back then or a current
or a recent tip. It wasa tip that came in within a year
(56:09):
or two of the murder. Didyou consider it credible or was it just
one of many hit tips you got? The more credible tip was addressed that
person was eliminated through DNA. Theyobtained his DNA prior to me taking the
(56:29):
case. They were still active.He also had left to state, but
it was not his DNA on thatpaper towel. So now we move on
to the next guy. Okay,we're gonna pause and we're gonna we're gonna
take our final break of the night. When we come back, we're gonna
wrap this thing up because I gotsome more questions. But first, this
(56:52):
is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on kfI AM six forty. You're listening to
kf I AM sixty on demand,kf I AM six forty live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is Unsolved. Welcome back
(57:22):
to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department'sUma Side Bureau. We're talking with Detective
Sean McCarthy about a murder case fromMay fourth, twenty six at the North
Gate Gonzales supermarket on Hacienda Boulevard Puente. And this is a horrific crime in
which a security guard, a sixtyyear old man, was stabbed fifty two
times by at least one of thesefour Hispanic men. Presumably robbery slash burglary
(57:49):
was the motive, but until theyactually get someone to tell them what happened,
that's kind of the working theory rightnow. Before the break, Detective,
we were kind of digging deep alittle bit on the DNA aspect of
all of this. You said thatyou have identified at least one person that
you want to get a DNA samplefrom. And that person you said,
(58:10):
washed their hands after the murder anda sink and you were able to extract
DNA from the paper towels, right, And now you want to go to
another state and try to get DNAfrom this individual. Is that going to
be a challenger? It sounds easiersaid than done. Well, the easy
(58:35):
way, The easiest way is ishope that you haven't enough probable cause that
you can convince a judge in thatstate that this is the donor of that
DNA. I think that would beunlikely in California, but we have fifty
(58:58):
states who we generally operate the sameway, but slightly is sometimes more significantly
different. Can you do that?I mean, if the crime was committed
here in California, can you geta judge in another state? Yeah?
What we do is we do nothave police power. We have police power
in California. So if your subjectin a DNA case like this is in
(59:25):
California, you go to a Californiajudge, he decides to have probable cause,
he signs the court or you bringthe guy in, show him the
court order, and he's forced togive you his DNA right. If it's
in another state, we don't havepolice powers, so we go to a
law enforcement agency. See there,we provide him with the information which we
(59:45):
believe it is probable costs. Theyput it on an affidavit because they had
in whatever state that is, andthen they go to a judge in that
state, got it, and thenso they became your surrogate in another state.
Absolutely, okay, that makes sense. And then just for I think
more curiosity than anything, could youalso do that on the federal level,
because you also ask a federal lawenforcement agency to act on your behalf like
(01:00:07):
that, Yeah, you could,but sounds more complicated. This is something
I It's just federal law and statelaw are different and can be significantly different.
And when you bring on a federalagency to help you out, there's
(01:00:30):
times when they want more control ofthe investigation, and maybe you're willing to
give them. So we're very cautiousabout that. When the great thing about
federal law enforcement is they'll bend overbackwards for you. They're they're extremely professional,
(01:00:51):
but they're dealing with federal law andwe're dealing with local law. And
there's a significant difference between the twoand perspective and control, and I would
need assurances from the federal agency thatI would be seeking out from that we
(01:01:15):
were still going to have control overthe case, most control. I mean,
here's another question that just I justthought about. If I can ensure
unless we were seeking federal prosecution,then I'm more willing to relinquish. That
makes sense. That makes sense.So you get a surrogate agency to act
(01:01:36):
on your behalf to file for theaffidavit, and then that would compel this
individual to force them to give theDNA. Right, where are the laws
at with respect to just doing yourown surveillance. Oh, that's the hard
way, that's the heart, Isay, the harder. It's the harder
way. That's what I thought,the old school way. I thought,
that's what you're going to do.If you don't have enough probable cause to
(01:01:57):
convince the judge to sign a coreorder, Now you have to do it.
But then you still have police powersin another state, though, Do
you have to give another agency theheads up? Yeah? They would,
They would assist us. They woulddo most of the heavy lifting in that.
Yeah, because now with familiar DNAand and and just how easy it
is to extract like that and thetechnologies as you mentioned. But but I
(01:02:20):
was thinking, was almost easier justto surveil the guy and take Yeah,
it's as simple as this, eventhough it's in another state, you get
the cooperation on another law on first, an agency. They surveiled the guy,
he goes to McDonald's, he tossesa cup eye, They collect it.
They they they they preserve it.They turn it over to us.
We fled back to Los Angeles andthe AD a test there right and then
(01:02:43):
and then if it matches, thenyou get the arrest warrant and you're here
to go. We go to thedistrict attorney files the case, we get
an arrest warrant with extradition's back.That's what you're hoping for, sop for
that in this last in this lastminute, what would you like from the
public, if anything, there's noLook. The one thing, and I
(01:03:04):
keep talking about the amateur aspect ofthis, and we've talked about this on
another show. It's human nature towant to tell somebody about what you did.
And the more amateurist you are,the more likely you are to tell
people about what you did. Throwin the potential gang aspect, is you
really want to tell people what youdid unless you end up committing such a
(01:03:28):
heineous crime that even your peers,well, this was pretty heous. It
is pretty veinous. But there's surveillancevideo here, and I'm sure I'm going
to get the okay from the lead, the original lead to post this somebody.
It's grainy, but I think it'sgood enough where somebody if they saw
(01:03:49):
this, and you and I alwayssay this on your show and other shows,
is that old story about if youdon't solve the case in the first
forty eight hours, the odds godown. I'm affirmed leaver in sometime.
Time is your ally. People's liveschange, time goes on, they feel
less threatened by about coming forward.They they go on to lead more productive
(01:04:15):
lives and they feel compelled. Now, Hey, I'm a I've changed my
life and I've had multiple cases likethat where people come forward and they would
have never come forward in two thousandand six and told you who the suspect
was. Never, never, neverbecause of their lifestyle, their fear.
Whatever. Time changes people. Weall change over time, sometimes for the
(01:04:39):
better. Sometimes morally we would andthey may be more willing to come forward
now. They just needed a platformlike you. You have to hear this
to see this surveillance video and maybemaybe cough you Tector Sean McCarthy. Always
a pleasure, Thank you sir foryour time, and that's going to do
(01:05:04):
it. Unsolved with Steve Gregory.The radio show is a production of the
KFI News Department for iHeartMedia, LosAngeles and is produced by Steve Gregory and
Jacob Gonzalez. Our field engineer isTony Sorrentino, and our digital producer is
Nate Ward. To hear this episodeand others from past seasons, download Unsolved
with Steve Gregory on the iHeart Radioapp or wherever you listen. Coming up,
(01:05:28):
it's Before the Coast with Clay Row. But first, this is KFI
AM six forty time Now for anews update. KFI AM sixty on demand
You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand, k FI AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.On any given day in southern California,
(00:25):
hundreds of investigators are working more thanten thousand unsolved cases. That's thousands of
friends and families who have lost lovedones, thousands of people who got away
with a crime, and thousands ofmurderers who still walk the streets. Killers
who may be your neighbor, goto your church, or could be dating
a close friend. For the nexttwo hours, will highlight cases that have
(00:51):
gone cold, baffled investigators, orjust needs that one witness to speak up.
This is unsolved with Gregory, LosAngeles County Sheriff's Department Cold case number
zero zero six DASH zero seven fourthree four DASH one four three two zero
(01:18):
one one the murder of sixty yearold security guard through Toso Anguiano. Cold
Case Detective Sean McCarthy gave us acall and said he wanted our help to
highlight a horrific case from La puenteccarthy, who's a friend of the show,
says he knows someone is still carryingthe burden and guilt about the brutal stabbing
(01:40):
death of Anguiano. So we headeddown to Homicide Gero in Monterey Park where
Detective McCarthy debriefs us on the caseof the grocery store ambush. This murder
occurred at a Northcate Gonzalez supermarket.It's not one of the bigger chains,
but there's numerous Gonzalez markets and inthe creator Los Angeles area. This one
(02:02):
happened to be in La Pointe onHacienda Boulevard. And I was a part
of this case. I wasn't thelead investigator. I happened to be the
on the assist team, and weprocessed the crime scene and did whatever the
(02:23):
lead team wanted us to do.But basically we got called out. Got
the call about shortly after ten o'clockin the in the evening to respond.
A security guard at the location hadbeen murdered and it was unknown who the
(02:53):
suspects were. It was unknown exactlywhen the crime occurred, but as investigation
went on and piecing it together wassurveillance video, we are able to make
determinations on suspects, at least generalinformation on the suspects, the time of
(03:15):
occurrence. Motive is a big questionmark. There's some some people might say,
as as I go on with this, that the motive is obvious.
I don't. I don't think it'sas obvious is many might think. But
(03:36):
I think it's it's the most logicalmotive. But basically, what occurred after
we I say we the lete twoinvestigators in me and my partner is somewhere
around nine o'clock two males energy supermarket. Supermarket was still open. The supermark
(04:00):
closed around eleven o'clock. I believeit closed. There were still people in
the in the market, but nota lot of people because it was getting
later. These two males, initiallyit didn't he would never guess that they
were the suspect. They just appearedbased on dress, to be patrons of
(04:21):
the market, and they began millingaround the store. No shopping carts,
just young male Hispanics, it appears, and they start milling around the store.
A short time later, approximately tenten after nine, two additional males
(04:45):
walk in. And if I didn'tmention it about the first two males,
they didn't have specific dress that jumpedout of but one of them was were
in red and the other one waswearing what appeared to be a tan hoodie.
The second two that came in fouror five minutes later weren't all black,
(05:09):
and they were wearing white baseball hats. At the time, you would
never know that they were related.In fact, other than the close proximity
of the first two that came in, you wouldn't really know if they were
together until later on. But theyall start milling around the store and at
(05:30):
some point they end up meeting uptogether. And the reason we know that
is is surveillance video inside the storethat was obtained showed them together, all
four of them together what appeared tobe the same four people. We believe
that these there was a certain levelof planning to this. They are seen
(05:57):
in near the back of the store. Initially there they made no attempts to
disguise themselves, but they were clearlytogether, and that becomes clear probably about
fifteen minutes after they're all in thestore. During that time, one of
(06:20):
the managers of the store, there'san armed security guard in there. His
name was Frutoso Anguiano. He's asixty year old male worked two jobs.
Day job as a machinist, nightjob as a security guard in the in
the market, and he was askedby a manager to take some fish that
(06:46):
was left out to take it backto a rear cooler. Now, and
this is all just theory and speculation, but the belief is is these guys
made their way to suspects, madethe way to the back of the market.
They then intended to conceal themselves fora period of time, logically until
(07:09):
the store closed and most of theemployees were gone, or maybe conceal themselves
until everyone was gone, and thendo whatever they were going to do.
The major portion of the money wasat the front of the store, but
keep in mind when they entered thestore there was still business as usual.
So they make the way to therear of the store. There's a catwalk,
(07:31):
there's a storage room, there's abreak room upstairs. It's on the
second floor. And we believed theintent was to conceal themselves until there was
a point where it was more manageableto either overtake employees or waited out until
employees were all gone. As Isaid, a manager had asked the security
(07:54):
guard to take some meat that wasfish that was left out, take it
to a rear cooler, and webelieve in the process of doing that he
stumbles onto the suspects, They overtakehim, They handcuffed him with his own
handcuffs, They take his service weapon, and then something happens. Whether it
(08:18):
was intended, whether there was somethingthat that sparked it, but one of
them either finds a knife and forwhatever reason stabs as the security guard who
apparently was incapacitated. He was nothreat to him at the point. Once
they handcuffed him and stabbed him fiftytwo times I believe fifty fifty two times.
(08:43):
Autopsy determined it was overkilled. There'sno doubt about that he was.
He was handcuffed. As I said, he didn't appear to be a threat
to anybody at that point. Andokay, let's pause there because I'm gonna
take a break. When we comeback, he just you've just given us
an awful lot here. So we'retalking with Sean McCarthy, a detective with
(09:03):
the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments ColdCase Unit, and he's just laid out
a case from twenty oh six,a very disturbing one, indeed, and
we'll talk more about it, butfirst this is unsolved with Steve Gregory on
kf I AM six forty. You'relistening to kf I AM six forty on
demand, kf I AM six fortylive everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm
(09:33):
Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved.Welcome back with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department's Homicide Bureau in Monterey Park.And we're sitting in a conference room inside
talking with Detective Sean McCarthy, amember of the department's cold case unit.
(09:54):
He's a friend of the show.He's presented us a case. Now.
Going back to May fourth of twentyoh six, around ten o'clock in the
evening, four Hispanic men entered thenorth Gate Gonzales Supermarket on Hussieno Boulevard in
La Plente, and somehow along theway they decided to conceal themselves in the
rear of this grocery store, thisHispanic market, and they seemed a detective,
(10:16):
if I heard you correctly, Theyseemed surprised by a security guard that
came to the rear of the storethat was delivering some fish to a cooler,
and they attacked him after they handcuffedhim with his own handcuffs and stabbed
him fifty two times. Before thebreak, you kind of stopped right there.
You kind of left us on acliffhanger at fifty two times. You
(10:39):
know, you said they took hisservice weapon also, so he was licensed
to carry a side on the securityguard. In your experience, in your
multiple years of experience, what's unusualabout the way that went down. They
took his gun, they handcuff him, but then stab him fifty two times.
What do you make of that?Okay, what I personally make of
it, And a lot of peopleare going to listen to the show that
(11:03):
might dispute this. But I believeafter they took his gun, I don't
know. I don't know that theintent was to kill him. Could have
been, but I'm I'm not leaningin that direction. Is is something happened
(11:24):
between the time they overtook him,incapacitated him by by handcuffing him, and
then something happened in the time betweenbeing handcuffed and being stabbed. Now,
I think an amateur detective would wouldwould agree with this, is that they
(11:46):
didn't use a service weapon to killhim because it would have drawn attention to
him. There's still people in thestore. That's going to alert everybody,
So they dealt with him in away that was less, was quiet.
It was quieter. Now he couldhave screamed out. I mean he may
have. It was in the upstairs. Apparently he was stabbed in the break
(12:09):
room and then he was dragged outof the breakroom. And the unfortunate thing
about the the breakroom was there wasno surveillance in the breakroom. I don't
know that if that would have changedanything as far as solom in the case
there was surveillance video. It mayhave given you an idea of motive.
Could have I mean motive for theactual murder, not could for them,
(12:31):
could absolutely could. And I thinkthat's that's that's the one thing almost for
sure that we could have got outof that. Did he do something?
Did he fight that he? Didhe kick one of him? Did he
what did he do to cause them? Some would argue, and trust me,
this was thought about fifty two times. Very personal, that's right now,
(12:52):
That's where I was headed next.Yeah, but personal murders, you
don't normally bring three other guys withyou. You don't normally go into a
public place to take care of apersonal beef with somebody. The odds of
you getting identified caught or identified skyrocket, it would have been if it was
(13:13):
a personal If it was a personalattack, and that was the motive,
why not just wait for the securityguard to get off, follow him home,
follow him wherever, and then killhim kill right? And yeah,
But the other thing that keeps comingto my mind is high on drugs.
That's certainly a possibility. What waswas one or more of these guys,
(13:37):
uh, you know, whacked outon something. I don't know the answer
to that based on their their actionsin the in the in the surveillance video
doesn't appear or it's not obvious thatthey were whacked on on drugs or alcohol.
But it's still a possibility. Andthere's always that he did something to
(13:58):
provoke one of them, trying tosay, I mean, if somebody overtakes
me, I'm a security guard andovertakes me a handcuffed for me, Well,
what's the next logical thing you're worriedabout. I ain't gonna I'm not
going home tonight, you know.So so fight or flighte fight or flight?
And my guess is it's possible thathe decided I just gotta fight however
(14:22):
I can, because if I ifI let this go on worst case scenarios,
they're going to kill me anyways,in your based on your experience,
again, does this the way thiswent down? You have already said in
the first segment that you felt thiswas a bit orchestrated and that it was
planned, and that they kind ofhad some sort of you know, they
(14:45):
kind of mapped it out, ifyou will. But the type and brand
of attack, stabbing an individual fiftytwo times like that after they're handcuffed,
does that give you the sense thatthese people are amatures or experts or not
experts, but they've done this before, they are comfortable doing this or did
(15:07):
or is this the actions of anamateur? I would say, and I
know a lot more about the casethat I can't reveal. The discourse was
this was amateurish in a lot ofways and planned out in some ways.
That's Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, um, And as always,
(15:31):
you'll tell me off air what youwant to do what you can't tell
me on air. But what Ican tell is the worst part of the
show, by the way, becauseI can't share everything with everybody, but
that's the that's the nature of thebeast here. The one thing that I
can tell you that that evidence indicatesis is that there was a level of
planning to this. They went intothis store likely to burglarize or rob There's
(16:00):
also evidence to indicate that this wasdone by local suspects what I mean by
local in the general surrounding area ofthe market. There's evidence that they fled,
and when they fled, they wentover back wall into an apartment complex.
(16:23):
Now does that mean somebody wasn't waitingon the other side of the department
complex and they drove to Pasadena wherethey lived. Yeah, that's possible.
But the evidence indicates and based onsome witnesses testimony, they were local.
Okay, and I'm gonna hold youto that and ask you about that.
But first we need to take abreak. This is unsolved with Steve Gregory.
(16:45):
I KF I AM sixty. You'relistening to KF I AM sixty on
demand can if I am six fortyheard everywhere live on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Steve Gregory and this is unsolved. If you're listening on the app,
(17:08):
you can send us a tip abouta case, a story, idea,
or a comment about the show.Just tap the red microphone on the app
and record your message. Welcome back. We're at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department's Homicide Bureau. Were inside speakingwith Detective Sean McCarthy. He's a member
of the cold case unit. He'sbeen talking about a case going back to
(17:30):
May fourth, twenty six, seventeenyears ago, when a security guard was
overrun, overtaken by four Latino menin the North Gate at the Northgate Gonzalez
Supermarket in La Puente, California.And somewhere in the midst of all of
this, the security guard was stabbedfifty two times and died on the scene.
(17:56):
Before the break, detective, youhad always already walked through what had
happened. But now you're suggesting thatall four of these men are locals.
And I don't know what kind ofa radius do you consider local or within
the surrounding neighborhood, surrounding neighborhood,Okay, So and keep in mind,
and I don't have to tell anybodywho's familiar the Los Angeles area it's a
(18:21):
heavy, heavily populated gang area oron this market, okay, But lat
Point has a lot of gangs,So I don't I'm not going to jump
to the conclusion that this was gangmembers. But it's a it's a it's
it's possible. Well, I wantto go back and discover something because you
said it at the very beginning ofthe show, something that caught my attention
(18:42):
I wanted to talk to about.So I'm going to ask that in a
minute. But to finish what Iwas asking you before, you said that
based on evidence, you believe thatthese guys were locals, and um and
witness statements, so you did havewitnesses. Witness is after the fact,
after the fact, So there actuallyis a witness. And I know I've
(19:04):
showed I've already showed you this,but that is an employee that one of
the suspects is pointing away. Sowhat we're looking at right now for people
to know is, um, I'mlooking at a photo sheet that has four
frames on it that we're extracted fromsurveillance video on May fourth, twenty or
(19:25):
six, and it looks like oneof this is one of these is in
the nine o'clock hour, and oneof these is in the ten o'clock hour.
And but yeah, you're showing mewe're at least one man in a
tan hoodie with a white hat onis pointing a gun at an employee.
I assume that's an employee at thefoot of the stairs. And we've got
(19:45):
others showing these suspects walking around inthe supermarket, just kind of wandering around.
And there's even one shot here wherethe man, based on what I
can see on this shot here,he looks like a younger man looking straight
up at the camera, straight upat them, and it's grainy. You
(20:07):
know, the technology back in No. Six wasn't nearly as good with the
high death as it is today.So I mean, we're going to post
those pictures on the website. Ihope we'll get to if we get permission
to do so, we'll certainly leteveryone know. So what is you talked
about a witness after the fact?So was the stort technically still open after
the murder happened? No. Once, the suspects, as they were pointing
(20:33):
out this one surveillance floor, theywere coming down the stairs, and in
the earlier surveillance they made no attemptto conceal their identities. They weren't massed
up. But as they're coming downthe stairs you can see in the video
they're now massed up. So whatwe believe happened was and this is a
(20:55):
possibility, and I'm glad you broughtit up because I wanted to touch on
this. You talked about motive.Did they come in there specifically to kill
this security guard. I do notbelieve that, but I believe here's a
distinct possibility. Personal opinion is,as the security guard was bringing the fish
(21:15):
back to the back of the storeto the cooler, they had concealed themselves.
They weren't expecting anybody, they hadn'tmassed up yet. He surprises them,
potentially recognizes one of them. Theyovertake him, and now we have
(21:38):
to kill this guy. He knowswho we are. I believe that's a
distinct possibility because they didn't get massedup until after they kill. Well.
See, as soon as you pointedthat out, I was thinking to myself
that maybe this is part of thecalculated move where they wanted to go in
(21:59):
and blame, then look normal,and then disappear. I mean, if
they had these masks or these facecoverings to put on, do you think
they had already planned to do that, that that was part of the play.
That's that's that's another thing I wantedto get to is they came in
the store to look like customer,but based on their actions making their way
to the back of the store,knowing that there was a catwalk upstairs,
(22:23):
knowing that there was a storage room, knowing that there was a break room,
I believe that's that at least raisesits possibility that they were familiar with
the location. They were familiar withall aspects of the location, and at
least one of them was potentially anemployee or a former employee. So then
(22:45):
why why go completely maskless out inthe open and why didn't why wasn't there
any interaction with other employees? Ithink there. I think their intention was
is they walked in even if somebodyrecognize them, they're just the customer.
Okay, they're a customer. Theyget to the back, they know where
to conceal themselves. Everything goes toplan, the store closes, all the
(23:10):
employee lead, all the employees leavenow, or if the plan was robbery
and wait until the store closes,and we only got to do a deal
with the few employees, then wemask up, and then we deal with
the employees that are still there.Oh so it was a contingency. Yeah,
it was like a Plan B,Plan B. It could have been
(23:32):
Plan A all along. They comein, they blend in, even if
they're recognized, they're just in theirshopping. They make it to the rear
of the store. They conceal themselves. Everything goes to plan right now,
the store closes, most of theemployers are gone. All I got to
do deal with as a manager ortwo. Maybe the security guard, but
(23:53):
maybe he's already sent sent home.Right now, you mask up. Now
you in front the manager. Theydon't know who you are because you're massed
up. You rob him, youget out of there. Everything goes as
plan okay. So but but thesecurity guard screws it up for lack of
a better term, And it's possiblethey now, but why kill him if
(24:15):
they don't know know, why killhim? That's why I believe we believe
it's it's likely it's somebody familiar withthe store, possibly a former employee or
and they write the security guard theyhadn't massed up yet. The security guard
stumbles onto him, they overtake him. We got to kill him now because
(24:36):
if we if we allow him tolive, he's gonna he's he knows who
we are, or he knows whoat least one of us are, so
they kill him. We're talking withDetective Sean McCarthy with the La County Sheriff's
Departments Homicide Bureau um Cold Case Unit, and I feel like I'm right in
the middle now of a real timeWho've done it? So when we come
(24:56):
back, we'll talk more about acase from twenty or six and La Puente.
But first, this is Unsolved withSteve Gregory on kf I AM six
forty. You're listening to kf IAM sixty on demand kf I AM six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory. This is unsolved.
(25:26):
We are at the La County Sheriff'sDepartment's Homicide Bureau in Monterey Park.
We've been speaking with Detective Sean McCarthy, a member of the cold case Unit,
and he has presented us a casefrom May fourth, twenty zero six,
seventeen years ago at the North GateGonzales Supermarket at eight thirty one Hussy
Into Boulevard in La Puente, California. And before the break, Detective McCarthy
(25:49):
and I were sort of, Iguess, for lack of a better word
coming up with our own theories ofhow this might have gone down, because
I've been I'm still looking at andholding in my hands this photo sheet of
four frames from surveillance video that showswhat McCarthy has described as the four suspects
(26:10):
before they put on face coverings andthen after they put on face coverings,
which I had never really noticed untilyou pointed it out, and mostly because
that's pretty grainy and fudgy. Butyou guys have better technology and you've seen
the video, so you can figurethat out, I'm sure. But before
the break, you were sort ofbreaking down the fact that this security guard
(26:33):
we're talking about as a sixty fiveyear old man who was handcuffed with his
own handcuffs, his service weapon wastaken from him, and then he was
stabbed fifty two times. Detective yousaid that you one of your working theories
is that this security guard may haverecognized one or more of the four men,
right. I believe that's distinct possible, And if that's why they realized
(26:56):
they had to kill it, itwould it appeared that only one individual may
have stabbed demand or do you thinkthey all had a hand in it?
I believe it's one one of them, I also believe, and then getting
into the amateur aspect that one ofyou commented on one of the surveillance pictures
(27:18):
is one of the suspects prior orcertainly after he made his way to the
back of the story actually looked upat the surveillance video. That's very amateur.
And so so somebody led this crew, somebody who was the alpha dog,
right, And my guess is hemade the decision we got to kill
this guy now, right or ifhe reckoned, if the security guard record,
(27:45):
Let's say a former employee was abit player in this, he was
involved in it, but he wasa bit player in it, and he
recognized that guy the alpha dog isstill going to be likely the person who
decides we got to get rid ofit, because he is going to identify
you. You're a weak link,and you're gonna potentially tell him that I
(28:06):
was with you and I was theleader of the pack, and he made
the decision to kill him something.And we were talking about in the last
segment, and I said, Iwanted to go back to ask you about
um. At the very beginning,you were you were giving a description of
these guys, and you had mentionedthat La Punte being a very active gang
area. Did anything on them giveyou an indication of gang affiliation? No?
(28:33):
No, in my opinion looking atthe surveillance video. But keep in
mind, I was the assist team. Our only role in this was the
process, the crime scene assist thelead team that night in the investigation,
and once that night was over withand we all went home. They picked
it up after that and we wenton with our cases, and we had
(28:59):
minimal role in roll in it.Aftercat, I'm basing it on. I
picked this case up at the requestof one of the lead I always when
he retired, and now it's mycase, mine and Tomlins. When did
you get this case? Twenty twentyokay, so about three years ago.
Yeah, but but just to beclear, see my review that surveillance video,
(29:26):
and that's that's my only Do youhave the video still? Yeah?
Okay. I look at those photosand if they are gang members, they
didn't dress a gang members and thatwould have been a smart thing likely to
do. Um. So, basedon just the evidence right in surveillance video,
(29:48):
I would say those guys aren't gangmembers based on what I see in
the video. Okay, doesn't meanthey're not gang members or led by a
gang member. But some things thatI can reveal about the investigation, there
was multiple tips that came in onthis case, and several of those tips
(30:10):
led to specific gang members from thearea, named gang members from the area,
and we're still investigating some of thoseleads. That's where that's where the
gang thing comes in, is istips from the public. That surveillance video,
(30:33):
parts of it was aired back intwo thousand and six. There was
people who called in says that lookslike so and so, that looks like
so and so, so we proceedto investigate them. Some of the leads
have have led to other states wherepotential suspects based on evidence, may have
(30:57):
fled to shortly after to the murder. But having grainny's surveillance videos, the
only witness being dead the security guard, and the only other obvious witness the
(31:19):
employee who got the gun pointed ather. They were massed up, so
that witness was no good in helpingidentify these people. The other and this
is what's going to make or breakthis case. In my opinion, there
was DNA located inside the store,and without getting into detail, there's no
(31:45):
doubt about it. It's the DNAof one of the fourth suspects. Okay,
sure, I go too far downthis path. I gotta go back
and ask you a couple questions.So this one photo that we've described earlier
shows one of the men in thewhite hat and the tan hoodie winning what
you believe is the security guard's weaponat another employee. Is that a female?
By the way, who's that femaleemploy apparently? Uh, you know,
(32:08):
I have to go back into thecase file. I believe it's a
female. Why was she spared?Well, I think they were masked up.
Okay, so you don't think so. I think that their attitude is
and I hate that. I hateto to throw up my opinions. It's
(32:32):
a lot harder. And this ismy opinion, and you may scoff at
it, and the listeners may laughat this. It's a lot harder to
kill a female employee, an innocentfemale employ than it is an armed security
guard. And with that, we'regoing to take another break. This is
unsolved with Steve Gregory on kf IAM six forty. You're listening to kf
(32:53):
I AM sixty on demand. KfI AM six forty heard Everywhere live on
the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregoryand this is Unsolved. If you're listening
(33:15):
on the app, you can sendus a tip about a case, a
story idea, or a comment aboutthe show. Just tap the red microphone
on the app and record your message. We're at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
(33:37):
Department's Homicide Bureau in Monterey Park,inside of the one of the main conference
rooms, speaking with Detective Sean McCarthyabout a case going back to May fourth,
twenty six, around ten o'clock inthe evening, when four Hispanic men
went into the Northgate Gonzales supermarket onHussey and the Boulevard in La Puente and
initially began acting at customers walking around. Surveillance video to shows them wandering around,
(34:00):
up and down the aisles, andthen at some point they make their
way to the back of the store, where detective McCarthy believes they were laying
in wait, perhaps to wait untilthe store closed or until they were fewer
employees. But detective McCarthy believes thatat some point the security guard goes back,
surprises him, and for whatever reason, they stab him fifty two times.
(34:25):
The security guard and kills him,takes the service weapon, handcuffs him.
And in the last hour we talkedabout a lot of different theories,
and you're operating on the you've gotthis case about three years ago, but
you're operating on the theory that thismight have been somebody or these individuals may
have known the security guard, orthe security guard may have known them at
(34:49):
least recognized him. It might havebeen a former employee. And then we
were talking about this employee that wasconfronted after they masked up. So as
soon as and they went into thestore to meet, to meander around,
their faces were completely exposed. Butafter they stabbed this man fifty two times,
they decided to put on face coverings, come down these stairs because it
(35:14):
happened up in a break room,and then confront this employee, point a
gun at her. And you saidthat she was not able to give you
much information. Is she Have youbeen in touch with her since you took
on the case? No, Ihaven't you do? Planet? Is that
something you plant a new point?But we're more focused on a couple of
pretty decent suspects that we could absolutelymake on DNA because the DNA left at
(35:43):
the scene. Based on surveillance video, there's no doubt that that DNA where
it was taken from was touched bythe one of these suspects. Yeah,
because the other thing when you talkabout face coverings, I see no gloves
in their initial entry, but thenI see do I see gloves, Yes,
(36:05):
on this guy and the rail downabout it. So then they put
up gloves and put on them.I believe one steak. I believe they
were going to use these masks atsome point, regardless if the security guard
would have surprised them and then theyhad had to kill them. I believe
they were going to use them aspart of the plan. But the plan
(36:27):
got screwed up by the guard.And then once they kill them, they
were like, we need to putthese masks on now, we need to
get the hell out of here,and we need to make sure that we
just committed a murder that we're notgoing to be identified. So they mask
up, they go down the stairs. Another employee is standing there, the
one suspects points a gun adder andthen they get out of there. That
(36:52):
was the that that changed the plan. Once they kill them, it's like,
now, whatever our motive was,whether robbery, burglary or whatever.
Now our motive is is to getthe hell out of here. So they
didn't get away with any money oranything. No, no, they And
then when you see that the confrontationbetween the suspects and the employee, that
(37:14):
this female employee, how much timeI mean, how long was the confrontation
If you look on the surveillance videothe one suspects looked up at the camera
at twenty one, eighteen hours,nine eighteen hours, they come down the
stairs, massed up and point thegun at the employee at twenty two,
(37:37):
twenty four hours, so six minuteslater, and in that six minute period
they killed the security guard, maskup, come down the stairs with in
my opinion, the attempt just toget out of there now, and that
all happened in a six minute areaand glove up too, glove up to
(38:01):
now the money presumably this was supposedto be a robbery or burglary. You
said the money was at the front. Was it in a sane yeah,
I believe so. I reviewed that. You know, we go long period
of time because we have so manyon some cases and then we've discussed this
on another show. We may gosix months, maybe sometimes a year because
(38:24):
other cases come together and we haveto focus on that. And then when
we get back to a case,a lot of a lot of things you
lose because you haven't looked at thecase in six months to a year,
so you have to refresh yourself.And last night, because I knew what
I was going to be doing thisshow, I tried to cram like for
a test. And I remember thatthe managers saying that the vast portion of
(38:52):
any money was at the front ofthe store, So we believe they made
their way to the back. Theywere familiar with it. They went to
hide. They were going to waituntil things calmed down, the store closed,
they were going to mask up.They were going to go up and
deal with any employees, rob himfor whatever money they could get out of
(39:14):
him, go out and be successfulin their little plan. But things went
awry with the security guard. Andone other thing, Steve, because I
know you're a listeners, somebody's goingto say, well, how do you
know that they didn't handcuff him afterthey killed them. It's possible that they
that they stumble onto him, thatthe security guard stumbles onto him, he's
(39:37):
armed. Okay, we got todeal with him. Really quick here.
They could they have brought the knifein with him. They could have,
but my guests is more likely theyfound a knife there in the break room.
No surveillance video. They have todeal with him because he's armed,
because if he can get to hisgun and then they handcuff him after it,
(39:58):
do I think that's exactly what happened. No, but I have to
consider the possibility that that happened.The more likely scenario is they overtake him,
they handcuff him. Something happens eithereither he recognizes one of them and
they now feel like they have tokill him. But it's not all of
the realm of possibility that they killthem first and then handcuffs him. You
(40:22):
know, it's very common when officersget involved into a shooting, the first
thing they do once the shooting stopsand the suspect is down, is they
handcuff him. I know that apaul's the public, but that's a that's
an officer's safety thing they have totake into consideration. Could that have happened
(40:43):
here where they like killed him,needed they handcuff him just in case he
I mean, after fifty two times, I think that's overkilled. I don't
think that's the likely scenario, butI have to consider the possibility. When
we come back, we'll talk morewith Detective h McCarthy about this horrific murder
in twenty six inside of a supermarket. Butt First, this is Unsolved with
(41:06):
Steve Gregory on camp I AM sixforty. You're listening to kf I AM
six forty on demand kf I AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. We are inside of the La
(41:31):
County Sheriffs Department's Homicide Bureau talking withcold case Detective Sean McCarthy about a case
from twenty oh six that happened inLa Plente inside of a supermarket, the
Northgate Gonzales Supermarket on Hasciana Boulevard,in which a sixty five year old security
guard was killed stabbed fifty two timesby at least one of these four individuals.
(41:57):
We've been talking about a lot ofdifferent angles to this case. Detective.
One of the things I wanted toask you you mentioned in the last
segment about DNA and if I heardyou correctly, and again we're going back.
We're referring to this photo sheet thatwe have that has four frames extracted
from this surveillance video camera. Wereyou able to look at the places that
(42:22):
these individuals touched or brushed up againstand did that help lead you to swabbing
for DNA? And that's in thatlocation led the original iOS? Yes,
right, that's exactly what happened.Okay, they were they were meticulously watching
the surveillance video and one of thesuspects did something with which they collected later.
(42:50):
And there was no doubt that ifthere was any DAN that item,
that it was going to be thesuspects DNA now and the actions of the
suspect led them to collect this sidehow soon after the murder and the collection
of the DNA, I mean howmuch time went by between. It was
(43:10):
moments late, moments like okay,so they were able to see this videotape
pretty quickly, quickly, Yeah,okay, because this is multiple camera angles,
right, yeah, yeah, theseare obviously multiple camera angles. So
now looking at because you also providedsome of the photos from the scene.
These these are actual photos that I'mlooking at of the security guard and in
the state he was left after hewas stabbed fifty two times. I'm looking
(43:34):
at one of the shots here thatshows knife wounds based on that, do
you have any idea or were youtold by the corner or the medical examin
of what kind of knife that was. I was not the lead IO,
so I wasn't at that's okay,But I didn't know if this is information
you had by now or okay,so was there? So I assume no
(43:57):
knife was recovered from the scene.But since the murder took place in a
break room, one of your assertionsis that they could have used a knife
that was in the breakroom. Possible. And with a with a grocery store
in the back that does food prepand stuff, it was probably access to
some sort of er um. Sowhen you collected the DNA, and I
already know you're not going to beable to tell me a lot about it,
(44:20):
But do you think, I mean, did you get an actual DNA
sample? I mean, were youable to get a profile file that was
was obtained? It was entered intocodis and and I think your listeners have
a basic knowledge of it. It'sa database database offenders when they're arrested,
there's certain crimes that they have togive a reference sample at DNA reference sample.
(44:45):
The series of the crime will determinethat that is entered into a database.
So if they've committed other crimes andtheir DNA was left there, when
you upload that profile into codas,they will, they will get a hit
on the sus in this case,and once again this lends credence to the
(45:07):
amateur aspect of this, at leastsome of the suspects. Is when they
uploaded this in the CODIS, therewas no hit. So what that tells
you is that that this particular offenderwho left this DNA had not been arrested
and forced to give up DNA.He hadn't been arrested for a certain crime,
(45:28):
for certain for a certain crime,or if he was a juvenile as
juvenile DNA and a CODIS even ifthey commit murder, that's a good question.
Okay, I would have to researchthat. We'll put that down for
homework for next time. Yeah.But um, yeah, so then so
you didn't get a hit, whichmeans that that this that this individual was
(45:51):
not arrested for certain crimes. Letme ask you this, Um, can
you point out which individual's DNA yougot? Yeah? You can, yes,
point pointed out to me. Wewon't tell anybody. Okay, again,
the amateur aspect of this looking upat the camera, DNA not in
(46:19):
Koda's possibility that he's the juvenile,all these things. Looking at these photos
again now I'm looking back at thecrime scene photos. This is something I
don't think we talked about. Wasthe security guard's body dragged from one location
to another after he was killed.Apparently not very far, but apparently.
I mean there's literally as a trailof smear blood. Yeah, there's no
(46:43):
doubt about from one room out intoa hallway. Do you any idea?
Why don't just by looking? Idon't. I can speculate, and I've
done a whole lot of that inthis hour. I'll tell you something.
It's very disturbing, more than anythingbecause this was presumably of just an innocent
(47:04):
man doing his job. But thatbrings me to the next question. What
do we know about the security guard? I mean, you know, if
you believe that the security guard mayhave recognized one or more of these individuals,
what do we know about this guy? What was his connection? Did
he live in the neighborhood? Imean, what do we know about the
man? His name was Frutoso Anguiano. He was sixty years old or approaching
(47:30):
sixty. He was a family man. He had two jobs. I believe
he worked as a machinist during theday and he worked as a security guard
at the market at night. Inthat area and in a lot of high
(47:52):
crime areas, and I don't wantto I don't want to give you the
impression that this is the highest crimearea, but there is a lot of
gang activity in this area. Yougot gang members who frequent the market.
There's always potential for confrontation for whateverreason, and it's a securities job to
(48:12):
deal with with any disruptions in thestore. It's possible, and we have
to look at us, although it'snot my number one theory is he had
a confrontation with somebody and they cameback to settle the score. But for
obvious reasons, I think that's unlikely. In a very public place, why
(48:37):
not just wait for him to getoff work, follow him home or wherever
and deal with the men. Whyin a very public market, even though
it was later in the evening,why would you take that chance? And
if it was a personal thing,most personal killings are done by one person.
(49:00):
They don't bring three guys along withthem. Because it's a personal thing.
The other three guys likely unless theywere with him that day, had
no beef with this guy, andno no, I just I hate to
interrupt your father, but we dohave to take a break. We'll come
back with more of Sean McCarthy,but first, this is unsolved with Steve
(49:21):
Gregory. I can't find AM sixforty. You're listening to kf I AM
six forty on demand kf I AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
I'm Steve Gregory, and this isunsolved. Or at the Los Angeles
(49:47):
County Chef's Departments Sumas Side Bureau ina conference room, we're talking with cold
case Detective Sean McCarthy about a murdergoing back to May fourth, twenty six
in which is sixty year old securityguard stabbed fifty two times by at least
one of four Hispanic men that wentinto the Northgate Gonsala Supermarket on Hussey and
(50:07):
the Boulevard and the plent thing beforethe break and I interrupted you before the
break. We were up against it, and you were talking about the difference
between this being a random act anda personal act and a targeted attack,
a targeted murder, and you've laidout, you know, pretty decent reasons
based on your many years experience thatif this were a personal attack, why
(50:32):
not wait till the security guard getsoff duty? Why not stockument another way?
Why choose a public venue in whichto do it, Why bring three
of your friends? So I thinkit's pretty safe to say, according to
you, that this was not apersonal attack of any kind. That's down
the list of theories. But therethere was information that was obtained from the
(50:57):
original investigators. Frutoso was not theonly security guard at the location. There
was another security guard. I believehe had left. He had left and
what I mean by left left theemployment there. And you know, I'm
only guessing here there because of thelocation, the area, the gang activity
(51:20):
there, that there was probably confrontationsin there, if not on a daily
basis, a weekly basis, Anda witness said that there had been a
confrontation, not with Frutoso, butwith the other security guard, and that
was a possible motive that they cameback for him and they ended up with
(51:44):
the wrong security guard. Like Isaid, that's way down my list of
possibilities. But you have to takethat into concert or maybe it was a
message. Could be it's just asick, twisted message. They're not mess
with anybody. Here's here's here's thethe conservative goal. Here. We have
DNA evidence. We have we arecertain it's from one of the suspects who
(52:13):
appears to be less sophisticated than maybesome of the other suspects. Right,
there's no doubt, trust me,Steve, There's no doubt it's his DNA.
It came off a very personal item. It wasn't like somebody could make
the argument that, oh, thatcould have been touched by multiple people in
the DNA profile was from some innocentpatron of his actions and the item that
(52:43):
had the DNA and it was avery personal item. Well, then is
this something this guy left behind?Yes, oh, look, the case
is twenty years old. It was. It was a the suspect washed his
hands and he used to pay berteland he tossed it at a guards after
the murder. After the murder.There's no doubt it's his d Jesus.
(53:08):
So, so the conservative goal isyou find your donor. You got one
of your suspects based on his actionsin the surveillance video. He was one
of the less sophisticated one. Iwanted to be one of the less sophisticated
ones because he's more likely to squealOnce we get he's more likely to say,
(53:29):
I just was along for the ride. You get, you get to
the leader, right, you gotyou got one of your suspects, right,
But it's unlikely he's going to giveup the others have. Your role
is to get all four. Haveyou rerun the DNA the last time that
was? That's on our to dolist because with fingerprint technology, and I've
(53:52):
learned this in the last and ifyou haven't met Dale fall Kinds, he's
really great. He's a he's ahe's a higher back just like we are.
And he's a outstanding fingerprint guy.Technology is improving literally on a yearly
basis, and the same thing withDNA, and and the possibility too well,
(54:14):
it's it's improved to the point whereit should it should come back as
a hit as technology because it's inthe it's in the database, it's it's
it's already there. So it's alreadyso that it's there. Okay, that's
right, So there should so ifthere was another arrest and this guy had
already been arrest. He may havenever been arrested for a crime that forced
(54:37):
him to give a DNA reference sample. But in the seventeen years since the
murder, you would hope that hewent on with his criminal activity. He
he progressed in his criminal activity,committed a crime that would force him to
give up DNA. But to thispoint that has not happened. And I
can only tell you this. Wehave one suspect, we have two good
(55:00):
suspects. One we already know it'snot his DNA, We've already eliminated him.
It doesn't mean he's not involved inthe murder because there's three other suspects.
The other one has not committed acrime in seventeen years that would force
him to give up a DNA sample. So our goal is to get his
(55:22):
DNA in another way and match itand then gold go old school. But
he's he's currently in another state,and I'm not going to divulge that state,
just like I'm not going to divulgehis identity for obvious reasons. That's
(55:42):
the optimistic lead that we have.But but well, you already but you
have an idea on this guy,then oh yeah, if you know who
you're looking for now, how didyou get the idea from a tip?
From a tip? It was ita tip from back then or a current
or a recent tip. It wasa tip that came in within a year
(56:09):
or two of the murder. Didyou consider it credible or was it just
one of many hit tips you got? The more credible tip was addressed that
person was eliminated through DNA. Theyobtained his DNA prior to me taking the
(56:29):
case. They were still active.He also had left to state, but
it was not his DNA on thatpaper towel. So now we move on
to the next guy. Okay,we're gonna pause and we're gonna we're gonna
take our final break of the night. When we come back, we're gonna
wrap this thing up because I gotsome more questions. But first, this
(56:52):
is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on kfI AM six forty. You're listening to
kf I AM sixty on demand,kf I AM six forty live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is Unsolved. Welcome back
(57:22):
to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department'sUma Side Bureau. We're talking with Detective
Sean McCarthy about a murder case fromMay fourth, twenty six at the North
Gate Gonzales supermarket on Hacienda Boulevard Puente. And this is a horrific crime in
which a security guard, a sixtyyear old man, was stabbed fifty two
times by at least one of thesefour Hispanic men. Presumably robbery slash burglary
(57:49):
was the motive, but until theyactually get someone to tell them what happened,
that's kind of the working theory rightnow. Before the break, Detective,
we were kind of digging deep alittle bit on the DNA aspect of
all of this. You said thatyou have identified at least one person that
you want to get a DNA samplefrom. And that person you said,
(58:10):
washed their hands after the murder anda sink and you were able to extract
DNA from the paper towels, right, And now you want to go to
another state and try to get DNAfrom this individual. Is that going to
be a challenger? It sounds easiersaid than done. Well, the easy
(58:35):
way, The easiest way is ishope that you haven't enough probable cause that
you can convince a judge in thatstate that this is the donor of that
DNA. I think that would beunlikely in California, but we have fifty
(58:58):
states who we generally operate the sameway, but slightly is sometimes more significantly
different. Can you do that?I mean, if the crime was committed
here in California, can you geta judge in another state? Yeah?
What we do is we do nothave police power. We have police power
in California. So if your subjectin a DNA case like this is in
(59:25):
California, you go to a Californiajudge, he decides to have probable cause,
he signs the court or you bringthe guy in, show him the
court order, and he's forced togive you his DNA right. If it's
in another state, we don't havepolice powers, so we go to a
law enforcement agency. See there,we provide him with the information which we
(59:45):
believe it is probable costs. Theyput it on an affidavit because they had
in whatever state that is, andthen they go to a judge in that
state, got it, and thenso they became your surrogate in another state.
Absolutely, okay, that makes sense. And then just for I think
more curiosity than anything, could youalso do that on the federal level,
because you also ask a federal lawenforcement agency to act on your behalf like
(01:00:07):
that, Yeah, you could,but sounds more complicated. This is something
I It's just federal law and statelaw are different and can be significantly different.
And when you bring on a federalagency to help you out, there's
(01:00:30):
times when they want more control ofthe investigation, and maybe you're willing to
give them. So we're very cautiousabout that. When the great thing about
federal law enforcement is they'll bend overbackwards for you. They're they're extremely professional,
(01:00:51):
but they're dealing with federal law andwe're dealing with local law. And
there's a significant difference between the twoand perspective and control, and I would
need assurances from the federal agency thatI would be seeking out from that we
(01:01:15):
were still going to have control overthe case, most control. I mean,
here's another question that just I justthought about. If I can ensure
unless we were seeking federal prosecution,then I'm more willing to relinquish. That
makes sense. That makes sense.So you get a surrogate agency to act
(01:01:36):
on your behalf to file for theaffidavit, and then that would compel this
individual to force them to give theDNA. Right, where are the laws
at with respect to just doing yourown surveillance. Oh, that's the hard
way, that's the heart, Isay, the harder. It's the harder
way. That's what I thought,the old school way. I thought,
that's what you're going to do.If you don't have enough probable cause to
(01:01:57):
convince the judge to sign a coreorder, Now you have to do it.
But then you still have police powersin another state, though, Do
you have to give another agency theheads up? Yeah? They would,
They would assist us. They woulddo most of the heavy lifting in that.
Yeah, because now with familiar DNAand and and just how easy it
is to extract like that and thetechnologies as you mentioned. But but I
(01:02:20):
was thinking, was almost easier justto surveil the guy and take Yeah,
it's as simple as this, eventhough it's in another state, you get
the cooperation on another law on first, an agency. They surveiled the guy,
he goes to McDonald's, he tossesa cup eye, They collect it.
They they they they preserve it.They turn it over to us.
We fled back to Los Angeles andthe AD a test there right and then
(01:02:43):
and then if it matches, thenyou get the arrest warrant and you're here
to go. We go to thedistrict attorney files the case, we get
an arrest warrant with extradition's back.That's what you're hoping for, sop for
that in this last in this lastminute, what would you like from the
public, if anything, there's noLook. The one thing, and I
(01:03:04):
keep talking about the amateur aspect ofthis, and we've talked about this on
another show. It's human nature towant to tell somebody about what you did.
And the more amateurist you are,the more likely you are to tell
people about what you did. Throwin the potential gang aspect, is you
really want to tell people what youdid unless you end up committing such a
(01:03:28):
heineous crime that even your peers,well, this was pretty heous. It
is pretty veinous. But there's surveillancevideo here, and I'm sure I'm going
to get the okay from the lead, the original lead to post this somebody.
It's grainy, but I think it'sgood enough where somebody if they saw
(01:03:49):
this, and you and I alwayssay this on your show and other shows,
is that old story about if youdon't solve the case in the first
forty eight hours, the odds godown. I'm affirmed leaver in sometime.
Time is your ally. People's liveschange, time goes on, they feel
less threatened by about coming forward.They they go on to lead more productive
(01:04:15):
lives and they feel compelled. Now, Hey, I'm a I've changed my
life and I've had multiple cases likethat where people come forward and they would
have never come forward in two thousandand six and told you who the suspect
was. Never, never, neverbecause of their lifestyle, their fear.
Whatever. Time changes people. Weall change over time, sometimes for the
(01:04:39):
better. Sometimes morally we would andthey may be more willing to come forward
now. They just needed a platformlike you. You have to hear this
to see this surveillance video and maybemaybe cough you Tector Sean McCarthy. Always
a pleasure, Thank you sir foryour time, and that's going to do
(01:05:04):
it. Unsolved with Steve Gregory.The radio show is a production of the
KFI News Department for iHeartMedia, LosAngeles and is produced by Steve Gregory and
Jacob Gonzalez. Our field engineer isTony Sorrentino, and our digital producer is
Nate Ward. To hear this episodeand others from past seasons, download Unsolved
with Steve Gregory on the iHeart Radioapp or wherever you listen. Coming up,
(01:05:28):
it's Before the Coast with Clay Row. But first, this is KFI
AM six forty time Now for anews update. KFI AM sixty on demand
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