LA officials: Suspect in homeless murders is in custody

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LOS ANGELES – At a press conference on Saturday afternoon, Mayor Karen Bass and LAPD Chief Michel Moore along with Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and LA County Sheriff Robert Luna announced the arrest of the suspect in the murders of three homeless individuals across the city.

LAPD Chief Moore identified the suspect as Jerrid Joseph Powell, 33, of Los Angeles. Powell is alleged to be the gunman behind the murders of homeless men across Los Angeles from Nov. 26 to Nov. 29.

After a multiple agency cooperative investigation triggered by the follow-home murder of Nicholas Simbolon of San Dimas on Tuesday night by LASD homicide investigators, a car and weapon in that case was identified by the Beverly Hills Police Department.

Simbolon was a tenured L.A. County employee, who worked for the chief executive officer as a project manager in the IT department.  

“He was key in developing applications, software that helped to propel the office forward, and also helped us to meet our mission to deliver services to citizens and residents of L.A. County,” Sheriff Robert Luna said at Thursday’s press conference.  

On Thursday morning, the suspect, Powell, was spotted in Beverly Hills driving the same vehicle and taken into custody.  

“When you get to a scene, you just start playing it backwards,” Sheriff Luna said while announcing the arrest [Thursday]. “They start looking at every avenue.”  

During the arrest, deputies recovered a gun that appeared to match the description of the weapon used to commit the crime, authorities added.

“Over the course of the investigation of our murders, we were able to identify the vehicle we believe is connected to our three homicides as being the same vehicle that Mr. Powell used in the murder of Mr. Simbolon,” Moore said at Saturday’s press conference. “[We learned] that it was being held in custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as evidence of their murder.”  

According to Chief Moore, that vehicle was the same being sought in the killings of the three homeless persons and the gun seized was the weapon used in the killings.

Related:

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Brody Levesque

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