Support flows in for Lake Elsinore Walmart employee stabbed to death in random attack

A security guard flags down drivers to let them know that a Lake Elsinore Walmart is still closed, two days after a recent parolee stabbed an innocent employee to death in a random attack.

"That she loses her life over it, that's just awful," customer John Dominguez said. 

Community members who shop at the store said they're heartbroken and thinking about the victim's family. 

"You never get over it, especially if it's like a mother, a sister and grandmother," customer Jorge Tejeda said. 

The 65-year-old victim was all of those things. 

"On August 5th, the Morales family tragically and suddenly lost their mother, grandma, daughter, sister, aunt and friend Jessica," Ashlin Morales wrote in a GoFundMe for Jessica Morales. "She was kind, generous and loving to everyone she encountered. She always put people before herself. Though it pains us, we now have a beautiful angel looking over our family."

The deadly stabbing happened at 7 a.m. on Monday at the 29000 block of Central Avenue. While detectives did not immediately locate the suspect, he eventually turned himself in at the Riverside County Sheriff's Office station in Lake Elsinore. Deputies booked Lonnie Hinton, 29, for murder. 

"He was just released from prison this year and was currently on parole," said Sergeant Wenndy Brito-Gonzalez. 

The Riverside County District Attorney's Office said Hinton stabbed a different worker at a restaurant in Peris in 2020. The charge of assault with a deadly weapon was dismissed. Instead, he pleaded guilty to felony robbery and misdemeanor petty theft. He was sentenced to five years in prison. 

For this recent killing, prosecutors charged Hinton with murder as well as lying in wait. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.