Cops: Calif. murder suspect shot by police after kidnap victim escapes
SAN DIEGO -- A man suspected of fatally shooting a man in Anaheim, Calif. and kidnapping a 23-year-old woman last week was shot early Thursday by police after the woman escaped, authorities said.
CBS Los Angeles reports that the father of the kidnapped woman, Brianne Deese, told Anaheim police detectives that she called him from San Diego and said she had escaped her captor.
The suspect, identified by police as Luke Theodore Lampers, 35, was reportedly wanted in the Jan. 11 fatal shooting of 49-year-old Douglas Navarro at the Crystal Inn in Anaheim.
“Detectives and investigators responded immediately and located the victim,” said Sgt. Daron Wyatt of the Anaheim Police Department.
Wyatt said that investigators then went to a motel in San Diego where Lampers was seen arriving in a vehicle. Contact with Lampers led to a brief foot pursuit, Wyatt said, followed by an officer-involved shooting.
Police did not say what prompted the shooting, which happened just after midnight. Lampers was struck by the gunfire and taken to a San Diego-area hospital.
Lampers is suspected of gunning down Navarro on Jan. 11 in the motel where he was living.
Wyatt said that Brianne Deese was staying with someone at the motel and apparently left with Lampers. When she tried to get back into the room where she was staying to retrieve some personal belongings, Wyatt said Navarro intervened to say she wasn’t registered at the motel as a guest in that room.
Lampers apparently saw an argument between Navarro and Deese, and Lampers allegedly shot Navarro, Wyatt said.
Then Lampers — at gunpoint — told Deese to leave with him, Wyatt said.
Deese’s family made public pleas to Lampers last week, asking him to turn himself in and let Deese go.
