2 Women, Toddler Slain; Suspect Held

A roommate was arrested Monday in the killings of two women, one at least five months’ pregnant, and a 2-year-old girl, whose bodies were found riddled with bullets on the front lawn of their split-level Carson home.

Leon Haney III, 21, was arrested six hours after the deaths were discovered, when he allegedly attempted to burglarize a gas station a mile from the crime scene.

The motive for the killings was unknown, but sheriff’s officials said Haney had moved into the victims’ home a week ago and reportedly had been acting strangely the night before the shootings.

Witnesses reported finding the victims about 7:15 a.m. Monday lying face up in a row next to a small hole that had been dug in the lawn with a shovel that was found stuck in the ground.

Officials did not release identities of the victims, but neighbors said the pregnant woman, who was in her 20s, was the mother of the toddler. The third victim, a woman in her 60s, was the grandmother of the young woman’s boyfriend, they said. The three were among an extended family that lives in the home in the usually quiet family neighborhood, neighbors said.

A handgun was found on the lawn, but investigators were unsure whether the weapon had been used in the killings.

Haney was spotted by a witness in the frontyard of the home about 7 a.m. with a shovel in his hands, said sheriff’s spokesman George Ducoulombier. According to Ducoulombier, witnesses who lived in the victims’ home reported that the suspect had been acting “very bizarre and despondent” Sunday night, taking at least three showers in an hour and walking aimlessly up and down a staircase.

No drugs were confiscated at the home, Ducoulombier said, and it was unknown whether drugs had any role in Haney’s alleged behavior.

Haney was unarmed at the time of his arrest, which he submitted to without struggle, and was booked at the Carson sheriff’s station on suspicion of triple homicide. He remains in custody without bail.

Haney, whom neighbors identified as a cousin of the live-in boyfriend of the younger woman who was slain, is the only suspect, Ducoulombier said.

The boyfriend and his mother, who also lived at the home, told deputies that they had seen the victims about 5:20 a.m. before leaving for work. On their way out, the pair saw Haney smoking a cigarette on the front lawn, they told deputies.

By midmorning Monday, investigators were milling around a 4-foot-high, black plastic enclosure that had been hastily erected around the crime scene, while neighborhood residents gathered as close as the yellow police tape would allow. Most shared their concern and discussed their shock over the brutality of the killings in their comfortable suburban neighborhood, which both they and sheriff’s deputies said is normally quiet.

“An old lady, a pregnant woman and a child,” said Gerald Addison, shaking his head. “It’s unbelievable somebody could do this.”

Ducoulombier said several rooms in the house had been splattered with blood, and it appeared that the victims had been shot inside the home and then dragged out to the lawn.

Eyewitnesses said the toddler was found naked and the older victim was naked from the waist up. Ducoulombier would not confirm those accounts, but said some of the victims’ clothing was found on the lawn.

The pregnant victim’s boyfriend, a bus driver for the Los Angeles Unified School District, was called home after the killings. Neighbors said that when he arrived, he wept uncontrollably.

Gerald Addison’s wife, Latanza, said the pregnant victim often brought her toddler to play with Addison’s two daughters, 5 and 6.

As the older girls pulled the toddler around in a red wagon, Addison said, the toddler’s mother would discuss the ups and downs of raising a child and her excitement over having another baby, even though the unexpected pregnancy thwarted her plans to return to a local community college.

“She had her problems, but she was happy,” Addison said.

The older victim also was a common fixture on the street, often taking leisurely walks down the block, neighbors said.

“They were nice people,” Gerald Addison said.

Times staff writer Greg Krikorian contributed to this story.