(Updated Jan. 1, 2011, 3 p.m.) Shortly after 5 o’clock on New Year’s eve morning, residents of the Seahorse apartments in the 700 block of Manhattan Avenue, in Hermosa Beach, heard a female neighbor in a downstairs unit scream, “Don’t shoot.” The plea was followed by the sound of a pop, and then there was silence. One of the neighbors called the Hermosa Beach police to report what had been heard.
Police arrived at the apartments at 5:15 a.m., within a minute of the call and detained a man they found standing in front of the complex. Then they entered the apartment from where the scream had been heard and found a woman dead from a gunshot to the head.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office is assisting the Hermosa Beach Police in what Hermosa Police Chief Greg Savelli described as a homicide investigation.
A neighbor said the victim and the man who was detained were a couple, probably in their 30s, living just steps away from each other in separate apartments at the Seahorse.
“They were toxic when they were together,” the neighbor said, declining to elaborate.
“It’s just eerie,” the neighbor said.
“That sucks – right next to my house,” said Dan Morbito, 30, who lives next door to the apartment complex.
“It’s not supposed to happen here,” another neighbor said.
Police have not released the names of the victim or the suspect. A memorial shrine of candles and flowers placed at the door of the victim’s apartment includes a sign that reads, “Rest in peace, Sam I am.”
Homicides are rare in the 1.3 square-mile seaside town of about 19,500 residents.
In March 2003, Joel Bues, 25, was shot to death at the major intersection of Pier Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway in the early hours of the morning. Before that, Hermosa had gone eight years without a homicide.
Bues was struck in the head with at least two gunshots as he sat behind the wheel of a silver BMW, stopped at a red light on northbound PCH at Pier. Police said Bues might have been mistaken for a gang member.
A 24-year-old Redondo Beach man was riding in the BMW and was unhurt.
In 1995 a homicide was recorded when someone left a newborn baby inside a garbage container outside a business.
In 2001 a slain body was discovered at a residential construction site, but police said the murder occurred in an inland area well away from Hermosa.
Police were urging anyone with information about the case to call HBPD detectives at 310-318-0351 or sheriff’s detectives at 323-526-5541.
