by Dan Blackburn
Joshua Edward Dirnu will appear in Torrance court April 14 at 8:30 a.m. in Dept. 8 for a second attempt at setting a preliminary hearing date on charges he beat and killed longtime Hermosa Beach resident Jeffery Roderick Woods in a July 8 incident caught on surveillance cameras.
Dirnu, 23, has been held without bail in Los Angeles County Jail since his arrest in October in Carlsbad, near his hometown of San Diego. According to officers who took him into custody, Dirnu “appeared to be trying to evade custody.”
He has pleaded not guilty to a single charge of second-degree murder.
Woods, 50, was involved in what was described by police as “some kind of altercation” with a man investigators identified as Dirnu, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Hugo Reynaga. The confrontation occurred shortly after midnight in front of a closed business near the intersection of Hermosa Avenue and 16th Street.
According to Reynaga, a business’ surveillance video shows Woods staggering away from the site and collapsing against a block wall while the other individual flees. Woods lay unconscious for more than three hours before a passerby notified authorities.
Dirnu is represented by Torrance attorney Robert Ernenwein, who told a reporter, “I have been instructed by my client to make no comment.” ER
