The three suspects arrested in connection with the homicide of a popular tantra yoga teacher in Marin County in the Bay Area have been linked to the shooting death of Audrey Carey, a 23-year-old woman found dead in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.
San Francisco police said late Thursday the suspects were found to be in possession of Carey's personal property in Portland, Oregon when they were arrested Wednesday in the Marin County homicide. They will be charged with robbing and murdering Carey, a Canadian tourist who was traveling alone, according to San Francisco police.
Authorities have identified the suspects in both homicides as Sean Michael Angold, 24, Morrison Haze Lampley, 23, and Lila Scott Alligood, 18, none of whom has a permanent address. As of Friday morning, they were being held at the Multnomah County jail on no bail. Jail records show that they were booked on a Marin County warrant on charges of conspiracy to commit murder, murder and robbery.
They likely will be brought to the Bay Area next week to face charges of killing Steve Carter, 67, a tatran teacher who was out hiking in Fairfax on Monday evening when he was killed while walking his dog, Coco, who was also shot, according to the Marin County Sheriff's Office.
The trio on Friday waived their rights to an extradition hearing and will be brought back, first to Marin County, and then to San Francisco, for arraignment.
San Francisco police initially said Carey was found dead with blunt force trauma to her head Saturday morning in Golden Gate Park. The medical examiner has since determined the blunt force trauma to be a gun shot wound, San Francisco Police Sgt. Michael Andraychak said.
Carey's death coincided with hundreds of thousands of visitors who visited the park on Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the city's 15th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival.
Police have not said whether Carey attended the festival on Friday nor released any information on how she came to be in the park. But Andraychak said that when San Francisco police homicide inspectors learned of Carter's death, they quickly called Marin County authorities because of the similarities: The victims were both killed in wooded or park areas. Two inspectors from San Francisco flew to Portland to accompany Marin County detectives. On Friday, Esparza would not disclose what belongings of Carey's were found in Oregon, adding that police wanted to question the suspects.
Carey’s mother, Isabelle Tremblay, released a short statement this week to the Canadian media, the San Francisco Examiner reported.
“The family of Audrey Carey, who tragically died last Saturday while traveling in the San Francisco area, would like to thank the people who have expressed sympathy and support in the ordeal they are going through,” noted the statement, which was originally released in French. “Audrey was a young girl full of life and loved by all. The family now wishes to grieve in privacy and in private."
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On Thursday, Marin County Sheriff's Lt. Doug Pittman said the motive for Carter's killing was largely a puzzle. None of the suspects had driver's licenses, or any type of real paper trail. A search on the Internet did not immediately turn up any social media accounts. No motive for Carey's homicide was readily apparent either.
Lampley was the only one of the three who had a criminal history that was easily found.
According to the Multnoma County Sheriff's Office, Lampley has a string of priors that include weapons and marijuana possession, buying alcohol for minors, criminal mischief and graffiti tagging. The other two had no record there, a records spokeswoman said.
In May, Lampley was charged in San Diego County with the unlawful selling or receiving of a stolen vehicle, a felony, and with stealing a dog, a misdemeanor. He pleaded guilty to the felony charge and was sentenced to 97 days in jail, but was released because he had served that amount while the case was pending, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The newspaper also reported that Lampley was arrested in Mountain View in July 2012 along with another man for allegedly carrying a concealed 5-inch knife.
And Santa Clara County court records reviewed by NBC Bay Area show Lampley was arrested in February 2011 for carrying a concealed 13-inch knife in Saratoga. Lampley told deputies that he was a transient that had been sleeping under a bridge near a Santa Clara light-rail station. And he told authorities that he had been carrying the knife to protect himself from “gangsters” that had been harassing him.
During a news conference, Pittman would not describe the three as "tweakers," when a reporter asked, but he did call them "three lost souls."
