3 Bodies Found in Truck Parked Close to Church

When the Rev. LaMonte King arrived for services early Sunday at the Del Aire Baptist Church in Hawthorne, he noticed a foul smell coming from a white pickup across the street. King checked the truck’s bed and made a gruesome find: two bodies wrapped in duffel bags and another bound in a blanket--a triple homicide that one Hawthorne police officer called “your basic execution.”

Sunday was an unsettling day for the small South Bay community. Just hours before King made his discovery at 7 a.m., three people were injured when an argument outside a Fabulous Burgers fast-food stand on Rosecrans Avenue erupted into a wild shootout, leaving a man and a woman with bullets in their heads and in critical condition.

Hawthorne police arrested two men on suspicion of attempted murder in the restaurant shooting, including the third victim, who was struck in the leg. Police do not believe the two incidents were related.

Authorities did not release the names of the shooting suspects or victims.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s homicide investigators also gave no descriptions of the victims in the triple slaying. Nor would they detail the sex or ages of the victims.

Investigators at the scene did not open the three bundles found in the bed of the abandoned truck. Instead, the wrapped bodies were whisked to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office for examination. The cause of death was expected to be released Monday or Tuesday, after autopsies are completed, said Sheriff’s Homicide Sgt. Tom Harris.

Authorities speculated that the incident could have been a narcotics-related execution.

“It appears it was something that was planned and put there on purpose,” said Harris, who noted that two victims had green garbage bags around their heads.

The white truck had been parked along the curb directly across from the church office on Felton Avenue for about two days, authorities and neighbors said.

King, the pastor, said he noticed the truck over the weekend but that its presence was not unusual. When he investigated, he found the three large bundles in the back of the pickup as well as blood in the gutter below.

“I was a little rattled,” he said. “But I wasn’t really shocked. That’s the kind of world we live in these days.”

King told his parishioners about the incident and then services proceeded. The congregation prayed for the victims’ families.