#cold-case-homicide

#cold-case-homicide

At a Juvenile Court hearing this week in East Lost Angeles, sheriff's deputies led shackled defendants into a courtroom reserved for youths accused of serious crimes. Most were baby-faced teenagers wearing orange jumpsuits. Then they brought out a 39-year-old father of four. The man, Victor Perez, is accused of killing a woman in Hollywood in 2003. But because he was 17 at the time, Perez, who has pleaded not guilty, is being prosecuted as a juvenile - at least for now.

His arrest comes more than two decades after three men, who had been imprisoned for more than 17 years for the crime, were released after advanced DNA techniques showed no link between them and DNA from a vaginal swab of the victim. One of the then-suspects, John Kogut, had given police a confession to the murder that he later recanted.

According to the indictment, on Dec. 10, 2024, Hill placed a plastic bottle at the entrance of the 6th Precinct at 233 West 10th Street with a note on it. The note claimed the bottle contained chlorine gas, and that its author had stabbed an individual named "Mr. Jones" in Suwanee, Georgia, the indictment states. It states the bottle turned out to be filled with vinegar and bleach, which can produce chlorine gas