A man suspected of stabbing a husband and father to death days before Christmas has been arrested in connection with the attack that investigators have called brutal and unprovoked.
Michael Allen McGilvery, 44, turned himself in to police on Dec. 27, the LAPD South Bureau Homicide Division announced Tuesday. He has been charged with one count each of murder and robbery, LAPD said. He is being held on $1 million bail.
McGilvery is accused of killing William Jennings, 35, as the victim walked to a store in the Jefferson Park area west of downtown Los Angeles.
The victim had recently returned from his wife’s officer Christmas party when he left to go the store and never came home.
Surveillance video of the apparently random slaying shows Jennings walking from his home toward a market when he encounters his attacker on Dec. 20 in the 3300 block of West Jefferson Boulevard (map) near 12th Avenue. The two men appear to talk with each other before the attacker repeatedly stabs Jennings with a knife.
Jennings was slashed in the head and stabbed in the torso, and died at the scene, according to investigators.
Police said that surveillance footage prompted “people associated with” McGilvery to convince the suspect to turn himself in.
When the video was released last week, Jennings’ wife issued an emotional plea for whoever killed her husband to "just walk (into a police station) and turn yourself in."
Jennings was slain four days before Christmas, a time of year that his wife said was his favorite. Family and friends gathered for a vigil Christmas Eve to remember the father who is survived by his wife, 11-year-old daughter and stepson.
