An unidentified man initially called a "person of interest" in the Aug. 6 shooting deaths in Long Beach of a 26-year-old woman and her 4-year-old daughter is now considered the suspect in the killings, police announced Wednesday.
Detectives changed the man's status after using surveillance video to track him from the shooting scene at East Ninth Street and Locust Avenue, where Carina Mancera and her daughter, Jennabel Anaya, were fatally wounded outside their home, according to the Long Beach Police Department.
The young girl's father survived the 10:20 p.m. attack.
The suspect, whose image was captured by surveillance cameras in a store and on a train, was described as a heavyset black man in his 20s or 30s, of medium height and weighing between 220 and 250 pounds, according to Long Beach police Chief Robert Luna.
In the first surveillance video, the man is seen at a convenience store near the scene of the 10:20 p.m. shooting.
The other footage was taken on a Metro Blue Line train which goes between downtown Los Angeles and downtown Long Beach.
The man, with luggage in tow, boarded the train at Fifth Street and Long Beach Boulevard a short time after leaving the convenience store, Luna said.
He rode the train to Los Angeles and exited at the San Pedro station, at Washington Boulevard and San Pedro Street, Luna said.
Investigators have spoken to people who were on the train with the man, including some who talked to him and said he made some statements about planning to leave the state, according to Long Beach police Lt. Lloyd Cox.
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Cox would not elaborate on exactly what led investigators to zero in on the man, who appeared to be pacing and sweating in the footage.
Luis Anaya told investigators that a man walked up to his longtime girlfriend and their daughter and suddenly — without provocation — opened fired, then ran off. He said he did not recognize the man, nor did anyone else in the neighborhood, according to police.
The gunman also fired at Anaya, but missed, according to Cox.
