A man was charged Monday with murder in the 2009 slaying of a woman whose body was found stuffed inside an apartment wall last summer, prosecutors said.
Randolph Garbutt was charged with one count of murder with the special allegation that he used a dangerous weapon - a hammer - in the killing of Raven Joy Campbell, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.
Garbutt was expected to be arraigned Monday in a Torrance courtroom, where prosecutors planned to ask that his bail be set at $1 million.
On July 2, Campbell's body was discovered hidden the wall of her Harbor Hills Housing Project home in Lomita, the same apartment from which she was reported missing six years earlier. Officials said she died of blunt force trauma to the head.
Neighbors had complained about an odd odor for years before a phone call tip to Campbell's sister brought sheriff's investigators to the apartment and police dogs led them to the grisly discovery, her family said.
Garbutt and Campbell both lived at the apartment at the time of her disappearance, along with a couple. The couple no longer lives in the apartment, and has been cooperative with the investigation, officials said.
Police announced the arrest of Garbutt last Friday. If convicted as charged, he faces up to life in state prison.
