Teenager's Slaying in Marina del Rey May Be Drug Deal Gone Bad

Homicide detectives searched Thursday for the man reported to have gunned down a 17-year-old girl visiting from Texas at a shopping center in normally tranquil Marina del Rey during what may have been a drug deal gone bad.

The shooting took place in the parking lot of the Villa Marina Marketplace mall at Mindanao Way and Glencoe Avenue about 8 p.m. Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Kristine Carman of Houston was shot in the head while sitting in an SUV parked near Jerry’s Famous Deli on the south end of the shopping center.

Police said there were at least two people in the SUV. Following the shooting, the person behind the wheel drove across the parking lot, stopping in a parking space outside a Panda Express, where Carman was ultimately found dead.

The suspect was described as a man wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and a blue beanie, according to the LAPD. He fled the location in a dark SUV, possibly heading toward the Marina (90) Freeway, police said.

Lacey Carman of Marina del Rey wrote on Facebook that Kristine was her sister. Lacey Carman wrote she was the one driving the SUV and that “my sister was just murdered in front of me in a robbery gone wrong.” Her sister, she wrote, was “beautiful smart and undeserving” of the fate that befell her.

“I pray that God is real and holding my sisters hand right now. I pray that you never have to feel this pain or this self loathing,” she said.

Officer Drake Madison of the LAPD’s Media Relations Section said he could not confirm a broadcast report that investigators said Lacey Carman’s boyfriend was in the SUV with the sisters and was trying to sell two pounds of marijuana.

Anyone with information on the case was urged to call the LAPD’s West Bureau homicide office at (213) 382-9470, or (877) LAPD-247. All tips can be made anonymously.

--City News Service