Indigent man held in grisly homicide
Suspect chopped up wife, carried body in suitcase on train and burned it, police say.
The killing, police said, was “particularly disturbing.”
Authorities believe a man killed his wife and dismembered her body in an abandoned Pasadena restaurant, placing her remains in a suitcase that he then carried aboard a Metro Gold Line train.
Five stops later, he hopped off in Cypress Park and rode his bicycle — the suitcase still in tow — to the parking lot of a Home Depot. There, police say, the man lighted the grisly package on fire.
On Tuesday, prosecutors charged Valentino Gutierrez, a 56-year-old homeless man, with murder and arson. The Los Angeles Police Department tentatively named the victim as Tiana Alfred, 31, but said her body was so badly damaged that coroner’s officials had not yet confirmed her identity.
“To dismember an individual like that is pretty grotesque,” LAPD Capt. Billy Hayes told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “It takes an awful lot of effort and deter-
mination ... which is pretty cold.”
The investigation began shortly after 1:30 a.m. Thursday, after firefighters doused the fire, LAPD officials said. Once it was out, Chief Charlie Beck said, they opened the suitcase and found “dismembered body parts” inside.
Detectives from the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division, which handles high-profile or particularly complex investigations, immediately took the case. Investigators soon found surveillance video showing a man riding a train with the same suitcase, Beck said.
Other people were on the train at the time — shortly after midnight on Thursday — but it didn’t appear that they interacted with Gutierrez, Hayes said.
Other than the fact that the suitcase appeared to be very heavy, “there was nothing that we can see that was out of the ordinary,” Hayes said.
After watching the video, detectives determined that Gutierrez got on the train at the Fillmore Station in Pasadena, Hayes said. From there, police used a bloodhound to retrace his trail.
Investigators interviewed homeless people in the area, who helped identify Gutierrez, police said.
“Their statements also tied him to the murder,” Beck said.
Police arrested Gutierrez shortly after 10 a.m. Friday after he left a homeless shelter in Pasadena, authorities said. They also identified the scene where they believe he dismembered his victim, the defunct Dona Rosa Bakery and Taqueria at California Boulevard and Arroyo Parkway. Pasadena police said officers from that city had responded to the location three times last year for “homeless-related concerns.”
Hayes said detectives found forensic evidence there but declined to elaborate. They are still searching for the murder weapon, he said, as well as a motive.
Police believe Gutierrez killed Alfred sometime on Jan. 30, Hayes said. The couple had been living at a Pasadena homeless shelter for several months, he added.
Gutierrez had a lengthy criminal history, LAPD Deputy Chief Justin Eisenberg said, including convictions for robbery, battery, domestic violence, drugs and possession of a deadly weapon.
If convicted of the arson and murder charges, prosecutors said, he faces up to life in prison.