LAPD makes arrests in Benedict Canyon triple slaying

Los Angeles police detectives have taken into custody several suspects in connection with a triple slaying outside a Benedict Canyon home earlier this year, law enforcement sources told The Times.

After months of investigation that led detectives to a Beverly Hills high-rise, where a getaway car had been spotted, police have taken into custody those they say were involved in the Jan. 28 attack, which left three dead and four others critically wounded, according to law enforcement sources. Three suspects have been identified, sources told The Times.

An LAPD news conference is scheduled for 9 a.m. Capt. Jonathan Tippet, who leads the Robbery-Homicide Division, is expected to provide details of how the crime unfolded and how the suspects were captured.

The deadly attack occurred outside a short-term rental home in the 2700 block of Ellison Drive, a street of large hillside homes north of Beverly Hills. Neighbors reported seeing several cars driving away minutes after gunfire rang out around 3 a.m., police said.

Detectives released a crime alert with information they had received from both witnesses and surveillance video from the scene. They said the suspects were last seen driving a blue, four-door Tesla with damage to its right front fender and no license plates. That vehicle was tracked to a condo complex in the 8600 block of Wilshire Boulevard, where one of the apartments was searched in March for forensic evidence connected to the shooting.

Tips from community members who saw the suspects’ vehicle in and around the West L.A. and Beverly Hills area led investigators to the apartment complex on Wilshire. A warrant to search the apartment was obtained after it was connected to the Tesla.

Tippet told The Times in March that the Benedict Canyon attack wasn’t random; it targeted three women and members of their group, one of whom was an aspiring rapper.

Those who were killed — Nenah Davis, 29, of Bolingbrook, Ill.; Destiny Sims, 26, of Buckeye, Ariz.; and Iyana Hutton, 33, of Chicago — all had roots in the Chicago area, police said. The lifelong friends died in a hail of gunfire that peppered their rented Porsche SUV.

Hutton was trying to get into the music business before she was killed and was said by a friend to be in L.A. for an album release. Davis, one of Hutton’s best friends, was a mother who once worked as a nurse. Sims was a mother of three and a hairstylist who grew up in Illinois before moving west with her family.

Earlier the night of the shooting, the trio had visited a bowling alley before returning to their rental home, according to friends interviewed by The Times.

Artist Mick E. Finnz, a longtime friend of Hutton’s, wondered whether something happened at the bowling alley to set off the deadly events. But Tippet said detectives found no evidence of any altercation.