Just days after his aunt and uncle were reported missing in Houston, Ramon Escobar got in his Honda CR-V and drove west. The 47-year-old native of El Salvador traveled more than 1,500 miles along Interstate 10, stopping when he hit the Pacific Ocean on Sept. 5. Three days later, Santa Monica police found a homeless man battered and bruised on the beach. Someone had beaten the victim, causing severe injuries to his head, as he slept. Over the course of 17 days, police allege, Escobar would approach six other men the same way — sneaking up as they dozed in secluded areas, sometimes clutching a wooden baseball bat or a pair of bolt cutters. Advertisement Police believe Escobar cut a bloody swath across Los Angeles and Santa Monica, beating three men to death and seriously injuring four others in a series of vicious attacks that jolted the city’s vulnerable homeless population. “It’s not just that people are being murdered. You hear of people being bludgeoned to death on city sidewalks,” said Mel Tillekeratne, executive director of Shower of Hope, which provides free mobile showers and other hygiene services to the homeless. “It breaks your heart.” Investigators will seek to charge Escobar with murder in the deaths of Kelvin Williams, 59, Braden Ridout, 34, and Steven Ray Cruze Jr., 39, Capt. Billy Hayes, who heads the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division, said at a downtown news conference. Escobar will also face attempted murder charges in attacks on four homeless men in Santa Monica and Los Angeles that took place from Sept. 8 to 24, Hayes said. Three of those men remain in critical condition, police said. Police said surveillance video and other forensic evidence linked Escobar to most of the attacks. Hayes said the LAPD is contacting authorities in cities along the route from Houston to determine if other similar attacks could be connected to its investigation. “He is a violent predator,” Hayes said. Escobar has a lengthy criminal record that includes arrests for assault, burglary and trespassing in the Houston area, court records show. He was imprisoned in Texas from 1995 to 2000 after a burglary conviction, Hayes said. In one of those cases, records show, a judge questioned Escobar’s competency to stand trial. “Nobody in their right mind would do something as vicious as this,” Hayes said, adding that he believed Escobar was culpable for his alleged actions. Advertisement Hayes described Escobar as a “previously deported felon,” but did not know exactly when he had been removed from the country or why. At some point, Escobar was allowed to return to the U.S. as an asylum seeker. Hayes could not say exactly when Escobar gained reentry to the country. Late Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Escobar was ordered removed from the U.S. by a federal immigration judge in February 1988, and was deported to El Salvador six times between 1997 and 2011. ICE said Escobar has six felony convictions for burglary and illegal reentry. “After illegally reentering the U.S. following his most-recent removal, [Escobar] filed an appeal of his immigration case ... in June 2016, which the courts granted in December 2016. ICE released him from custody on an Order of Supervision in January 2017 pursuant to the court’s decision.” While nearly all of the attacks involved homeless victims, Hayes said detectives believe Escobar was targeting isolated victims so he could rob them, not specifically because they were homeless. Surveillance footage showed the assailant rummaging through his victims’ pockets in some of the attacks. Advertisement Police also searched the vehicle Escobar brought west, where they found blood and the baseball bat they believe was used to kill Williams and Ridout in downtown Los Angeles, Hayes said. Both men were beaten to death as they slept in the Financial District on Sept. 16, Hayes said. Four days later, Cruze was sleeping under the Santa Monica Pier after a fishing trip when he was pummeled by the attacker, authorities said. Cruze was not homeless, according to his family, but sometimes slept on the beach between shifts on a commercial fishing boat in Santa Monica. “He was doing what he wanted to do in life, and somebody took his life from him,” said the victim’s uncle, Steven Smith. Advertisement Escobar is also considered a person of interest in the disappearance of his aunt and uncle, Dina and Rogelio Escobar, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said. The brother and sister were last seen in late August, Houston Police Lt. Humberto Lopez said. Rogelio Escobar, 65, was last seen near a convenience store in Houston on Aug. 26 and left a backpack on the porch of his Prudence Drive home the same day, Lopez said. Dina Escobar, 60, went looking for her brother in a 2007 Chevy Uplander and was reported missing days later, Lopez said. Lopez said foul play is suspected in their disappearance. The charred remains of Dina Escobar’s vehicle were found on a beach in Galveston, roughly 50 miles outside of Houston, earlier this month, according to Tim Miller, the founder of Texas Equusearch, a horseback rescue group that aids in the search for missing persons. His organization has been involved in the search for Dina and Rogelio Escobar since late August. Escobar sometimes lived with his missing uncle, Rogelio, but would disappear for days at a time to seek work as a day laborer, Miller said. Houston police said Escobar fled the area before detectives could question him in connection with his relatives’ disappearance, Lopez said. Advertisement He arrived in Santa Monica on Sept. 5, Hayes said. A pattern of brutal attacks against homeless man began just days later. On Sept. 8, Escobar allegedly attacked a homeless man sleeping on the beach around 6:45 a.m., according to Santa Monica Police Capt. Wendell Shirley. Two days later, another homeless man was found with severe head injuries in the same area, Shirley said. One of those victims has since been released from the hospital, but the other is in a coma, Shirley said. Six days later, Escobar was caught on surveillance cameras roaming the downtown Financial District with a baseball bat.<doc-sep>The man accused of carrying out a series of savage attacks against homeless men in the Los Angeles area was sent to federal prison for illegally crossing the Texas border on multiple occasions, according to a review of court records that also raised questions about his mental health history. Ramon Escobar, a Salvadoran national, was deported from the U.S. six times from 1997 to 2011, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. For the record: A previous version of this article said authorities identified an eighth victim who was attacked on Venice Beach. The attack occurred near the area of Venice and Sawtelle boulevards. The agency said he was first ordered deported in 1997, and federal court records show he was accused of illegal reentry to the U.S. in November 2001. He was sentenced to 23 months in prison, according to records. It was unclear when Escobar was deported again, but he was arrested for illegal reentry a second time in Texas in 2004, records show. Court records show at least three other illegal reentries — in 2007, 2012 and 2016. During the 2012 case, a judge ordered Escobar be sent to a prison medical facility after questions about his mental health were raised by attorneys and jail staff, records show. Advertisement Escobar, 47, was formally charged Wednesday with three counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder and four counts of robbery in connection with a string of vicious beatings that targeted men sleeping outside in areas of Los Angeles and Santa Monica this month, prosecutors said. Wearing blue jail scrubs, Escobar did not enter a plea during a brief court appearance in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Escobar, who is due back in court Nov. 8, could face the death penalty if convicted. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo also said Wednesday that Escobar is now “suspected of foul play” in the disappearance of his aunt and uncle in Texas last month. Investigators say Escobar fled to Southern California from Houston after Dina Escobar, 60, and Rogelio Escobar, 65, went missing in late August. The charred remains of Dina Escobar’s car were found on a beach in Galveston, Texas, in early September, police have said. Police questioned Escobar on Aug. 30 about his aunt’s disappearance, said Kese Smith, a Houston police spokesman. Escobar was not a suspect at the time, and Smith said detectives “spoke to him as a family member.” Houston detectives will travel to Los Angeles and want to interview Escobar. (Los Angeles Times) Escobar arrived in Santa Monica on Sept. 5. Police said he did not have any acquaintances in Southern California, and they are not sure why he fled here. Advertisement Days later, police allege, he carried out the first of eight assaults that left three men dead and five others seriously injured. One of his surviving victims remains comatose, and three others are in critical condition, police said. Kelvin Williams, 59, and Braden Ridout, 34, were beaten to death with a wooden baseball bat as they slept outside in downtown Los Angeles’ Financial District on Sept. 16. Another man sleeping nearby, Tievon Harmon, 23, was critically injured in those attacks, police said. Four days later, police allege, Escobar beat 39-year-old San Gabriel resident Steven Ray Cruze Jr. to death as he slept under the Santa Monica Pier after an overnight fishing trip. On Wednesday, Los Angeles police officials also revealed the existence of an eighth victim who was battered near Sawtelle and Venice boulevards on Sept. 22. The victim, who was homeless, was struck in the head with bolt cutters, Capt. Billy Hayes of the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division said. Advertisement Despite fears that someone was specifically trying to hurt members of the area’s sprawling homeless population, investigators believe Escobar was targeting people who appeared to be isolated so he could rob them. A review of state and federal court records in Texas showed Escobar was no stranger to a courtroom, facing arrest multiple times from 1992 to 2018. Many of Escobar’s court appearances involved his immigration status. Despite his past removals from the country, Escobar was granted an appeal of his deportation order in December 2016 and released from federal custody in January of last year, according to ICE, which did not respond to inquires about the nature of his appeal or other questions posed by The Times on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Police Department said Escobar had been deported but was allowed to reenter the country on an asylum claim, though police did not know when or why. Court records relating to asylum cases are not open to the public. Advertisement Records also show that Escobar was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2001 and spent time in the Harris County Psychiatric Center in Houston. Hector A. Casas, an assistant public defender who was representing Escobar at the time, told a judge that jail staff had reported his client may have been “suffering from a mental disease or defect.” A judge ordered a hearing on Escobar’s competency at the time, but the records were sealed. Casas did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday. Escobar was convicted of burglary and sentenced to five years in prison in 1995. According to a 2007 complaint filed in Brownsville, Texas, Escobar claimed he was a U.S. citizen born in Houston when trying to cross the border but later admitted he was a citizen of El Salvador. The pattern repeated in 2012, according to court records. At that time, Casas raised the question of Escobar’s prior diagnosis of schizophrenia. A judge transferred him to a prison medical facility in Springfield, Mo., but all reports on his mental health were sealed. Escobar was returned to Brownsville in October 2013 and sentenced to two years in federal prison. Advertisement ICE said Escobar illegally reentered the country once again in 2016 before being granted the appeal of his deportation order. Connie Williams, a Houston-based defense attorney who represented Escobar against trespassing and misdemeanor assault allegations this year, said he was shocked by the vicious nature of the crimes of which Escobar is accused. ”He didn’t appear to be a violent person,” Williams said.<doc-sep>Crime & Safety Suspected Serial Killer Arrested In LA Homeless Attacks A man suspected of beating sleeping homeless men to death in LA was arrested Monday and is wanted for questioning in Texas cases. Reply SANTA MONICA, CA — A man arrested on suspicion of beating a man unconscious in Santa Monica Monday morning is the same man who killed two sleeping homeless men in Los Angeles last week and another man sleeping beneath the Santa Monica Pier, police believe. Additionally police in Texas want to question him in connection with the disappearance of two relatives. The suspected serial killer, Ramon Escobar, 47, is a person of interest in the disappearance of Rogelio Escobar and Dina Escobar, Lt. Humberto Lopez of the Houston Police Department told the Los Angeles Times. Both went missing late last month and foul play is suspected in their disappearances, Lopez told The Times. Escobar was arrested Monday in Santa Monica where police set up a perimeter after finding a man suffering a traumatic injury. Shortly before 7 a.m., Santa Monica officers went to the 1500 block of Seventh Street on a report of a male victim with head injuries, " Santa Monica Police Department Lt. Saul Rodriguez said. It was the fifth attack on an unsuspecting person in the region within a week, creating alarm within the homeless community, and police responded aggressively to find the suspect. "Upon arrival, officers located a male adult victim unconscious and suffering from injuries to the head consistent with blunt force trauma," and paramedics took the man to a hospital, the lieutenant said. A condition report was unavailable as of Monday afternoon. "As officers searched the area, a possible male suspect was located in the 600 block of Broadway Avenue," Rodriguez said. "Following a preliminary investigation by SMPD detectives, the suspect has been placed under arrest for ... assault." The arrested followed a string of violent attacks that put the community on edge. About 6:30 a.m. last Thursday, 39-year-old Steven Cruze Jr. of San Gabriel was found fatally beaten beneath the Santa Monica Pier. Although initially described by authorities as homeless, Cruze's family said that was not the case. "He wasn't homeless," his father, Steven Cruze Sr., told NBC4 at a Friday evening vigil. "He just slept over here (under the pier) and went to work from here sometimes. He had a membership with a gym so could get up in the morning, go take a shower and go to work. He knows so many people on this pier, he felt safe."<doc-sep>The man suspected of beating two homeless men to death and leaving two others in critical condition in Los Angeles County this month is also wanted for questioning in the disappearance of two of his relatives in Texas, police said. Ramon Escobar, 47, was captured by police in Santa Monica early Monday and is being held on suspicion of murder in the deaths of two homeless men who were battered with a baseball bat as they slept in downtown Los Angeles. A third man was critically injured in those attacks. He was arrested shortly after he allegedly beat another homeless man in Santa Monica, police said. After receiving word of his arrest in Southern California, Houston police officials told The Times that Escobar was also a person of interest in the August disappearances of Dina Escobar, 60, and Rogelio Escobar, 65. Houston Police Lt. Humberto Lopez said the two went missing late last month. Rogelio Escobar was last seen near a convenience store in Houston on Aug. 26 and left a backpack on the porch of his Prudence Drive home the same day. Advertisement Dina Escobar soon got into her 2007 Chevy Uplander and went looking for her brother, and she hasn’t been seen since, Lopez said. Foul play is suspected in their disappearances, Lopez said. The charred remains of Dina Escobar’s van were found in Galveston, about 50 miles outside of Houston, a few days later. “He was their nephew. We are looking to talk to him,” Lopez said. “We learned he was in L.A. Monday from detectives there with the arrest.” Investigators are also investigating Escobar’s links to the killing of a 39-year-old San Gabriel man who was found beaten to death under the Santa Monica Pier last week and attacks on two other homeless men who suffered blunt force trauma injuries to their heads in early September. Escobar was arrested in the 600 block of Broadway in Santa Monica shortly before 7:30 a.m. Monday after police responded to an attack on a homeless man in the 1500 block of 7th Street, said Lt. Saul Rodriguez, a Santa Monica police spokesman. The victim in that case remains unconscious in critical condition, Rodriguez said. The attack bore resemblance to others that have unnerved the homeless community in recent weeks. richard.winton@latimes.com james.queally@latimes.com Advertisement Follow @LAcrimes & @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California. UPDATES: 10:55 p.m.: Updated with a quote from Houston police. Advertisement This article was first published at 10:05 p.m.<doc-sep>
A Houston-area man is now suspected of killing three people and seriously injuring four others in a series of brutal assaults in Los Angeles and Santa Monica that caused widespread panic in the region’s sprawling homeless community, authorities said Tuesday. Investigators believe Ramon Escobar, 47, savagely beat three homeless men with a baseball bat while they slept on the street in downtown Los Angeles on Sept. 16, Capt. Billy Hayes of the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division said at a downtown news conference. Two of those men have since died, and a third remains in critical condition. Four days later, police said, he traveled to Santa Monica and pummeled 39-year-old Steven Ray Cruze Jr. underneath the Santa Monica Pier. Cruze, a fisherman from San Gabriel, was found dead by a beach maintenance worker the next morning. (Los Angeles Times) Escobar is being held without bail. He was arrested Monday by Santa Monica police after he allegedly attacked another homeless man while he slept near 7th Street and Broadway, authorities said. The victim in that case remains in critical condition. Investigators will seek to charge Escobar with the murders of Kelvin Williams, 59, Braden Ridout, 34, and Cruze, Hayes said. Late Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Escobar was ordered removed from the U.S. by a federal immigration judge in February 1988 and was deported to El Salvador six times between 1997 and 2011. ICE said Escobar has six felony convictions for burglary and illegal reentry. “After illegally reentering the U.S. following his most-recent removal, [Escobar] filed an appeal of his immigration case ... in June 2016, which the courts granted in December 2016. ICE released him from custody on an Order of Supervision in January 2017 pursuant to the court’s decision.” The attacks, all similar in nature, have deeply disturbed the city’s already at-risk homeless population, advocates said. In each assault, the victims were sleeping outside when someone approached in the pre-dawn hours and struck them viciously in the skull, police have said. The violence began Sept. 8, when Escobar allegedly attacked a homeless man who was sleeping on the beach in Santa Monica about 6:45 a.m., said Capt. Wendell Shirley, head of the Santa Monica Police Department’s criminal investigations bureau. Two days later, he conducted a similar assault against a homeless man in the same area, Shirley said. One of those victims has been released from the hospital, but another is in a coma. Hayes said he believes Escobar was targeting men who appeared homeless for the purpose of robbing them, rather than a specific desire to hurt homeless people. Police recovered a baseball bat and bolt cutters during a search of Escobar’s car, said Hayes, who added that he believes the same bat was used in the downtown killings. As word of Escobar’s arrest began to spread Monday afternoon, officials with the Houston Police Department said they had also been searching for Escobar, whose aunt and uncle disappeared from the Houston area in late August. Rogelio Escobar, 65, was last seen near a convenience store in Houston on Aug. 26 and left a backpack on the porch of his Prudence Drive home the same day, according to Houston Police Lt. Humberto Lopez. Dina Escobar, 60, went looking for her brother in a 2007 Chevy Uplander and was reported missing days later, Lopez said. Ramon Escobar is considered a person of interest in their disappearance, according to Lopez, who said foul play is suspected in the case. Lopez said investigators knew Escobar had left Texas and believed he had fled to California. Houston police have said they want to interview Escobar in connection with the disappearances. On Tuesday, Hayes said Escobar arrived in the Los Angeles area on Sept. 5, three days before the first assault in Santa Monica. Escobar sometimes lived with his missing uncle, Rogelio, but would disappear for days at a time to seek work as a day laborer, according to Tim Miller, the founder of Texas Equusearch, a horseback rescue group that aids in the search for missing persons. His organization has been involved in the search for Dina and Rogelio Escobar since late August. Miller said his group found the charred remains of Dina Escobar’s vehicle on a beach in Galveston, about 50 miles outside of Houston, earlier this month. There were no surveillance cameras in the area, which is not located near any homes or businesses, Miller said.