Man at large after allegedly killing woman 8 months pregnant with his baby: Police

(LOS ANGELES) — Investigators are working to determine whether four murders of homeless people in Los Angeles that occurred between October and January are connected, officials said.

The killings occurred in the same general location, the 1300 block of East 120th Street in the unincorporated area of Los Angeles, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau.

Among the killings was that of former NFL player Kevin Johnson, whom investigators said was found dead on Jan. 21 at a homeless encampment area, as reported by local ABC News station KABC. Johnson, 55, suffered from a blunt force trauma and stab wounds, they said. All four victims lived in homeless encampments, according to officials.

All four murders remain under active investigation.

The string of murders in the Compton Creek area began on Oct. 5, 2025, when a woman, identified as 52-year-old Michelle Steele, was shot in the head, sources close to the investigation told KABC. She died in the hospital on Nov. 12, 2025, they said.

Three weeks later, on Dec. 4, a homeless man identified as 52-year-old Octavio Arias was murdered in the same area, KABC reported. Arias died from head and neck trauma, according to L.A. County Medical Examiner records.

The fourth victim, following the murder of Johnson, was identified as Mauro Alfaro, also in his 50s. Alfaro was killed on Jan. 26, and the cause of death was blunt force trauma, sources told KABC.

Investigators are now looking into the possibility that all four murders were done by the same killer, KABC reported. A suspect has not been identified, sources inside the L.A. County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau told KABC.

Detectives are still trying to determine motives in the killings and trying to figure out if the suspect is someone who is upset with homeless people being in that area, or if drugs or gangs may be involved, sources told KABC. There is no concrete evidence linking the cases together, according to sources.

Johnson played for the Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland Raiders from 1995 to 1997, according to KABC.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday grappled with whether the Trump administration has the authority to end humanitarian protections for thousands of immigrants without facing judicial review. 

While an unrelated ruling about the Voting Rights Act overshadowed the arguments, the court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical of the legal challenge to reverse the cancellation of temporary protected status for thousands of Haitians and Syrians. 

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that Congress gave the Secretary of Homeland Security unreviewable discretion to manage and end TPS designations, arguing that a legal challenge would result in “judicial micromanagement” of foreign policy.    

“Congress balanced the risk there might be some decision that’s erroneous or baseless… that would evade judicial review, against the risk of what we’re living through here, which is judicial micromanagement of the sorts of foreign policy laden in determinations and decisions that are naturally conferred upon the political branches,” Sauer said. 

But attorneys representing the Haitians and Syrian Temporary Protected Status holders argued that the Homeland Secretary must follow the “procedural guardrails” set by Congress, which include reviewing country conditions, consulting other government agencies, and providing TPS holders 60 days of notice. 

“The bottom line is the secretary can terminate TPS, but he must turn square corners and follow the rules Congress set,” said attorney Ahilan T. Arulantham. “In contrast, as we’ve heard today, the government reads the statute like a blank check today. They want to use it to expel non-citizens, but the power that they seek is a double-edged sword.” 

Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned the significance of the legal challenge, which was described as a “box-checking exercise,” if the Trump administration still canceled the designation as long as they followed the procedural steps. 

“If it’s just kind of a box-checking exercise, I mean, why would Congress permit review of the procedural aspect, when really what everybody cares about much more is the substance?” Barrett asked. 

“I think it’s because Congress and us too, and the millions of people who live with TPS holders, have some faith in government, and they believe that if there is consultation, the decisions will be better,” Arulanantham said. 

Sauer pushed back on those arguments, claiming that the Trump administration fulfilled the procedural requirements by “seeking input” from the State Department, though he claimed that even those basic steps were not necessary. 

“If the secretary posted a notice on X saying, ‘I hereby terminate Syria’s TPS program effective tomorrow,’ you would say that there’s no judicial review of that decision,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. 

“Correct,” Sauer said.

The three liberal justices also pressed Sauer about President Donald Trump’s public and social media comments about Haitian immigrants, suggesting the statements show a “discriminatory purpose” behind the TPS cancellation. 

“The President has disparaged Haitian TPS holders specifically as undesirables from a ‘s——- country,’ and days after falsely accusing them of ‘eating the dogs and eating the cats of Americans,’ he vowed that he would terminate Haiti’s TPS, and that is exactly what happened,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed back on the government’s claim that Trump’s rhetoric was focused on policy issues like crime or poverty and pointed to remarks made about “welcoming people” from Norway or Denmark.

“If the position of the United States is that we have to have an actual racial epithet… [and] we aren’t allowed to look at all the context,” Jackson said, then the court would be ignoring a “prime example” of discriminatory intent. 

Justice Jackson noted that U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes — who attended Wednesday’s hearing and blocked the termination of TPS for Haitians in February — found that there is evidence of “discriminatory intent.”

“So aren’t we bound in some regard with respect to what the lower court has already determined about these facts?” she asked. 

Sauer said the court should apply the logic of a different judge who said the President’s statements “are less relevant.”

At one point during the hearing, Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned the protections in place for Syrians by mentioning that Bashar al-Assad’s regime is no longer in place. 

“The whole thing was the Assad regime,” Kavanaugh said. “After 53 years of complete oppression and brutal treatment, it’s done.” 

Arulantham, who argued on behalf of the Syrians, pushed back and said that while the regime may have changed, the country remains a war zone and pointed to current State Department reports of violence in the country. 

“It is of no relevance because even if the secretary is right and the State Department is wrong, it doesn’t change the fact that they didn’t talk to each other, and the national interest is not a criteria,” Arulantham said. 

While the Court on Wednesday appeared closely divided on whether to invalidate Trump’s cancellation of TPS for Haitians and Syrians over procedural missteps, the bottom line is that the administration retains almost unquestionable discretion as to if and when TPS status for certain countries should be discontinued. 

And that means, if the legal teams representing the migrants prevail in this instance, it may be short-lived. The administration can move again to cancel their status, following the appropriate procedural steps, and more than 350,000+ immigrants who have lived here legally for quite some time under TPS could be forced to leave the country.

The court is expected to issue its decision in the case this summer. 

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(ATLANTA) — A Georgia jury found Colin Gray guilty Tuesday on charges including second-degree murder and manslaughter, stemming from a 2024 mass shooting allegedly committed by his teenage son with a rifle he gifted him as a Christmas present.

The jury found the 55-year-old Gray guilty of 27 counts. Two other counts were dropped. The jury deliberated fewer than two hours before returning its verdicts.

Gray is the first parent in the United States convicted of murder due to the alleged acts of their child after prosecutors in various U.S. states in recent years have attempted to hold parents criminally liable in connection to their children’s deadly actions.

Colin Gray was charged with multiple counts of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and cruelty to children. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Gray’s son, Colt Gray, now 16, allegedly killed two students and two teachers and injured eight students in a Sept. 4, 2024, mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Colt Gray has been charged as an adult and is awaiting a separate trial on multiple counts of felony murder and aggravated assault. He has pleaded not guilty.

During the two-week trial, Barrow County prosecutors presented evidence that Colin Gray had been warned that his son had an affinity for mass shooters and was aware that Colt kept a shrine in his bedroom dedicated to the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Instead of getting his son psychological help, Colin Gray allegedly gave the boy an AR-15-style weapon as a Christmas present that he ultimately used to carry out the mass shooting at Apalachee High School, prosecutors alleged.

On Friday, Colin Gray took the witness stand in his own defense and broke down while being questioned about whether he noticed any “red flags” that would have led him to believe the boy was capable of committing a mass shooting.

“I struggle with it every day,” Colin Gray testified. “He’s a good kid, you know? He wasn’t perfect, but to do something, uh, that heinous, like I don’t, I don’t know if anybody would see that type of evil.”

During his testimony, Gray confirmed that he gave his son the AR-15-style rifle as a Christmas present, telling jurors the gift came with rules.

“This is a weapon that I want you to shoot when we go to the range, and if you keep doing really good in school, going to school and doing all the things you should, you graduate and you’re 18, this will be your gun,” Colin Gray said he told his son.

The landmark guilty verdict comes after several parents across the country have been charged and convicted in connection with mass shootings carried out by their children.

In December 2023, Robert Crimo Jr. pleaded guilty to seven counts of misdemeanor reckless conduct – one count for each person killed by his son, Robert Crimo III – during a mass shooting at a Fourth of July Parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. As part of a plea deal, Crimo Jr. was sentenced to 60 days in jail and two years of probation.

Crimo’s son, who was 19 at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder and attempted murder in April 2025 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In 2021, Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first parents convicted in the United States of charges stemming from a mass school shooting committed by their child. Ethan Crumbley, then 16, pleaded guilty in October 2022 to charges he murdered four students and injured several others in a November 2021 shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, Michigan, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Jennifer and James Crumbley were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in separate trials after prosecutors presented evidence of an unsecured gun at their home and their indifference toward their son’s mental health. They were each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.

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