Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies introduced a $20,000 reward Wednesday for data on the killing of an active-duty Marine on the streets of Bellflower in Might.
Deputies responded to a hit-and-run on a pedestrian at 2 a.m. Might 28 at Virginia Avenue and Artesia Boulevard. Peter Chounthala, 42, was discovered mendacity on the street with accidents to his higher chest and was pronounced lifeless on the scene, the Sheriff’s Division mentioned.
Throughout an investigation, deputies mentioned they discovered that at the very least two males assaulted Chounthala in “mindless acts of violence” earlier than heading towards a close-by car parking zone.
The boys left Chounthala injured on the street earlier than he was hit by a dark-colored four-door Kia K5 made between 2021 and 2023, Lt. Patricia Thomas of the sheriff’s Murder Bureau mentioned at a information convention. The automobile was final seen heading east on Artesia Boulevard, Thomas mentioned.
Investigators didn’t say whether or not they believed Chounthala’s assailants had been driving the automobile or whether or not he was hit by one other motorist.
“He was all the things to me, to my household,” the sufferer’s spouse, Jurina Chounthala, mentioned on the information convention. “He’s just like the glue that held us collectively.”
Peter Chounthala, the daddy of a 3-year-old son, joined the Marines in 2008 and served a number of excursions in Afghanistan. He was on account of retire on the finish of the yr, mentioned Witpha Chounthala, the sufferer’s sister.
“It might take them in the future or 100 years, however imagine me, they’ll discover you, regardless of the place you might be, how far you go or how lengthy you run. You’ll not escape,” his sister mentioned, asking the suspects to show themselves in.
Deputies ask anybody with details about the incident to name the Murder Bureau at (323) 890-5500 or Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477.
