Anthony Ray Lopez, 23, of Anaheim, is being held in lieu of $1 million bail for allegedly using his car to deliberately run over and murder a grandfather bicycling a few blocks from his home.
The family of Armando
Villalobos has no idea who Lopez is, and homicide detectives have not yet released a motive for the slaying nor what evidence shows Lopez intended to kill the 68-year-old.
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What is known is neighbors along
the 3700 block of Windsong Street, a residential neighborhood in the unincorporated Home Gardens community, heard a commotion late Sunday afternoon and came outdoors to discover a man lying in the street with his bike several feet away. California Highway Patrol officers who arrived around 4:40 p.m. had Villalobos rushed by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where he died from his injuries.
A trail of blood carried by the car that hit the dead man could still be seen on Windsong. Riverside County sheriff's officials say witnesses put deputies on the trail of Lopez. But information is still being gathered, and anyone who can help is
urged to call the Homicide Unit at 951.955.2777 or Investigator Roman Pluimer of the
Jurupa Valley Station at 951.955.2600.
Joseph Villalobos, the son of the deceased, said the killing hits the family particularly hard because his mother passed away in April and a sister died in June.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.