A man from Pasadena was charged with two counts of murder after he is witnessed stabbing his mother and uncle via a Zoom call.
Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department arrested 32-year-old Robert Cotton on March 22, after he showed up on foot and identified himself as a resident of the home.
The victims were 67-year-old Carol Anne Brown and 69-year-old Kenneth Wayne Preston, Cotton’s mother and uncle respectively.
Brown, a Pasadena City College administrator and educator, was engaged on a Zoom call with a colleague who witnessed part of the attack on Preston, wherein Cotton allegedly dragged another man into the living room.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies went to the residence in the 3100 block of North Marengo Avenue at about 2:45 p.m. Monday, after receiving a 911 call reporting a possible kidnapping.
The authorities saw Preston’s body, who had been stabbed several times, dead in the driveway while Brown was found dead inside her home.
Investigators found the murder weapon on the scene and learned that a Lexus SUV belonging to one of the victims was missing from the residence, which the suspect allegedly ditched in the neighborhood.
“This is just bad,” said Darlene Thomas, who was one of the neighbors of the victims that was stunned by the gruesome incident.
“You live here and you don’t expect to have tape and helicopters, and this. Somebody is destroyed, multiple people are destroyed by this.”
Cotton was jailed and later booked Monday evening for murder, and the District Attorney’s Office seeks $4 million bail.
According to jail records, he is being held at Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles and will be arraigned Thursday in Pasadena Superior Court.
The suspect was
Cotton is the second person to be accused of murdering a parent during a Zoom call since the start of the pandemic.
The motive for the stabbings is still under investigation.