Leads Sought in Hunt for Teenager’s Suspected Killer

A man suspected of fatally shooting his pregnant 17-year-old girlfriend earlier this month has made the Long Beach Police Department’s most-wanted list after he was seen near the crime scene last weekend.

Prosecutors have filed two counts of murder against 25-year-old Robert Charles Thomas. He faces the possibility of life in prison or the death penalty if convicted of murdering Angel Monique Johnson and her three-month fetus.

Thomas is believed to be staying in the Long Beach area and should be considered armed and dangerous because the 9-millimeter pistol used in the July 18 killings has not been recovered, police spokeswoman Karen Kerr said.

“This guy did a particularly brutal crime,” Kerr said. “We’re [trying] to get this guy off the street by going to the public.”

On the night of the crime, detectives say, the couple were arguing at the victims’ apartment in the Carmelitos housing project, perhaps over phone calls she may have made to another woman with whom Thomas was living at the time.

At some point during the argument, police said, Thomas became enraged, ripped out phone cords and stormed off. He returned about 2 a.m., they said, and fired 14 rounds into the air and into the apartment before a fatal shot struck Johnson in the forehead.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Brenda Burns said the charges against Thomas carry special circumstances of multiple murder because a new law allows murder charges against anyone who kills a fetus beyond 8 weeks old.

Police said Thomas knew his girlfriend was pregnant and that he may have been the father.

If Thomas is arrested, Burns said, his trial could become a third-strike case. According to a complaint filed by the district attorney’s office, Thomas was on parole at the time of the shooting for charges stemming from a kidnapping in Compton and a residential burglary in Norwalk.