Over eight months in 2020 and 2021, three people who were living in homeless encampments along the Compton Creek bed in southern Los Angeles County were found stabbed to death within a short distance of one another. Patricia Loeza was found in June 2020. Kenneth Edward Jones was found in January 2021. Cesar Mazariegos was found in February 2021 by deputies who had been sent to patrol the creek because of the first two deaths. Two days after that, sheriff's homicide detectives arrested Tracy Walker, a 56-year-old man who was himself living at an encampment beside the creek.
Walker pleaded guilty to three counts of murder in September 2021 and was sentenced the next month to 110 years to life in state prison. Much of what is publicly known about the case comes from a short run of statements by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the District Attorney's office, wire reports from City News Service, and the statements of the victims' families at sentencing. There was no trial, so no testimony was ever heard in open court.
The three victims were found along a stretch of Compton Creek in the unincorporated Rancho Dominguez area, which KTLA described as being on the edge of Carson. According to the Sheriff's Department, homeless encampments had formed at or near the creek bed, and all three victims appeared to have been staying in them. The locations named in the court filings were the 19000 block of South Susana Road and the 20000 block of South Santa Fe Avenue, and the dirt embankments on the east side of the creek north of Del Amo Boulevard.
The sheriff's statement after the arrest put it this way: "All three of the victims were killed in close proximity to each other, and all three victims appeared to have been homeless, possibly staying (at) homeless encampments at or near the Compton Creek bed."
Very little has been published about Walker's life before 2020. The District Attorney's charging release gives his date of birth as October 5, 1964. At the time of his arrest he was living at a homeless encampment next to the Compton Creek bed, the same area where the victims were found. City News Service later described him as a former inmate.
At his plea hearing, Walker admitted that he had a prior strike from 1993 for voluntary manslaughter, according to Deputy District Attorney Hilary Williams. The sources found for this page do not say who the victim of the 1993 case was, where it happened, or how long Walker served. The charge of possession of a firearm by a felon filed in 2021 rests on that earlier felony record; none of the reports describe the firearm involved.
Patricia Loeza was 26. Her family told the court at sentencing that she should not be remembered only by the circumstances of her death. "She was experiencing homelessness, but that's not who she was," her sister, Jasmin Loeza, said, describing her as a good person. Her mother, Julia Escudero, also spoke at the hearing.
Loeza was found just after midnight on June 7, 2020, down a dirt embankment east of the Compton Creek bed, north of Del Amo Boulevard. She had stab wounds to her upper torso and was pronounced dead at the scene. The District Attorney's office placed the killing on or about June 7, 2020, in the 19000 block of South Susana Road. Several City News Service reports spell her first name "Patrica"; the District Attorney's office, KTLA and later reports use "Patricia."
No arrest followed. For more than seven months, her death was one of the open homicide cases in the sheriff's caseload.
Kenneth Edward Jones was also 26. His cousin, Keisha Grier, told the court at sentencing that he was a bright young man and a new father who had "great hopes to be an artist." She said he "didn't have to be on the streets" and that "Kenneth didn't deserve what happened to him."
Jones was found on January 15, 2021, nearly eight months after Loeza, not far from where she had been found. The District Attorney's office gave the location as the 20000 block of South Santa Fe Avenue. He had stab wounds to his upper torso and blunt force trauma to his head, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Cesar Mazariegos was 30. He had a daughter, who was 13 at the time of the sentencing hearing, and his mother, Celia Mazariegos, and a cousin, Janet Hernandez, were among the relatives who came to court.
After the deaths of Loeza and Jones, deputies were patrolling the creek bed. Shortly after 11 a.m. on Tuesday, February 9, 2021, a patrol spotted a large rolled-up carpet in an area north of Del Amo Boulevard. When the deputies unrolled it, they found a man who had been beaten and stabbed. KTLA reported that evening that the Sheriff's Department had described him only as Latino, that the coroner's office was working to identify him, and that investigators had no suspect or motive.
He was later identified as Cesar Mazariegos. City News Service reported that he was found on a dirt embankment on the east side of Compton Creek near Del Amo Boulevard, near where the other two had been found, and that he died of multiple sharp-force injuries. The District Attorney's charging release dated his killing to on or about February 7, two days before the body was found.
On Thursday, February 11, 2021, two days after Mazariegos was found, sheriff's homicide detectives located Walker at a homeless encampment next to the Compton Creek bed and arrested him. He was booked into jail that day on suspicion of murder and held on $2 million bail, according to county inmate records cited by KTLA.
The Sheriff's Department did not explain publicly how detectives came to focus on Walker. Its statement said only: "Through investigation, suspect Tracy Walker ... was identified as being involved in all three of the murders." It added that "while being interviewed by homicide detectives, suspect Walker implicated himself in the murders of victims Loeza, Jones and Mazariegos." The department said the investigation was continuing and gave no further details about the three cases. It asked anyone with information to call the Homicide Bureau or Crime Stoppers.
On February 16, 2021, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office announced that it had charged Walker in case TA153675 with three counts of murder and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon. The complaint alleged that he used a knife in all three killings. He was scheduled to be arraigned that day in Department 12 of the Compton Branch of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
District Attorney George Gascón said in the release: "The heartless and brazen nature of these murders against some of the most helpless members of our community shock the conscience." His office said it would seek a life sentence.
Walker's own account was not made public at the time of the arrest. A sheriff's affidavit, obtained later by the Los Angeles Times and quoted by City News Service at the time of sentencing, said Walker told investigators that the victims were "predatory." According to the affidavit, he said he had to give "every one of them a serious response to protect his safety as a homeless African-American transient."
That is Walker's explanation, not a finding. No court tested it, because the case never went to trial, and none of the published reports describes any evidence that the three victims had threatened him. The authorities did not announce a motive.
Walker did not go to trial. On September 16, 2021, seven months after his arrest, he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder in the deaths of Loeza, Jones and Mazariegos. He also admitted the 1993 prior strike for voluntary manslaughter, according to Deputy District Attorney Hilary Williams. The plea exposed him to 110 years to life in state prison, and sentencing was set for October 18 in Compton.
The reports on the plea do not name Walker's defense lawyer, say what Walker said in court beyond admitting the prior, or state what became of the firearm count. They also do not say whether the plea specified first- or second-degree murder or how the 110-year minimum was calculated.
On October 18, 2021, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael J. Shultz sentenced Walker, then 57, to 110 years to life in state prison.
The hearing was given over largely to the families. Some relatives wore T-shirts honoring the people they had lost. Judge Shultz asked to see posters bearing the victims' photographs and thanked the families for sharing their stories.
Julia Escudero, Patricia Loeza's mother, addressed Walker directly. "I want to say to the defendant, 'Why did you kill my daughter?'" she said. "I want God to forgive him because I can't." Jasmin Loeza spoke of her sister as a good person whose homelessness was not the whole of who she was.
Keisha Grier spoke for Kenneth Jones's family. She told Walker: "You decided to go down the wrong path, not these people." She added, "I hope everything that you have done does eat you up inside."
For the Mazariegos family, his cousin Janet Hernandez said he "didn't deserve to die the way he died," but that his death had allowed the authorities to "find the murderer." His mother, Celia Mazariegos, said that Walker had taken away any hope she had of hugging her son and telling him how much she missed him. A letter from his 13-year-old daughter was read in court. Her father, she wrote, "died a painful death and we all have to accept that."
As of the October 18, 2021 City News Service report of the sentencing, Walker was serving 110 years to life in the California state prison system. No appeal or later court action in the case was found in the sources for this page. His present prison and custody status were not checked for this page; the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's online inmate search could not be accessed.
Because the minimum term is 110 years, Walker, born in 1964, would not reach the minimum term in his lifetime.
Several points remain open in the published record, and they are set out here so they are not mistaken for facts.
Motive. The authorities announced no motive. The only explanation in the public record is Walker's own statement, from an affidavit, that he saw the victims as "predatory" and acted to protect himself. Nothing in the sources supports or refutes it.
How he was identified. The Sheriff's Department did not say what led detectives to Walker, whether physical evidence tied him to each death, or whether his statements to detectives were the main evidence. With no preliminary hearing or trial reported in the sources, that evidence was never presented publicly.
The date of the third killing. The District Attorney's release dates Mazariegos's killing to on or about February 7, 2021, while sheriff's and press reports give February 9 as the day his body was found. The two dates are not in conflict if he was killed before he was found, but no source explains the gap.
Other cases. No source found for this page connects Walker to any other killing besides the 1993 voluntary manslaughter, and no agency has said it was investigating him for other deaths. Calling him a serial offender rests on the three 2020 and 2021 convictions alone.
The firearm. The felon-in-possession count was filed, but no report describes a gun, where it was found, or how the count was resolved.
The case drew coverage mainly in Los Angeles outlets. The Los Angeles Times reported on the case in February, May and December 2021, including a long account of the investigation published that December; those articles could not be accessed for this page and are described in the notes below. The District Attorney's description of the victims as "some of the most helpless members of our community," and the families' insistence in court that their relatives were more than their circumstances, were the two themes most often repeated in the coverage.
October 5, 1964: Tracy Walker born, according to the District Attorney's charging release.
1993: Walker convicted of voluntary manslaughter, a prior strike he admitted in 2021.
June 7, 2020: Patricia Loeza, 26, found stabbed just after midnight on an embankment east of the Compton Creek bed, north of Del Amo Boulevard.
January 15, 2021: Kenneth Edward Jones, 26, found stabbed and with head injuries in the 20000 block of South Santa Fe Avenue.
February 7, 2021 (on or about): date given by the District Attorney for the killing of Cesar Mazariegos.
February 9, 2021: deputies patrolling the creek find Mazariegos, 30, rolled inside a carpet near Del Amo Boulevard.
February 11, 2021: Walker arrested at an encampment beside the creek and booked on suspicion of murder; bail set at $2 million.
February 16, 2021: Sheriff's Department announces the arrest; District Attorney files three murder counts and a felon-with-firearm count in case TA153675; arraignment set in Compton.
September 16, 2021: Walker pleads guilty to three counts of murder and admits the 1993 prior strike.
October 18, 2021: Judge Michael J. Shultz sentences Walker to 110 years to life in state prison after hearing from the victims' families.
As of the October 18, 2021 report: Walker in state custody; later status not checked.