Long Beach man accused of killing teenage girl grinned while watching himself on video, judge says – Press Telegram

While interviews with an ex-girlfriend and a key piece of evidence were among the points a judge cited to bring the murder case against a 34-year-old Long Beach man to trial, something else caught her eye during a preliminary hearing Wednesday, October 30, not entered into evidence.

“He grinned when he saw himself on video,” Judge Debra A. Cole said of defendant Troy Lamar Fox. “He knew it was him.”

Fox was charged in September with murder and four counts of attempted murder in connection with the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Briana Soto on March 26 and an April 9 incident in which he shot four people in a car.

Cole made her decision in a courtroom full of Soto's family and friends, most of them wearing pink shirts, after a two-hour hearing in which she heard at least some of the evidence against Fox and considered whether there was probable cause he was responsible for the crimes.

Some of the videos show a man wearing dark clothing walking through the neighborhood where Soto was shot minutes before the shooting. Others showed a video of a man getting out of a car in a parking lot and appearing to shoot at another car that had pulled in and stopped briefly. No one was injured in the shooting near 14th Street and Pine Avenue.

“Just for the record, I wasn't grinning or anything,” Fox said as he was led out of the courtroom after the hearing.

A motion by Fox's attorney to dismiss the charges was denied.

Prosecutors allege Fox shot Soto shortly before 8:30 p.m. in the area of ​​11th Street and Lewis Avenue as she was on her way home from work at McDonald's. Soto was just steps from her home when she was shot and died in a hospital a few days later.

During a news conference in which police asked for the public's help in identifying a suspect, they said it did not appear that the suspect took Soto's belongings.

A motive for the shooting was still unknown after Wednesday's hearing.

Soto's boyfriend, Ricardo Choza, testified that he was talking to her on the phone when he suddenly heard her scream, followed by a “popping” sound. He stayed on the line and eventually someone else picked up the phone and said she was on the floor and bleeding. Choza then ran over and found her covered in blood and unresponsive.

At the scene, investigators found cut-off clothing as paramedics attempted life-saving measures on Soto and a pink canister of pepper spray, Long Beach investigator Chasen Contreras said.

Police found four 9-millimeter shell casings at the scene, one of which contained Fox's DNA. Other evidence included interviews with his ex-girlfriend in which she identified him in the videos and cellphone records that placed Fox in the area of ​​both shootings.

The ex-girlfriend, Tyrisha Hawkins, reluctantly testified Wednesday and promised immunity. She initially denied identifying Fox for investigators, but under cross-examination by Frisco she said the man in the videos appeared to be Fox. Hawkins sighed audibly several times during the questioning and mostly didn't look up when answering.