Judge orders murder trial for woman accused of stabbing retired nurse 17 times at California mall
A 45-year-old woman on Monday, July 1, was ordered to stand trial on murder and robbery charges concerning the stabbing death of a retired nurse in the parking structure of a Rolling Hills Estates mall in 2018 by a judge who ruled prosecutors had presented enough evidence against her during a four-day hearing in Torrance Superior Court.
After prosecutors presented a mostly circumstantial case against Cherie Lynnette Townsend, Judge Alan B. Honeycutt ruled the case could move forward.
Townsend’s public defender, Elizabeth Landgraf, had argued for a dismissal of the charges, saying prosecutors did not present enough evidence to show that it was more probable than not that Townsend committed the crimes.
Townsend is accused of stabbing 66-year-old Susan Leeds, who was in the driver’s seat of her SUV at the Promenade on the Peninsula mall, 17 times in the neck and upper body on May 3, 2018. Just before 12:15 p.m., Leeds had returned to the parking structure after picking up to-go food from Rubio’s, according to evidence presented during the hearing.
Leeds also had a wound on her left index finger, indicating she may have tried to defend herself, said Dr. Paul Gliniecki, a deputy medical examiner.
Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials have said they believed it was a random robbery, though detectives who took the stand on Friday acknowledged Leeds’ checkbook was found in her passenger seat that day as well as some credit cards. They also said they never found evidence of anyone attempting to use Leeds’ credit cards, gift cards or financial accounts after she was killed.
Missing from Leeds’ SUV was a purse, her driver’s license, her cellphone and a diabetic machine, Detective Marcelo Quintero said on the witness stand.
Townsend was arrested and interviewed two weeks after the murder but released six days later with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office asking for further investigation. Townsend was arrested again in August, and when she was interviewed about the day of the murder, gave different answers than in her previous interview five years prior, Detective Louie Aguilera testified.
In between, Townsend filed civil lawsuits against Rolling Hills Estates, Rancho Palos Verdes, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and then-Sheriff Jim McDonnell, along with several others, claiming false arrest and imprisonment, unlawful search and seizure, violation of due process, defamation, infliction of emotional distress and negligent investigation. She asked that they be dismissed for now.
The only physical evidence tying Townsend to the scene was her cellphone, which investigators found face down underneath the driver’s side of Leeds’ SUV. Surveillance cameras show Townsend’s car entering the structure about 9:40 a.m., authorities said. The cameras never show her leaving the structure to go into the mall.
While there was a camera pointed in the general area of Leeds’ SUV, it did not capture clear footage of the murder.
Kelly Hopper testified she was walking back to her car in the structure after a workout at Equinox gym just past 11:30 a.m. and saw a woman rummaging through the trunk of a gold car. She identified the woman as Townsend in court, and said Townsend eventually looked in Hopper’s direction, shut the trunk and moved toward the front of her car as Hopper approached her SUV, which was parked to the left of Townsend’s car.
Hopper got in her SUV, closed the door, hit the lock button and saw Townsend standing and staring at her.
“I thought I was going to get hurt or something bad was about to happen,” Hopper testified.
A woman testified that she saw Townsend in the parking structure less than an hour before the estimated time of the killing and identified her in the courtroom. Surveillance video played during the hearing apparently shows Townsend’s gold Chevrolet Malibu leaving the structure at 12:15 p.m., about three minutes after prosecutors say they believe the attack took place.
Townsend’s car was seen on an automated-license-plate reader on northbound Hawthorne Boulevard at Palos Verdes Drive North about 12:33 p.m., sheriff’s Deputy Samuel Paul testified.
While detectives never found Leeds’ cellphone, phone records indicated it pinged off of towers headed in a northbound direction in the area of Hawthorne Boulevard in the three to four minutes that followed, Danielle Ponce de Leon, a crime analyst with the Sheriff’s Department, testified. During questioning by Landgraf, Ponce de Leon acknowledged authorities did not know specifically whether Leeds’ phone could have been in Townsend’s car.
Just past 1 p.m., video shows Townsend walking into a Verizon store in Carson. Detective Quintero testified that an employee told detectives Townsend wanted to report a lost or stolen phone, checked the phone’s location using a “Find My iPhone” app on an iPad in the store, then later asked to cancel her account.
Prosecutors used bank statements to show Townsend was struggling financially and also highlighted several web searches from her phone in which she allegedly searched “Fake ID generator,” “what is the most untraceable way to use a credit card online,” “how to rob a coin operated washing machine,” and “how to crack open an ATM.”
Amber Weddle testified her daughter was on a cheer team with Townsend’s and that the base cost for the team could reach up to $10,000, and $25,000 if parents traveled out of state to attend competitions. A coach told Detective Aguilera that Townsend was on a “cash-or-cashier’s-check-only” status after checks bounced.
Townsend and her daughter were scheduled to fly to Florida for a team competition on the day of the murder.
Townsend told Weddle through Facebook Messenger that they didn’t board their flight because “a horrible family situation happened,” that her daughter was “broken in a way I’ve never seen before,” and that Townsend felt she let everyone down. Townsend did not elaborate.
Colleen Lawyer and her daughter were walking back to her daughter’s SUV when she noticed a white SUV with the driver’s door open, with coffee spilled under the door. She saw a “woman who was leaned back in the driver’ seat” and “looked orange,” Lawyer testified on Thursday.
Lawyer walked up to the vehicle and realized the woman was covered in blood. Her daughter called 911 about 12:20 p.m.
Townsend was arrested two weeks after the murder and during questioning told detectives she went to the mall to look for “a couple of things for her daughter,” but never went into the mall because her car had a transmission-relay problem, and she wasn’t sure how she lost her phone, Quintero said.
After her 2023 arrest, she told detectives she went to the mall because prom was coming up and she wanted to find something for her son, Aguilera said, adding that she told detectives she didn’t have car problems that day and that she went into the mall area but couldn’t remember what stores she visited.