COMPTON, Calif.—A 39-year-old man was charged on Jan. 12 with murdering an employee at a Taco Bell restaurant in South Los Angeles.
Jonathan Madden pleaded not guilty to one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder.
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Chief Michel Moore announced Madden’s arrest at a Tuesday night vigil for 41-year-old Alejandro Garcia-Galicia, who was shot by a man in a black sedan who allegedly tried to pay for his meal with a counterfeit bill at the restaurant’s drive-through window.
Police were dispatched shortly before 11 p.m. Saturday to the 9900 block of Avalon Boulevard, near Century Boulevard, said Officer Norma Eisenman of the LAPD’s Media Relations Division.
Officers located Garcia-Galicia inside the kitchen area of the restaurant. He had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene, Eisenman said.
Garcia was working at the location with his 19-year-old son, who was the one who denied the money, CBS2 reported.
Madden was taken into custody Monday at his home in South Los Angeles by members of the LAPD Gang and Narcotics Division, police said.
He has remained behind bars since then, jail records show.
Madden—who was ordered to be held in lieu of a $4.15 million bail—is due back in a Compton courtroom on Feb. 9. A date is scheduled to be set then for a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to allow the case against him to proceed to trial.
