Cerritos : Reward Offered in Slaying of 2 Women in Shadow Park

The city has offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the slaying of a Cerritos woman and her housekeeper last April in the gated Shadow Park neighborhood near South Street and Bloomfield Avenue.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Johnny Brown said officers have one suspect in the case but no arrests have been made. The suspect’s name has not been made public.

The City Council authorized the reward after an appeal by the family of one of the victims, 49-year-old Mayda Porras.

“This was one of those in-cold-blood killings, not just a drive-by or random shooting. It was premeditated. We feel there are people who might know how to find this person given the proper incentive,” said Mayor Sherman R. Kappe, who lives in Shadow Park.

According to the sheriff, Porras and her live-in housekeeper, Ana Silvia Junco, 27, were shot to death in Porras’ home between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. April 30. Porras’ car, a 1987 faded blue Nissan Maxima, was stolen and driven to a Long Beach gas station, where a woman driver purchased gas using a credit card belonging to Porras’ daughter, a sheriff’s spokesman said. The woman, who has not been identified, drove the car back to Shadow Park and left it two blocks from the Porras home.

Brown said the suspect is a man who may be in Las Vegas. He lived in Shadow Park and knew the family. “The victim (Porras) and her son testified against him in a burglary he committed two years ago,” Brown said.