Cherie Townsend convicted in 2018 Rolling Hills Estates killing – NBC Los Angeles

A 47-year-old woman was convicted Thursday in the stabbing death of a woman at a Rolling Hills Estates mall parking garage, a crime that led to a years-long investigation and the arrest, release and re-arrest of the suspect.

Cherie Lynnette Townsend was convicted of first-degree murder for the May 2018, killing of Susan Leeds, 66, of Rancho Palos Verdes. The seven-woman, five-man jury found true an allegation that Townsend personally used a knife during the commission of the crime.

Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 23. She is facing 26 years to life in state prison.

Among the many twists in the case, Townsend sued Los Angeles County after being arrested and then released in connection with the stabbing death. She was re-arrested more than five years later.

Townsend maintained her innocence since the first arrest, telling NBCLA in an August 2023 interview that the only reason she was linked to the killing was because she accidentally dropped and left her cellphone in the parking lot of the mall close to the murder scene.

Leeds was attacked May 3, 2018 inside her white 2016 Mercedes-Benz SUV, which was parked on the first floor in the parking garage of the Promenade on the Peninsula in the 500 block of Deep Valley Drive. She was stabbed 17 times in the neck and upper body, according to a deputy medical examiner who reviewed the results of the autopsy and testified during a hearing last year when Townsend was ordered to stand trial.

Police Friday re-arrested a woman who five years ago was released in the stabbing death of a nurse in Rolling Hills Estates. Eric Leonard reports Aug. 25, 2023.

Townsend was originally arrested in May 2018, then released from custody five days later after prosecutors asked law enforcement to conduct further investigation into the crime. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in November 2018, Townsend sued Los Angeles County, then-Los Angeles County Jim McDonnell and the then-mayors of Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes, alleging false imprisonment, defamation, emotional distress, negligence and civil rights violations.

Townsend was re-arrested in August 2023 by the Sheriff’s Department’s Fugitive Unit and has remained behind bars since then. The civil lawsuit filed by Townsend was dismissed without prejudice shortly after her arrest.

Deputy District Attorneys Paul Thompson and Jonathan Chung contended that Townsend killed Leeds during a robbery. A separate robbery charge filed against Townsend in 2023 was dismissed shortly before the trial as a result of the statute of limitations.

In his closing argument Wednesday, Chung told the panel that “all of the evidence points to the defendant.”

Defense attorney Elizabeth Landgraf countered, “Ms. Townsend did not kill Susan Leeds… I don’t know who killed her… It was certainly not Cherie Townsend.”

She acknowledged that a phone belonging to the defendant was found underneath the driver’s side of the victim’s SUV, but said she didn’t know how it wound up there.

During the hearing last year in which Townsend was ordered to stand trial, Los Angeles County sheriff’s Homicide Detective Marcelo Quintero said investigators initially believed the cell phone under the victim’s car belonged to the victim, but subsequently determined it belonged to Townsend after powering it up and spotting a photo of her.

In her initial interview with law enforcement in 2018, Townsend acknowledged that she had been at the shopping mall that day to shop for a few items for her daughter, but said she never ended up going shopping because she was having a transmission-related problem with her vehicle, Quintero said. She told investigators that she believed she waited there for a couple of hours and saw nothing unusual happen in the parking lot during that time, the detective testified.

She acknowledged losing her phone that day, but said she didn’t know where, according to the detective. She maintained that she was not involved in the crime, and none of Leeds’ items were found inside her vehicle when it was subsequently searched, according to Quintero.

Under cross-examination, the detective said the victim’s purse was missing, but added that Leeds was still wearing her jewelry and that there was no evidence anyone tried to use her credit cards, cash any of her checks or use her driver’s license after her death.

Shown photos that were taken about two weeks later of Townsend, the detective said he didn’t see any scratches, cuts or markings on her.

The detective said the killing was not caught on video and that there was no video of Townsend at the mall other than the vehicle she was driving being caught on surveillance videotape entering and leaving the parking lot that day. He said he believed the killing occurred roughly between 12:10 p.m. and 12:13 p.m. that day.

Sheriff’s Homicide Detective Louie Aguilera, who interviewed Townsend in 2023, said she told him that she had gone to the mall that day to shop for something for her son, whose prom was upcoming. He testified that the woman said then that she had gone into stores and that she didn’t have any mechanical problems with her car — both of which he noted were inconsistent with her prior statement. The detective said Townsend adamantly denied that she had been involved in the killing.

Aguilera said he also spoke to the general manager of a cheer team with which Townsend’s daughter was involved, and that the official said he put Townsend on a cash or cashier’s check basis after she started bouncing checks. The mother of another girl on the cheer team testified that the costs for the cheer program were as much as $10,000 a year for base costs and could reach as high as $25,000 with travel expenses. She said Townsend’s daughter failed to show up for an event that weekend in Florida, despite other parents’ offers to try to pool money to get the girl an airplane flight.

A woman who was walking back to her car shortly after 11:30 a.m. in the mall parking lot the day of the killing identified Townsend as the woman she saw dressed all in black standing at the back of an open trunk of a vehicle she described as a gold four-door sedan that was parked next to hers.

“She was just staring at me,” the woman testified. “I got this feeling she was going to hurt me, something bad was going to happen.”

She said Townsend moved first to the hood of her own vehicle and then to the passenger side of Hooper’s vehicle before Townsend sat down in her own vehicle.

“She never took her eyes off of me,” she said. “I’ve never been looked at like that in my life.”

Townsend never said anything to her or made any hand gestures, the woman acknowledged under cross-examination.