Police arrest two in case

Police have arrested two people as alleged accomplices in an Irvine woman’s murder at a Costa Mesa apartment last weekend.

Detectives would not release the names of the arrested 28-year-old man from Long Beach and 26-year-old man from Costa Mesa, saying it would compromise their investigation. The men are accused of being accessories to the killing by helping the primary suspect, Samuel Herr, after the slaying. Herr is at large.

Detectives arrested the two other men in Huntington Beach at about 10 p.m. Wednesday. Only one of them knows Herr personally, said Sgt. Ed Everett.

Authorities found Herr’s car, a white Pontiac Grand Am, about a quarter-mile away from his home in a residential tract north of Baker Street at about 12:30 a.m. Thursday.

Police believe that Herr, 23, an Orange Coast College student who lives across the street from campus in the Camden Martinique apartments, 2855 Pinecreek Drive, shot the 23-year-old woman in the head. Officers have not determined what the relationship was between Herr and the woman.

On Saturday night police were called to Herr’s fourth-story, one-bedroom apartment to check on a possible dead body. They found the woman dead inside the bedroom with a gunshot wound to the head. Herr, who lives alone, was not there and police have not been able to find him.

The woman was killed between 12:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. Saturday, Everett said. Authorities are not releasing her name because she may have also been a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault, police said.

Detectives have virtually dropped everything to work on the case, the second homicide in the city this year. Everett said eight detectives are working on the investigation, and with limited staffing and time because of the city’s budget cutbacks, other cases are being put on hold temporarily.