LAPD search Beverly Hills high-rise apartment tied to triple slaying in Benedict Canyon

Los Angeles police detectives Wednesday served a search warrant at a Beverly Hills apartment they say is connected to a triple slaying outside a Benedict Canyon home earlier this year.

In the most significant development since the Jan. 28 attack that left three dead and four critically wounded in an upscale hillside neighborhood on the Westside, LAPD detectives with the Robbery-Homicide Division gathered potential evidence inside the Beverly Hills high-rise Wednesday morning, police said.

Sgt. Bruce Borihanh said the warrant was served on an apartment in the 8600 block of Wilshire Boulevard as part of a search for evidence related to the shooting.

Borihanh said at the time of the shooting that the women were killed at a “short-term rental home” in the 2700 block of Ellison Drive, a street of large hillside homes north of Beverly Hills.

Neighbors reported seeing several cars driving away from the scene within minutes of gunfire that rang out shortly before 3 a.m., police said.

Detectives released a crime alert with information they received from both witnesses and surveillance video from the scene. They said the suspects were last seen driving a blue, four-door Tesla with damage to its right front fender and no license plates.

Tips from community members who saw the suspects’ vehicle in and around the West L.A. and Beverly Hills area led investigators to the apartment complex on Wilshire. A warrant to search the apartment was obtained after it was connected to the Tesla, he said.

"We are narrowing the focus of the investigation," LAPD Capt. Jonathan Tippet said after the warrant was served.

Investigators with LAPD raid jackets were visible at the scene. An unmarked LAPD detective car and a white van were parked outside during the search.

Detectives are working to identify the suspects and are looking for any information related to the apartment, which had been cleared out, or the suspect vehicle.

The Benedict Canyon attack targeted members of the women's group, one of whom was an aspiring rapper, Tippet previously told The Times. Detectives have been scouring security cameras in the neighborhood and interviewing survivors of the shooting, and they've developed some strong leads, officials said.

Those who were killed — Nenah Davis, 29, of Bolingbrook, Ill.; Destiny Sims, 26, of Buckeye, Ariz.; and Iyana Hutton, 33, of Chicago — all had roots in the Chicago area, police said. The lifelong friends died in a hail of gunfire that peppered their rented Porsche SUV.

Hutton was trying to get into the music business and was said by a friend to be in L.A. for an album release. Davis, one of Hutton's best friends, was a mother who once worked as a nurse. Sims was a mother of three and a hairstylist who grew up in Illinois before moving west with her family.

Earlier that night the trio had visited a bowling alley before returning to their rental home, according to friends interviewed by The Times.

Artist Mick E. Finnz, a longtime friend of Hutton's, wondered whether something happened at the bowling alley to set off the deadly events that night. But Tippet said detectives had found no evidence of an altercation.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.