Slaying Suspect Pleads Not Guilty
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A 21-year-old man, who police have believed for years killed a Taft High School student in 1992, pleaded not guilty Monday to murder.
Oscar Lopez was charged in Los Angeles Superior Court with the murder of 15-year-old LaMoun Thames, who was stabbed to death as he waited for a bus on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills.
According to police, Lopez and a carload of friends pulled up in a car and demanded to know Thames’ gang affiliation, attacking him after he said he had none. Thames was waiting to catch a bus to his home in a South-Central Los Angeles neighborhood after a school football game.
Lopez was arrested previously in the case, but was released last spring after four witnesses disappeared.
His alleged accomplice, who was 15 at the time of the slaying, was tried in Juvenile Court and sentenced to a juvenile detention camp.
Lopez, now 21, is serving a 25-year state prison sentence for a string of burglaries in the San Fernando Valley.
Pretrial proceedings in the murder case are scheduled to begin Friday.
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