CORONA, Calif. (KTLA) – A suspect has been arrested in the “unprovoked” shooting that killed an 18-year-old woman and badly injured another teenager who were found at a Southern California movie theater as workers cleaned up the aisles, police said Wednesday.
Joseph Jimenez, 20, was arrested Tuesday night at his home in the 19000 block of Envoy in El Cerrito, according to the Corona Police Department.
Police said they found a firearm that matched the caliber of the weapon used in the killing and other evidence at his home.
The shooting was reported about 11:45 p.m. Monday at the Edwards Theater at a shopping center in the Southern California city of Corona.
The gunshot victims were only discovered when workers went inside the theater to clean after a movie screening, Corona police Cpl. Tobias Kouroubacalis told Nexstar’s KTLA.
Rylee Goodrich, 18, was pronounced dead at the scene and Anthony Barajas, 19, was taken to a hospital and placed on life support, Kouroubacalis said.
Barajas, known online as itsanthonymichael, has nearly a million followers on TikTok and more on other platforms.
Police said the suspect and the victims had no prior contact before the shooting.
“We do not have a motive for this heinous, unprovoked crime,” Kouroubacalis said in a Wednesday news conference.
The pair had been attending a 9:35 p.m. viewing of “The Forever Purge” together. Police said only six tickets were sold for that viewing but it’s not clear who else was in the theater. They were discovered with gunshot wounds in or near their theater seats, according to Kouroubacalis.
Jimenez also had a ticket for the screening, police confirmed.
During the investigation Tuesday, police told KTLA they had not yet been able to interview anyone else who attended the screening, making it difficult to figure out exactly when the victims were shot.
On Wednesday, investigators still weren’t sure why no one heard anything. The cameras in the theater weren’t recording at the time of the shooting, Kouroubacalis said.
Police said there was a witness who came forward and provided investigators with information that “led us in the direction of the suspect.” Officials didn’t specify whether that witness was in the theater at the time of the shooting.
A GoFundMe page created for Goodrich’s funeral expenses had raised more than $17,000 as of Tuesday night.
The police department asked anyone who was inside the theater or in the area between 9 p.m. and 11:45 p.m. to reach out with any information.
Jimenez was booked on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and robbery. He was booked at Riverside Presley Detention Center on a $2 million bail.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
