Man Charged with Murder in Homeless Stabbing

A 23-year-old Yorba Linda man is being charged with the stabbing murder of a homeless man in Anaheim Friday night.

Itzcoatl Ocampo is being held at Anaheim City Jail after police charged him with the murder of an unidentified homeless man stabbed on the 5700 block of East La Palma Avenue, said Sgt. Bob Dunn with Anaheim P.D.

Dunn said the Friday night stabbing happened near where three other stabbings have taken place over the last month. But police are not ready to charge Ocampo with those murders.

"We’re not drawing any correlation between them yet," Dunn said.

Little is known about the suspect. A man with the same name had three minor driving infractions since Sept. 2010, according to the Orange County Superior Court website.

A man with that name also appeared on the "sponsors wall" for a movie about three wounded U.S. Marines at 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning. His name has since been removed from that site because they are not affiliated with him, other than a small donation he made in November or December, producer Bill Brown said.

"If he is the person behind these terrible things, I would surely hope he is brought to justice," Brown said.

You can read more about the Friday night killing here.

Previous Killings

On Dec. 20, 53-year-old James McGillivray was attacked as he slept outside a Placentia shopping center. Eight days later, the body of Lloyd Middaugh, 42, was discovered on Anaheim's Santa Ana River Trail. On Dec. 30, 57-year-old Paulus Cornelius Smit was killed behind the Yorba Linda library.

All of the victims died of multiple stab wounds.

Surveillance video taken before McGillivray's slaying in Placentia showed a man wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt. Investigators also are searching for a white, four-door 2000 to 2003 Toyota Corolla shown on the video.

-City News Service and Patch staff reports