Woman Convicted In 2018 Rolling Hills Estates Mall Stabbing

ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, CA — A woman who sued Los Angeles County after being arrested and then released in connection with the stabbing death of a woman in a parking garage at a Rolling Hills Estates mall — but was subsequently re-arrested more than five years later — was convicted Thursday of murder.

Jurors deliberated just under a day before finding Cherie Lynnette Townsend, now 47, of first-degree murder for the May 3, 2018, killing of Susan Leeds, 66, of Rancho Palos Verdes.

The seven-woman, five-man panel also found true an allegation that Townsend personally used a knife during the commission of the crime.

Townsend — whose attorney clutched her hand in the Torrance courtroom — is due back in court for sentencing Jan. 23 by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John J. Lonergan Jr. She is facing 26 years to life in state prison.

Leeds was attacked in broad daylight while inside her white 2016 Mercedes-Benz SUV, which was parked on the first floor in the parking garage of the Promenade on the Peninsula in the 500 block of Deep Valley Drive.

Leeds had been stabbed 17 times in the neck and upper body, and had one incise wound on a finger and bruises that indicated she may have tried to defend herself, according to Paul Gliniecki, a deputy medical examiner who reviewed the results of the autopsy and testified during a hearing last year in which Townsend was ordered to stand trial.

Townsend was initially arrested in May 2018 in connection with Leeds' killing, then released from custody five days later after prosecutors asked law enforcement to conduct further investigation into the crime.

After Townsend's arrest in 2018, then-Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell said Townsend's vehicle — a gold-colored 2008 Chevrolet Malibu — had been parked on the same floor. He noted then that there was still a "tremendous amount of investigative work" to be done.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in November 2018, Townsend sued Los Angeles County, McDonnell and the then-mayors of Rolling Hills Estates and Rancho Palos Verdes, alleging false imprisonment, defamation, emotional distress, negligence and civil rights violations.

In a statement released after Townsend filed a multimillion-dollar damages claim in October 2018, the sheriff's department called it a "very complex, yet active investigation."

"Investigators are still receiving tips from the public and are diligently following up on each and every lead. With the lack of eyewitnesses in this case, the physical and forensic evidence collected is continually re-evaluated. Additionally, investigators are coordinating their efforts in the furtherance of this investigation with the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office Major Crimes Unit," the sheriff's department said then.

Townsend was re-arrested in August 2023 by the Sheriff's Department's Fugitive Unit and has remained behind bars since.

The civil lawsuit filed by Townsend was dismissed without prejudice shortly after her arrest.
Deputy District Attorneys Paul Thompson and Jonathan Chung contended that Townsend killed Leeds during a robbery. A separate robbery charge filed against Townsend in 2023 was dismissed shortly before the trial as a result of the statute of limitations.

In his closing argument Wednesday, Chung told the panel that "all of the evidence points to the defendant."

Defense attorney Elizabeth Landgraf countered, "Ms. Townsend did not kill Susan Leeds ... I don't know who killed her. ... It was certainly not Cherie Townsend."

She acknowledged that a phone belonging to the defendant was found underneath the driver's side of the victim's SUV, but said she didn't know how it wound up there.

Landgraf told jurors to return a "verdict that is just and fair," saying her client should be acquitted.

During the hearing last year in which Townsend was ordered to stand trial, Los Angeles County sheriff's Homicide Detective Marcelo Quintero said investigators initially believed the cellphone under the victim's car belonged to the victim, but subsequently determined it belonged to Townsend after powering it up and spotting a photo of her.

Cellphone records on Townsend's phone showed there had been Internet searches for topics including computer hacking, duplicate credit cards, money laundering, fake ID generators, how to rob a coin-operated washing machine, how to remove a coin box from a washer, how to crack open an ATM, how to steal money by breaking into an ATM, celebrities — including Drake — making donations and "sugar daddies," according to the detective.

Bank records for Townsend dating back to about a year before Leeds' killing showed that she had a balance in her account as high as nearly $192 one month, a negative balance of $6.76 in January 2018, a 30-cent balance the next month and a zero balance between March 2018 and May 2018, the detective testified.

In her initial interview with law enforcement in 2018, Townsend acknowledged that she had been at the shopping mall that day to shop for a few items for her daughter, but said she never ended up going shopping because she was having a transmission-related problem with her vehicle, Quintero said. She told investigators that she believed she waited there for a couple of hours and saw nothing unusual happen in the parking lot during that time, the detective testified.

She acknowledged losing her phone that day, but said she didn't know where, according to the detective. She maintained that she was not involved in the crime, and none of Leeds' items were found inside her vehicle when it was subsequently searched, according to Quintero.

Under cross-examination, the detective said the victim's purse was missing, but added that Leeds was still wearing her jewelry and that there was no evidence anyone tried to use her credit cards, cash any of her checks or use her driver's license after her death.

Shown photos that were taken about two weeks later of Townsend, the detective said he didn't see any scratches, cuts or markings on her.

The detective said the killing was not caught on video and that there was no video of Townsend at the mall other than the vehicle she was driving being caught on surveillance videotape entering and leaving the parking lot that day. He said he believed the killing occurred roughly between 12:10 p.m. and 12:13 p.m. that day.

Sheriff's Homicide Detective Louie Aguilera, who interviewed Townsend in 2023, said she told him that she had gone to the mall that day to shop for something for her son, whose prom was upcoming.

He testified that the woman said then that she had gone into stores and that she didn't have any mechanical problems with her car — both of which he noted were inconsistent with her prior statement. The detective said Townsend adamantly denied that she had been involved in the killing.

Aguilera said he also spoke to the general manager of a cheer team with which Townsend's daughter was involved, and that the official said he put Townsend on a cash or cashier's check basis after she started bouncing checks.

The mother of another girl on the cheer team testified that the costs for the cheer program were as much as $10,000 a year for base costs and could reach as high as $25,000 with travel expenses. She said Townsend's daughter failed to show up for an event that weekend in Florida, despite other parents' offers to try to pool money to get the girl an airplane flight.

Meanwhile, a woman who was walking back to her car shortly after 11:30 a.m. in the mall parking lot the day of the killing identified Townsend as the woman she saw dressed all in black standing at the back of an open trunk of a vehicle she described as a gold four-door sedan that was parked next to hers.

"She was just staring at me," Kelly Hopper testified. "I got this feeling she was going to hurt me, something bad was going to happen."

She said Townsend moved first to the hood of her own vehicle and then to the passenger side of Hooper's vehicle before Townsend sat down in her own vehicle.

"She never took her eyes off of me," Hopper said. "I've never been looked at like that in my life."
Townsend never said anything to her or made any hand gestures, the woman acknowledged under cross-examination.

Colleen Lawyer said she and her daughter found the victim that afternoon reclined in her car seat after noticing the car door open and a cup of coffee spilled on the ground. She testified that she told her daughter to call 911, saw a man in a white coat and screamed at him to come over because she assumed he was a doctor. She said that the man asked her to find something containing the woman's name and that Leeds was still alive but was having difficulty breathing.

"It was a gasp. Then I heard gurgling," she said.

BY Terri Vermeulen Keith, City News Service, Inc.