Police have identified one of the deceased as Angelo De Nardo, 53, who had family in Pennsylvania.
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San Diego police Captain David Nisleit told a news conference that witnesses to the latest attack saw an individual crouched over the flaming victim before running away.
Police said Tuesday that one victim suffered extensive trauma to his upper torso and died before his body was set on fire.
In that first attack, the body of a homeless man was discovered on fire between a highway and train tracks in the Mission Bay area of San Diego, police said.
The victim, identified by police Wednesday as Manuel Mason, a 61-year-old transient, remains hospitalized for treatment of life-threatening injuries to his upper torso.
Nisleit said that the department did not have any evidence linking the three attacks to earlier assaults against homeless people in June, but he added that the agency was “taking a hard look at that and seeing if there is any connection”.
Less than 90 minutes later, another transient was found dead in the 2500 block of Bacon Street in Ocean Beach, about three miles from the scene of the second assault, according to police.
Two homeless men have been killed – one set on fire, the other beaten to death – and two others were hospitalized with serious injuries, one who was beaten and the other set afire.
“I believe that’s how we’re going to solve this case”.
San Diego’s Metro Arson Strike Team and SDPD homicide team gather evidence from the sidewalk and grassy area where a homeless person was attacked in downtown San Diego early Wednesday morning, July 6, 2016. He encouraged the homeless population to sleep and walk in groups and noted that the attacks have been unnerving for the city. A single person is believed to have carried out the two slayings and the wounding of the third victim, he said.
Police are also canvassing the city’s homeless communities, he said, not only to make them aware of the risky incidents but also in an effort to find anyone who may recognize the suspect.
“We have all hands in”, Nisleit said Wednesday. Police later found the badly charred body of a male.
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A murder early on Sunday appears to have been the start of a sickening rampage targeting homeless people in San Diego, police say. He was burned so severely that officials were unable to tell if he was burned before the attacks, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department Spokesman Lee Swanson told the station. “We were talking to folks, and there’s a lot of scared folks out there”. Though some are still unfazed due to the commonality of violence against the homeless in the area.
