A transient accused of bludgeoning an older La Verne couple to death and stealing the wife’s cellphone pleaded not guilty to murder charges on Tuesday, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said.
Luke Fabela, 24, is charged in the deaths of Shirley Isom, 74, and Armie “Troy” Isom, 89, the owners of a construction business who were found in their hillside estate on Roughrider Road on Dec. 26, 2014.
Fabela, arraigned Tuesday in a Pomona courthouse, has been charged with two counts of murder with the special circumstance of multiple murders in the commission of a robbery; one count of second-degree robbery; and one count of first-degree residential burglary.
In a February statement, prosecutors said the couple were killed “for a cellphone.” Nothing had been removed from the 80-acre property except Shirley Isom’s phone, they said.
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