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Stolen iPhone leads to 15-year-old girl's death
A sketch of the suspect who stole a girl's iPhone, which ultimately led to the girl's death.
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Courtesy Santa Ana Police Corporal Anthony Bertagna
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Santa Ana Police are asking for the public's help in tracking down a man who stole a 15-year-old girl's iPhone, setting off a chain of events that ended in her death.
Police say the victim was walking on West Warner Avenue last Thursday with her younger sister, who she'd just picked up from school. The suspect approached and asked for the time, and when she looked at her phone, the suspect knocked it to the ground and ran off with the phone.
Santa Ana Police Corporal Anthony Bertagna says that's when the teenager chased after the robber as he got into the passenger seat of a silver Pontiac — there was no description of the driver.
"As they drive away our victim jumps on the trunk of the vehicle," Bertagna said. "Suspects see she's on the car, they start swerving back and forth across the lanes in attempt to knock her off the vehicle. She falls, strikes her head. That's when the paramedics are called. She's transported to Western Medical Center where she, on Saturday evening, died from her injuries."
Bertagna says the robber was in his 20s or early 30s, 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a medium build. He was wearing a baseball hat, white tank top and light-colored jeans.
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Detectives still don't have a description of the driver in the getaway car.
This story has been updated.
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