Police say that the shooting of a 17-year-old girl in a Marina Del Rey parking lot Wednesday night was related to a drug deal gone bad.
Kristine Carman, 17, was fatally shot and killed Wednesday night around 8 p.m. while sitting in the backseat of a car in the parking lot of the Villa Marina Marketplace Mall near Maxella and Glencoe avenues in Marina Del Rey.
Authorities say that Carman was in the car with her older sister and the sister's boyfriend at the time of the attack, CBS LA reports. Police say that someone in the group had agreed to sell two pounds of marijuana to someone they met online. However, when the trio arrived at the parking lot to make the deal, the buyer allegedly tried to cheat them. A fight broke out, which culminated in the buyer allegedly pulling out a gun and opening fire. Carman was fatally shot in the head and died at the scene. The shooter fled the area, and is still at large.
Investigators say that the boyfriend was involved in the deal, but Carman's father, John Carman, said that his surviving daughter is too upset to tell him anything herself.
"My daughter is inconsolable right now. It's hard to understand what she's saying," he said.
Carman was from Texas and was in SoCal visiting family. Her father said that Kristine had been in town for a week and planned to attend UCLA. A GoFundMe has been set up for Carman's family. The page reads:
"The second oldest from a family of 6, she carried the wind in her step and the sun in her smile. As you can imagine we aren't ready to let her go and be without her presence. I create this in hopes we can all keep her with us everyday immortalized in a precious gem."
According to LA Weekly, Kristine's sister, Lacey Carman, wrote about the shooting on her Facebook page, calling it a "robbery gone wrong."
"I pray that God is real and holding my sisters hand right now. I pray that you never have to feel this pain or this self loathing," she wrote.
Investigators are still searching the area to see if they can find any surveillance footage of the shooting.
The shooter has been described as a black male wearing a grey hoodie and a blue beanie, according to a release from the LAPD. He drove away in a dark colored SUV and may have been headed in the direction of the 90 Freeway. Anyone with information should call West Bureau Homicide investigators at (213) 382-9470.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story erroneously said investigators told John Carman the details of an alleged drug deal, when in fact they had been speaking to CBS Los Angeles. The mistake has been corrected.
