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Man Charged For 1981 Murder Of County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas' Brother
Mark Ridley-Thomas (Photo by Paul Redmond/Getty Images)
A suspect has been arrested and charged with the 1981 homicide of L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas' brother.
According to the L.A. Times, a felony complaint filed in court last week says that Michael Anthony Locklin, 61, was charged for the killing of Michael Thomas. The complaint says that the incident happened as part of a robbery.
The county district attorney's office told the Times that Locklin would be arraigned later this month, and jail records show that he is being held without bail.
According to a release sent out by the county D.A.'s office, Michael Thomas's body was discovered in his home at the 4600 block of Santa Barbara Boulevard (now Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) after he'd failed to show up to church. Investigators believe he was killed sometime between August 13 and August 16 in 1981.
LAPD Capt. Peter Whittingham told the Times that the case had received new attention when his unit doubled the number of detectives to revive cold cases. Investigators matched the blood taken from the crime scene with that of Locklin's. Locklin has a prior criminal history that largely involves sexual offenses.
Locklin has been charged with one count of murder with the special circumstance allegation of murder in the commission of a robbery. If convicted, he faces the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
As noted at the Associated Press, Thomas' death came 10 years before Ridley-Thomas was first elected in 2002 to the L.A. City Council. He'd served in the state Senate and Assembly before he was voted into the County Board of Supervisors in 2008. He was re-elected in 2012 and 2016.
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