Police are still looking into a second suspect in December’s home invasion robbery of a 90-year-old Rossmoor woman.
Shortly after the Dec. 7 robbery at gunpoint, Long Beach resident Tyler James Compton was arrested when a sheriff’s deputy recognized him from a sketch artist’s drawing. Compton was scheduled to go to trial recently in the home invasion robbery case, but the case came to an abrupt halt when he pleaded guilty in an unrelated case.
Compton will serve one year in jail and three years of probation for one count each of burglary and receiving stolen property in another case, said Farrah Emami, spokeswoman for the orange County District Attorney’s Office. He is not currently listed as an inmate at the Orange County Jail, according to a public database search.
It remains to be seen whether Compton’s trial in the home invasion robbery will move forward, but, at this point, there are no more hearings or trial dates scheduled. Nor has there been a second defendant charged in the case, although investigators believe Compton committed the crime with another man.
The Rossmoor attack began around 11 a.m. Dec.7 when a 90-year-old woman stepped outside her Weatherby Road home to retrieve a newspaper
"She uses a cane and (two men) came up behind her, put a gun at her throat, took her back inside the house and said, 'Sit down and don't look at me,' " her son, who asked not to be identified, said at the time.
The robbers tied the woman to a chair, covered her face with a towel and ransacked every room in the house, police said.
The robbers also "physically ripped her jewelry off her," tearing her blouse and popping off buttons in the process, police said.
Police investigated a possible link between the Rossmoor home-invasion robbery and similar crimes in Tustin and Cypress. Investigators suspect the robbers may have accosted two other elderly victims there. In the Tustin case, an 88-year-old woman was robbed after getting money from her bank on Nov. 22.
