LOS ANGELES -- Three young suspects were in custody Monday for the kidnapping and killing of a nurse who was abducted from her pickup truck while waiting at a traffic light to change, then raped and beaten to death.
Two of the suspects, Spencer Nelson, 21, and Louis Carnell Morgan, 20, were booked on suspicion of murder.
A third, a 17-year-old juvenile who was not identified, was held at juvenile hall.
Morgan and the juvenile were arrested Sunday; Nelson was arrested Monday, police said.
Officers said the arrests followed a round-the-clock weekend investigation into the kidnaping and murder of Melanie Uribe, 31, who was abducted screaming the night of Monday, Dec. 15.
A police spokesman said an informant led them to the suspects.
'When she was killed one of the suspects went back to his neighborhood and bragged about the killing,' the spokesman said.
'We had a number of people in the neighborhood who knew the suspect. But they were afraid for their life and did not come forward.
'Eventualy we had a witness who did come forward and he led us to one of the suspects, who led us to the other suspects.'
Mrs. Uribe, a divorced mother of an 8-year-old son, was on her way to work at Pacoima Memorial Hospital when witnesses heard her screams and watched as two men force their way into her truck and drove away.
Police said the suspects drove to Lopez Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains, raped her and then beat her to death while she pleaded for her life. Authorities listed a blunt force to her head as the cause of death.
The truck was found later burning and the woman's body was found Wednesday in the canyon.
