In the wee hours of the morning on Monday the 8th of July, a man ran his car off a pier into the San Diego bay and died. He was, it turns out, the suspect in La Jolla hotel assault just prior to the crash.
According to a press release from San Diego Police Department spokesman Lr. Paul Philips, officers received a call shortly after midnight reporting an attack on a woman at the Shoal hotel, which is located on the 6700 block of LaJolla Boulevard.
The attack occurred after 23 year-old Aaron Tran, a front desk clerk, checked a pair of women into their room. When Tran’s shift ended, he made his way to their room and gained entry by telling them he needed to address assess damage from a water leak reported in the next room.
Once inside, Tran was accompanied by one of the women to the bathroom, where he handed her his phone with a threatening message displayed on the scream. The message also instructed her not to scream and directed her to put her hands behind her back. When she looked up from they screen, the woman saw Tran holding a knife on her.
She fought back, and received a slice near her collar bone, according to Philips. She screamed, awakening her traveling companion. The two women beat a hasty retreat from the room and called police from the parking lot. After emergency services responded, the victim was taken to the hospital where her wound was treated. She is expected to recover fully.
Peggy Carlene, the woman in the neighboring hotel room expressed her disbelief that something so horrific had happened just on the other side of her wall. She said that she heard some thumping and figured that her neighbors were roughhousing, but the sounds stopped before she grew annoyed enough to call the front desk to complain.
Tran was located half an hour later when cops spotted him violating traffic laws. He fled, and in his flight seems to have crashed into the bay.
