Charges against a 51-year-old man accused of shooting his boyfriend in Garden Grove have been upgraded to murder following the victim’s death, Garden Grove police reported Tuesday.
Ali Samoodi was also charged last week with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and faced sentencing enhancements for inflicting great bodily injury on the victim; the personal use of a firearm; and being armed with a firearm in the commission of a felony.
However, when the victim, 57-year-old Dave Abbott of Garden Grove, died Thursday, Samoodi was charged with murder and assault with a deadly weapon with a sentencing enhancement for discharge of a firearm causing death.
Samoodi pleaded not guilty Friday and was scheduled for a pretrial hearing June 2 in the West Justice Center in Westminster.
Police responded about 2:45 p.m. May 7 to the shooting in the 5300 block of Santa Barbara Avenue.
When officers arrived they found the victim in a back bedroom of the residence with a gunshot wound to the head, police said.
Samoodi is accused of fleeing the shooting scene in a rented U-Haul truck, police said. Samoodi and the victim had been dating, police said.
Police tracked the getaway vehicle to Menifee, where police there located it and attempted to pull the driver over, police said. Samoodi led police on a chase for about 33 miles before being halted near the San Bernardino (10) Freeway and Cedar Avenue in Bloomington when the vehicle, which had been in multiple collisions, broke down, police said.
Samoodi refused to get out of the vehicle until SWAT officers from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department took him into custody, police said.