A man accused of killing a woman at an assisted living facility for mentally ill and developmentally disabled adults in Santa Monica was charged Tuesday with murder.
Taylor Roger Free, 35, of San Luis Obispo, was arrested around 8 p.m Saturday, just hours after the killing of 27-year-old Cheyenne Zampino at the facility in the 1900 block of Pico Boulevard, near Santa Monica College, according to the Santa Monica Police Department.
He was being held in lieu of $2 million bail, according to Los Angeles County jail records.
Free was charged Tuesday with murder, along with a special allegation for the use of a deadly weapon, according to court records and the District Attorney’s Office.
According to the county Medical Examiner’s Office, Zampino died in a bathroom of the facility from “sharp force injuries” to the neck.
Free pleaded not guilty to the charge Tuesday afternoon at the Airport Branch Courthouse. He was scheduled to return to court Aug. 11, when a date will be set for a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence for him to stand trial.
Lt. Lewis Gilmour confirmed to City News Service that the killing occurred at The Manor, whose website says it has “provided room, board, care and supervision since the 1960s for persons with mental illness, and for those with developmental disabilities.”
Officers responded to the facility at about 5:20 p.m. Saturday and found Zampino suffering from “significant injuries,” police said.
Witness statements led them to identify Free as a suspect in the killing, and Los Angeles Police Department officers found him and arrested him near Crenshaw and Exposition boulevards.
The relationship, if any, between Free and the victim was unknown, but police told City News Service Free was not a resident at the treatment facility.
The homicide was the fifth of the year in Santa Monica, one more than in 2025. None of the homicides are related, according to Gilmour.
Anyone with additional information on the killing was urged to call the SMPD at 310-458-8491.