A 26-year-old man suspected of killing his father and his father’s girlfriend and wounding two other people in a normally quiet Aliso Viejo neighborhood was arrested in Inglewood Friday following a traffic stop.
Luke William Ferguson is suspected of gunning down 51-year-old Lisa Cosenza, who was once the ad director of the Los Angeles Times’ local newspapers in Orange County, and her boyfriend, 59-year-old Doug Ferguson, around 2:45 p.m. Thursday at 6 Ashbury Court.
Friends of Cosenza said Doug Ferguson was the suspect’s father, but sheriff’s still had not confirmed the relationship several hours after the suspect was taken into custody.
The shooter also wounded a 23-year-old man and a 48-year-old man, whose names were not released, according to sheriff’s deputies. They were in serious condition at an area hospital.
Shortly after noon Friday, Ventura police, aided by Orange County sheriff’s investigators, swarmed into a Ventura neighborhood near Dunning Street and Telegraph Road after fielding reports of a “suspect wanted in a shooting and double homicide out of Orange County that occurred yesterday” being seen in a residence.
Investigators suspected it was Ferguson, Orange County sheriff’s spokeswoman Jaimee Blashaw said.
About three hours later, however, Inglewood police spotted the suspect driving a stolen vehicle at high speed and made a traffic stop near La Cienega and Manchester boulevards and detained Ferguson, Blashaw said.
Orange County sheriff’s personnel soon arrived and arrested Ferguson on suspicion of homicide and attempted homicide and transported him to headquarters for questioning, according to Blashaw, who said Ferguson is expected to be booked into the county jail.
The stolen vehicle and a handgun were recovered at the scene of the arrest, she said.
Cosenza was remembered as an outgoing, friendly and hard-working colleague by former co-workers.
“We worked really well together at the Daily Pilot,” said Lana Johnson, who was the promotions director at the group of local newspapers while Cosenza was ad director.
“We collaborated on special sections,” Johnson recalled. “We had a great working relationship… Her employees valued her expertise and she was very professional.”
Johnson said she was “horrified and shocked” by the news.
Tom Johnson, publisher of Stu News, hired Cosenza for the real estate section and encouraged her to apply for the ad director job when he was publisher of the Times Community News papers.
“I hired her at the Pilot in the early `90s in (the) real estate department and she was very good,” Tom Johnson said. “She came from a real estate family and over time I really enjoyed working with her and she worked her way up the ladder. In the early 2000s, I had an opening for an ad director at the Pilot and I went to Lisa and told her she should apply for the job.”
Tom Johnson added, “She was just a good, strong person to work with.”
He was also saddened by the news of her killing.
“When you hear news like this, especially after everything going on it brings it so close to home. It’s so awful,” he said.
Cosenza was “loud,” Tom Johnson said, recalling her outgoing personality.
“We worked hard and had fun doing it. It was like family,” Tom Johnson said.
Another former co-worker, Vilma Hidalgo-Cruz, said Cosenza, an avid Cincinnati Bengals fan, loved working at the Pilot.
She also had a “passion for life and her work,” Hildalgo-Cruz said.
–City News Service