A man fatally shot in the Antelope Valley earlier this week was identified Thursday as an acclaimed Caltech scientist who worked on NASA research.
The victim in the Sunday morning shooting in Llano was identified as Carl Grillmair, 67, by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner. He died from a gunshot wound to the torso in a death that was ruled a homicide. A Caltech spokesperson confirmed that Grillmair was a research scientist at the Pasadena-based institution.
The shooting was reported at around 6:10 a.m. Sunday on the 30700 block of 165th Street East in Llano, a rural desert area about 20 miles east of Palmdale. Deputies who were responding to a 911 call regarding an assault with a deadly weapon found Grillmair on a front porch suffering from a gunshot wound, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.
“While investigating the shooting call, Palmdale Sheriff’s Station deputies also responded to a carjacking call in the same area,” reads a statement from the LASD.
The suspect, 29-year-old Freddy Snyder, was initially detained and later arrested on suspicion of murder, carjacking and burglary, according to the sheriff’s department.
He was being held on $2 million bail.
Grillmair’s work included research using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and focused on galactic structure, dark matter and stellar populations, according to his Caltech biography.
Colleagues say his research helped scientists identify water signatures on planets outside the solar system. He was also known for discovering stellar streams — trails of stars left behind by disrupted star clusters and dwarf galaxies — which provided important insight into how the Milky Way formed and evolved, KTLA reported.
City News Service contributed to this report.