LLANO, Calif. (KABC) — A 29-year-old Llano man is in custody, charged with killing a Caltech astrophysicist Monday after carjacking his own relative and burglarizing a home.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s detectives say 67-year-old Carl Grillmair was found shot to death on the porch of his home in rural Llano.
Deputies had arrested Freddy Snyder later in the day for carjacking and soon linked him to Grillmair’s shooting.
A motive for the shooting has not been released, and detectives don’t believe the two men knew each other.
Snyder had been arrested in December after trespassing on Grillmair’s property while carrying a rifle.
Grillmair had worked at Caltech as an astronomer and astrophysicist for 30 years, 26 of those years with fellow scientist Sergio Fajardo-Acosta.
“What was unique about Carl – and he is irreplaceable – was the ingenuity and the creativity, applying methods that nobody had ever thought of before… and very unique detective-type methods,” Fajardo-Acosta said. “(He) was extremely hard-working, extremely creative and the most generous individual one could imagine.”
Grillmair was renowned for his studies on the collisions of galaxies and the search for water on planets outside our solar system.
“The field of astronomy has lost a great figure,” said Fajardo-Acosta.
Snyder has been charged with several felonies, including murder, burglary and carjacking.
His bail has been set at $2 million.
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