More information on how investigators managed to track down the suspects involved in Pop Smoke’s robbery and deadly shooting has surfaced.
Last week, an LAPD officer testified at a preliminary court hearing for 20-year-old Corey Walker, the case’s sole adult suspect. The 15-year-old in the case had already admitted to fatally shooting Pop in the early hours of Feb. 19, 2020, but Walker has confessed to someone he thought was a cellmate and a gang member.
In May, the unidentified 15-year-old confessed to a cellmate at a juvenile detention facility. Walker talked of his relationship with a cellmate who claimed to be a gang member just six weeks later, according to the Los Angeles Times but the presumed cellmate, in fact, was a police plant.
Walker told the plant he was a member of the Hoover Criminals, a gang based in South Los Angeles, according to LAPD detective Carlos Camacho, who appeared in court last week. Walker told them that on Feb. 18, he drove to Pop’s Airbnb and returned later that day with four “youngsters,” per his words. To help him escape the cops, he took gloves, masks, and a police scanner with him. Walker and the four unidentified minors entered after learning that there were only two men and one woman inside the rented Airbnb.
Detectives Camacho and Frank Flores testified that a judge approved a warrant that allowed them to access a Google account belonging to Walker, which allowed them to track down the suspects. The account had searched the address of the house where Pop was living, which they had received from a message on the rapper’s Instagram Stories, prior to the robbery and shooting. Following the shooting, the same user performed a search for “Rolex oyster perpetual datejust” and “breaking news L.A.” The detectives then obtained a search warrant for Walker’s phone records.
Following Walker’s movements via cell towers in which his phone communicated, they were able to track him down until he was arrested. Walker has been charged with murder and robbery, and if convicted, he may face the death penalty. Murder and robbery have since been charged against the three accused minors. One suspect is still on the loose, believed to be the “guy from Stevenson Village” listed in Walker’s conversations with the police plant.
Walker acknowledged arming two of the teens before they reached the building, but said he stayed inside the vehicle. He said he gave the 15-year-old who confessed to shooting Pop “the heat” and “the burner” to “the guy from Stevenson Village.” Walker told the teenagers “don’t use my shit,” presumably referring to his weapons, according to the detective.
The 15-year-old confessed to their presence last week, but further aspects of the continuing investigation show that they just got away with Pop Smoke’s watch after the fatal robbery. The watch was later sold for $2,000 by the group.
Walker’s lawyer, Christopher Darden, claims that his client had no intention of killing Pop Smoke and was still in the getaway vehicle at the time of the shooting.
Darden said: “Part of the irony in all of this, is the person who shot him probably won’t stay in prison a day beyond 25. And my client stands to spend the rest of his life in prison. I think that’s fundamentally wrong.”
Source: Complex.
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