Suspect in 91 Freeway Double Homicide faces charges

Riverside, Ca- Jawaun Deion GRAHAM, 20, the suspect arrested Tuesday, March 14, 2006, in Hawthorne, Nev., in response to the Riverside Police Department investigation of a freeway double homicide on January 22 and a street shooting of a pair of youths on January 30, waived extradition Friday afternoon, March 17, and will return to Riverside, likely over the weekend.

The Riverside arrest warrant lists two charges of murder, two charges of attempted murder and one charge of firing a weapon at an occupied vehicle, in conjunction with the January 22 freeway shooting that killed two occupants and injured the driver of a vehicle on Highway 91 east of Madison Street. Graham faces an additional three counts of attempted murder in the January 30 incident in which shots were fired at three youths following a verbal altercation on Seventh Street near Douglass Avenue. Two of the three youths received minor gunshot wounds.

Ballistics tests on a M1 .30 caliber military-type rifle recovered from the scene of the January 30 shooting on Seventh Street matched bullets fired in both incidents.

Joel Rios, 26, of Moreno Valley; and Manuel Gomez, 24, of Anaheim, were killed and a third man, the driver, was injured when the driver of a passing vehicle, alleged to be Graham, fired several shots on the 91 freeway. Police are still seeking a female passenger that witnesses described seeing in the Graham vehicle at the time of the freeway shooting.

Persons with information about either of these cases are asked to contact Detective Mike Medici at (951) 320-8049 or Detective Steve Shumway at (951) 320-8011.