Christine Darlene Calderón was strolling down Hollywood's Walk of Fame with her co-worker on Tuesday afternoon, when an amusing cardboard sign caught her eye. She pulled out her cellphone to snap a picture of men displaying signs on Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, asking for money with four-letter insults and a smiley face.
One of the men saw her and demanded she pay a dollar to take their photos, and when the 23-year-old refused, they allegedly pinned her co-worker against a wall and knocked down Calderón and stabbed her, Los Angeles Police Department officials said.
When she got up to run away, authorities said, blood was gushing from a stab wound in her midsection. She collapsed just a few feet from the Walk of Fame. She was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center three hours later.
Los Angeles police detained two men near the crime scene at midnight and a third man was arrested hours later on suspicion of murder. Police described the trio, believed to be 26 to 34 years old, as transients.
Dustin James Kinnear, 26, was charged with murder. Jason Joel Wolstone, 33, faces one count of assault and two counts of accessory after the fact, and Brian Joseph Widdoes, 34, was charged with two counts of accessory after the fact in their first courtroom appearance Thursday.
Calderón's mother, Yolonde Tassin, told the Los Angeles Times that her daughter had completed her GED and had recently registered for classes at El Camino Community College.
"Her plan was to become an engineer," Tassin said. "She didn't want to waste years. She wanted to get in there and do it right."
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