Long Beach Police are asking witnesses to come forward in the "horrific" fatal car fire attack on a man in a 7-Eleven parking lot Friday after surveillance footage revealed more customers who witnessed the crime have not come forward.
"We don’t usually see this type of crime," said Sgt. Aaron Eaton of the Long Beach Police Department. "It is just horrific. We hope we don’t see it again."
Detectives may release the footage later in the week in an effort to collect witness accounts of the "unsettling" crime, Eaton said.
Authorities are trying to piece together the circumstances surrounding the brazen daylight attack, and if witnesses do not report what they saw -- or tell the media and not the police -- that can impede the investigation, Eaton said.
"Many witnesses are going to the media saying the reason he set him on fire was because of a conversation about money," Eaton said. "Nobody told us that at all."
The alleged attacker, Raymond Sean Clark, was reportedly a transient man who allegedly set Jerry Payne, 63, on fire as Payne sat in his SUV at the 7-Eleven near the intersection of Clark Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway.
A witness told NBC4 that Clark asked Payne for money and Payne refused, possibly suggesting a motive in the attack.
But Eaton said that no witness has shared that information with police. He urged witnesses to call Long Beach Police.
"We'd love to interview them to document this crime," he said.
Witnesses also have told the media that Clark was a homeless man known to hang around the neighborhood loitering, but no residents have reported that fact to police, Eaton said.
Clark was set to be arraigned on Tuesday for attempted murder charges.
But after the victim died in the hospital from his burns Monday, Eaton said police will file a murder charge, pushing his arraignment date two days out.
The current bail at $502,200 will increase with the new murder charge, Eaton said.
Clark is being held in the Los Angeles County Jail until his arraignment.
Any witnesses with information about the attack were asked to call detectives at 562-570-7244.