Kelsey Camila Meza, known to her family as Cami, was 17 years old when she was found dead with her mother, Cecilia Meza, 41, in their apartment in the 800 block of West Colorado Boulevard in Monrovia on Wednesday, December 5, 2018. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, Kelsey died of strangulation and blunt head trauma, and her mother died of strangulation. Both deaths were ruled homicides, and the case was taken over by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau.
Kelsey was a senior at Monrovia High School, which stood directly across the street from the family's upstairs apartment. Monrovia police were asked to check on the mother and daughter after Kelsey had missed several days of school, and officers found them at about 1:30 p.m. Investigators believed they had been killed a few days before they were found. As detectives worked at the scene that afternoon, tearful students gathered outside. "She was liked by plenty of people," Sheriff's Lt. Derrick Alfred said. Monrovia Unified School District Superintendent Katherine Thorossian wrote that students and staff "grieved for the loss of a friend, a student, a teen excited about going to college," and that teachers from her elementary and middle school years remembered "a sweet, kind girl who always went out of her way to help others." The district brought in grief counselors, and a candlelight vigil was held for mother and daughter on December 12.
Her family later wrote that Cecilia "was a loving mother who brought a lot of love and laughter to her friends and family," and that Kelsey "was an outstanding student at Monrovia High School with a bright future ahead of her. She was loving, caring and accepting of everyone."
Within hours, the Sheriff's Department named a suspect: Nimrod Perez Guerrero, 33, Cecilia's live-in boyfriend, who investigators said had an on-again, off-again relationship with her and who lived in the same apartment. Detectives described him as possibly armed and dangerous, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and 200 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes, and said he might be driving a gray 2014 Toyota RAV4. Days later he was still at large, and the family's fundraiser asked people to share his photograph to help find "their killer." No report of his capture or of a criminal case against him could be found.
Monrovia is a foothill city of about 37,000 people in the San Gabriel Valley, known for its tree-lined Old Town and its location at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. Killings there are rare, and the deaths of a mother and her teenage daughter in an apartment facing the high school shook the whole community.
Women and girls killed in their homes are most often killed by a partner or a member of the household, and cases in which the suspect flees can stay open for years, especially if the person crosses state or national borders. Homicides across Los Angeles County in 2018 were near their lowest levels in decades, yet a large share of killings still ended without an arrest.
No arrest or conviction for the killings of Kelsey Camila Meza and Cecilia Meza could be found in news archives or public records. Nearly eight years later, the man named as the suspect has not been publicly reported as caught. Anyone who knows where Nimrod Perez Guerrero is, or has information about the deaths, should not approach him and can contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS.
