Cherie Lynnette Townsend appears in Torrance Superior Court, accused in the 2018 robbery and stabbing murder of 66-year-old Susan Leeds. of a Rolling Hills Estates mall in 2018 by a judge who ruled prosecutors had presented enough evidence against her during a four-day hearing in Torrance Superior Court.
Leeds also had a wound on her left index finger, indicating she may have tried to defend herself, said Dr. Paul Gliniecki, a deputy medical examiner. While there was a camera pointed in the general area of Leeds’ SUV, it did not capture clear footage of the murder. While detectives never found Leeds’ cellphone, phone records indicated it pinged off of towers headed in a northbound direction in the area of Hawthorne Boulevard in the three to four minutes that followed, Danielle Ponce de Leon, a crime analyst with the Sheriff’s Department, testified. During questioning by Landgraf, Ponce de Leon acknowledged authorities did not know specifically whether Leeds’ phone could have been in Townsend’s car.
Townsend and her daughter were scheduled to fly to Florida for a team competition on the day of the murder.