A hotel receptionist threatened a young guest in her room before stabbing her and driving her car off a dock.
Aaron Tran, 23, was found drowned in his white Honda Accord near the USS Midway Museum in downtown San Diego early Monday morning.
He sank to 40 feet of water after doing donuts in the streets and deliberately leaving the pier at 80 mph.
The disconcerting events began when Tran checked two women in their 20s from out of state into a room at The Shoal La Jolla Beach.
The disconcerting events began when Tran checked two women in their 20s from out of state into a room at The Shoal La Jolla Beach.
A few hours later, he called the room to say he needed to come in to fix a water leak, which the police said did not exist.
One of the women let him in while her friend was sleeping in bed and they walked to the bathroom before he handed her his phone.
“She looked at her phone and on it he had written something like, ‘Don’t scream, I have a knife. If you scream, I will stab you.’ When she looked up, he was holding a knife,” said San Diego Police Lt. Paul Phillips.
Instead, the woman fought back and was stabbed, suffering a superficial wound near her collarbone.
She screamed loud enough to wake her friend and they escaped together while Tran fled the building to his car around midnight.
Several witnesses saw him speeding through the city centre and doing donuts, and a patrol officer tried to pull him over.
Tran revved its engines and sped away from the dock, splashing into the bay and sinking to the bottom within 10 minutes.
Tran’s shift ended at 10 p.m. and police were reviewing security footage to figure out what he did in the nearly two hours leading up to the attack.
San Diego Harbor Police said he left the dock around 12:35 a.m. and his body was recovered by divers around 2:20 a.m.
Phillips said Tran had several stab wounds near his collarbone but was not injured in the fight in the hotel room.
At least one of the wounds was self-inflicted and a pocket knife was found in the car, which was eventually pulled from the water at around 5.30am.
Tran’s shift ended at 10 p.m. and police were reviewing security footage to figure out what he did in the nearly two hours leading up to the attack.
He worked at The Shoal for about six months, had no criminal record and lived with his parents.
The motive for the hotel room attack is under investigation. Police are comparing his fingerprints and DNA with other unsolved crimes.
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