A hotel receptionist threatened a young female guest in her room, stabbed her and drove his car off a pier.
Aaron Tran, 23, was found drowned early Monday morning in his white Honda Accord near the USS Midway Museum in downtown San Diego.
He ended up under 12 meters of water after making donuts on the street and deliberately jumping from the pier at a speed of 130 km/h.
The confusing events began when Tran checked two out-of-state women in their 20s into a room at The Shoal La Jolla Beach.
The confusing events began when Aaron Tran checked two out-of-state women in their 20s into a room at The Shoal La Jolla Beach
A few hours later, he called the room and said he had to go in to fix a water leak, but according to police, there was no leak.
One of the women let him in while her friend was sleeping in bed. They walked to the bathroom together before he gave her his phone.
“She looked at his phone and on his phone he had written something along the lines of, ‘Don’t scream, I have a knife. If you scream, I’ll stab you.’ When she looked up, he was holding a knife,” said Lt. Paul Phillips of the San Diego Police Department.
Instead, the woman resisted and was stabbed, suffering a wound to her collarbone.
She screamed so loudly that her friend woke up and they escaped together, while Tran fled the building around midnight and went to his car.
Witnesses saw him driving through the city center eating donuts and a police officer tried to stop him.
Tran accelerated and drove off the pier at high speed. The ship splashed into the bay and sank to the bottom within 10 minutes.
Pictured: Tran’s white Honda Accord is pulled from the water by authorities on the scene
San Diego police stand around Tran’s waterlogged and badly damaged car after divers pulled Tran’s body from the car
Trans’s shift ended at 10 p.m. and police were reviewing security footage to try to figure out what he had been doing in the nearly two hours before the attack
According to San Diego Harbor Police, he left the pier around 12:35 a.m. and his body was recovered by divers around 2:20 a.m.
According to Phillips, Tran suffered multiple stab wounds near his collarbone but was not injured in the struggle in the hotel room.
At least one of the injuries was self-inflicted and a pocket knife was found in the car. The car was eventually pulled from the water around 5:30 a.m.
Tran’s shift ended at 10 p.m. and police were reviewing security footage to try to figure out what he had been doing in the nearly two hours before the attack.
He had worked at The Shoal for about six months, had no criminal history and lived with his parents.
His motive for the hotel room attack was being investigated, with police checking his fingerprints and DNA against other unsolved crimes.