A mannequin in the front seat of a parked van led San Diego police to a couple wanted for questioning in a Houston homicide case.
The mannequin, fully dressed and wearing a baseball cap and red lipstick, was found on Tuesday night, sitting in the front seat of a white 1997 Ford van with Texas plates parked near a Costco in Kearny Mesa, a suburb of San Diego.
Officers immediately thought the vehicle looked suspicious and ran the license plates, soon finding that the van was linked to a person of interest in a shooting death in Houston.
Police found Adam Gouy, 26, and Amber Herdman, 30, sleeping in the back of the van. Gouy and Herdman are both people of interest in the shooting death of Samuel Luke Delaschott, 44, who died in the parking lot of a Burger King in Montrose after suffering a gunshot wound to the head on July 15.
The couple was detained on a felony warrant for being under the influence of a controlled substance and were booked into county jail. According to NBC 7 San Diego, Lt. Kevin Mayer of the San Diego Police Department said that further charges against the pair from Houston police officials are pending.
Gouy, a resident of Houston, has previously been sentenced to eight months in jail in 2007 for failing to register as a sex offender from an incident in which he sexually assaulted a 5-year-old child.
The mannequin found in the front seat of Gouy's van was what lead police to his arrest.
