Deputies Investigating Orange County's First Homicide Of 2020 After Man Found Shot In Alley

LAKE FOREST (CBSLA) — Just a couple of hours into the new year, deputies with the Orange County Sheriff's Department were already investigating the decade's first homicide.

Deputies first responded to an alley behind some apartments in the 2300 block of Village Drive that was splattered with blood and littered with beer bottles. Deputies said they found a man in his 20s suffering from a gunshot wound. The man, who has not yet been identified, later died at the hospital.

By Wednesday afternoon, the crime scene had expanded down the street from the alley with yellow tags marking possible evidence leading through the neighborhood.

"It appears maybe he was with a group of people here at a party, and the people at the party found him," Lt. Chad Taylor said.

Neighbors said they heard partying and some midnight fireworks, but one woman who was in the area said it was something soon after that caught her attention.

"I said, 'Those weren't fireworks, those were gunshots,'" the woman said in Spanish.

Another resident, Alfonso Jacob, said he heard it too.

"It was very rapidly, because the fireworks don't sound like that," Jacob said. "It was a stronger sound."

And thought Annette Sariego said she wasn't sure what she heard, it made her uneasy.

"It's pretty scary, and I go walking down here all the time," she said. "That's what I was just going to do, go on my normal walk, and then come to find all this chaos going on right in the beginning of the New Year."

Police are continuing to investigate, but said they did not believe this was a random shooting nor do they believe there is any ongoing danger to the public.