Los Angeles police detectives on Monday questioned two "possible witnesses" in connection with last week's slaying of Ennis William Cosby, while authorities in New York announced the arrests of two suspects in what was described as an unrelated extortion attempt on the young man's father, entertainment icon Bill Cosby.
The two potential witnesses were seen Monday afternoon in Torrance outside a Chinese fast-food restaurant, where one had entered to borrow a spoon. They were initially questioned at the scene by Torrance police and eventually brought to Parker Center in downtown Los Angeles for further questioning by the LAPD that extended into the night.
One of the men had been driving a light blue hatchback with white license plates that could have come from another state, said T.K. Hsu, the owner of the restaurant. Hsu described the man as white, between 25 and 30, with dark hair and a goatee. The second man was also seen in the area, and may have been with the driver of the hatchback, said Hsu, who described him as white with long, sandy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.
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A woman at the shopping center said the two men had been loitering in the area a day earlier and had been asked to leave by merchants.
On Saturday, police announced that they were looking for a blue hatchback, possibly with out-of-state license plates, that had been seen near the murder scene; the driver of that car was described as a white male in his late 20s to mid-30s with dark hair, a mustache and a goatee. According to police, that man was being sought for questioning as a possible witness to the killing of Ennis Cosby, who was shot on a dark roadside near Bel-Air about 1:45 a.m. on Thursday.
Torrance police questioned the goateed man at length in the strip mall parking lot at Pacific Coast Highway and Anza Avenue--a session that Hsu said did not appear to be heated. Hsu said the second man also was in the area, and the LAPD later confirmed that it was questioning two possible witnesses in the Cosby case. The blue hatchback was briefly searched in the parking lot and then towed away by authorities.
Meanwhile, the U.S. attorney's office in New York announced Monday that Autumn Jackson, 22, and Jose Medina, 54, both from Southern California, had been arrested Saturday. Authorities said the two were threatening to take a story to the tabloid news media accusing Bill Cosby of fathering an illegitimate child--an allegation denied by Cosby's spokesman.
