killing

Nearly a year after Christina Downer disappeared, her actor boyfriend was among two people arrested on suspicion of murdering her, Los Angeles police said Friday.

Downer’s brother is “Saturday Night Live” writer Jimmy Fowlie. Los Angeles Police Department officers arrested Delorean Bijon Brandon, 41, and Kaylee Nicole Markowski, 34, on Thursday after a lengthy investigation that kicked off after Downer was reported missing just before Christmas last year.

Both Brandon and Markowski were booked at the Metropolitan Detention Center with bail set at $2 million each. It is not clear if they are being represented by attorneys.

At first, the disappearance appeared to be a missing person’s case. Downer’s ex-husband requested a welfare check on Dec. 18, 2025 when he hadn’t heard from her. At the time, Downer’s boyfriend, Brandon, claimed that she had moved out several months earlier, leaving behind everything she owned including her car and dog, according to LAPD.

A few days later on Dec. 22, Fowlie shared a missing persons flier on his Instagram, writing that Downer had been missing and the family was concerned for her safety. In a separate post, he shared a photo of Downer and her dog, Rex, and wrote in the caption that his sister was very attached to the dog and had last been seen in Koreatown.

“I heard from her on Nov 26th. She was active on social media up to Dec 15th,” he wrote, noting that the last time anyone had spoke to her on the phone was Oct. 5. Fowlie said in the post that the family had “reason to believe” that in the weeks before she went missing, her phone and social media had been compromised and that whoever had Downer’s phone used it to hide “the fact that she was gone,” by requesting money and create an illusion that she’d skipped town and gone off the grid.

But when Downer’s phone washed ashore on the beach in Santa Monica, LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division took over the investigation.

Early this month, investigators searched an Airbnb in Joshua Tree in connection with Downer’s disappearance, according to NBC. It is not clear what, if anything, investigators found at the location.

Oct. 28, 2026 9:44 AM PT

MINNEAPOLIS — The parents of intensive care nurse Alex Pretti said the federal government is shielding the immigration enforcement officers involved in their son’s killing, and no one from the government has reached out with any substantive information for nine months.

Michael and Susan Pretti on Tuesday called for the Department of Justice to hold accountable those who shot their 37-year-old son during President Trump’s ramp up in deportations targeting Minnesota. Federal prosecutors disclosed in recent court filings they had stopped sharing evidence with Minnesota authorities who are investigating the January killings of Pretti and Renee Good by federal officers.

“The federal government went on TV and lied about Alex,” said Susan Pretti, his mother. “They tried to slander his memory to cover up their crime. Not only was it wrong, it was shameful.”

Within moments of his Jan. 24 death, Trump administration officials sought to portray Pretti, a U.S. citizen and nurse at a veterans hospital, as an armed disruptor intent on doing harm to federal agents when he brought his own gun to a Minneapolis street where officers clashed with protesters. Kristi Noem, the then-Homeland Security secretary, painted the Veterans Administration hospital nurse as a domestic terrorist who violently resisted federal agents. Court records show he had no criminal record.

Video shot by bystanders that day showed Pretti only had a mobile phone in his hand. No footage has since emerged showing him brandishing a weapon or attacking federal agents in the moments before he was killed.

The Prettis spoke Tuesday at a news conference organized by an attorney representing the family, calling their treatment by the Trump administration “cruelty.” They said they decided to speak out after being “stonewalled” by U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, U.S. Atty. Dan Rosen.

“At every turn, they have ignored us, misled us, and shielded Alex’s killers,” said Michael Pretti, his father. “We are a family who love this country. We trust in the institutions of this country. We believe in the rule of law — and that people should be held accountable through that law.”

After months of reaching out to Rosen’s office, the federal prosecutor agreed to meet with them in July. But the family and their attorney, Steve Schleicher, said that meeting raised more questions than answers, with Rosen refusing to provide even basic information about the status of the federal investigation into Pretti’s death.

A spokesman for Rosen’s office had no comment when reached by the Associated Press on Tuesday. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Pretti family’s remarks.

Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration in March for access to materials they said they needed to independently investigate the shootings of Pretti and Good. The Trump administration has suggested that state prosecutors don’t have jurisdiction to investigate federal officers, while Minnesota officials have said they don’t trust the federal government to investigate itself.

The state is still seeking the cellphones of the officers involved in both shootings and recordings of key interviews.

Pretti’s parents recounted how they first learned of his death when they were called by a reporter for the Associated Press.

“We learned about his death from the media as we saw him being shot repeatedly in the back after helping a woman from his community, a fellow Minnesotan, who had been shoved to the ground viciously,” Michael Pretti said. “No one from the federal government called us on that horrible day, but they did go on TV to tell lies about Alex. No one from the federal government has called us since.”

He said the videos of his son’s killing haunt his family every day.

“I think it haunts many Americans to see a U.S. citizen who was peaceful and in his community shot multiple times on the back, in the back, while on the ground,” the father said, calling his family heartbroken.

“We wish we didn’t have to be here,” he said. “We wish Alex was alive. We wish we were simply in Minneapolis to visit with Alex. For he and I to chat about cars, hiking, biking or anything that came to our mind. This administration has taken that away from us forever.”

Biesecker and Vancleave write for the Associated Press. Biesecker reported from Pittsburgh.

Authorities warn of ‘destructive winds’ and urge residents to shelter as the storm passes the island’s northeast.

Typhoon Champi has struck Taiwan, killing one person and injuring at least 350 others, as authorities warned of “destructive winds” and instructed people to stay indoors.

The storm swept past the island’s northeast on Friday, toppling trees, shutting shops and schools, cutting power to thousands of households, and forcing more than 4,300 people to evacuate from their homes.

Champi is heading towards China and Japan, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights in the region.

“From tonight through tomorrow morning conditions will be very windy and stormy everywhere,” Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecaster Lin Ping-yu said in a briefing. “Please try to stay indoors.”

Champi was briefly a super typhoon with winds of nearly 300 kilometres per hour (186 miles per hour) but has since weakened. The US Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported maximum winds of 185km/h (115mph).

Worse is still expected to come on Saturday. Champi could drop up to 900mm (35 inches) of rain between Thursday and Saturday, with the northeast hit hardest, the CWA said. More than 400mm fell in Yilan County on Friday.

CWA forecaster Lu Kuo-chen said the typhoon could slow near the island’s northeastern tip, prolonging its impact.

About 8,400 households in Japan’s Okinawa islands were without power on Friday afternoon, according to the Okinawa Electric Power Company. Champi is forecast to hover near Okinawa and then China’s eastern coast before turning northeast towards mainland Japan.

Champi is the latest storm in a Pacific season supercharged by El Nino.

The United Nations said on Wednesday that El Nino, a natural cycle that warms the tropical Pacific, is heading off the charts.

“The current El Nino event could be unprecedented in strength. Literally off the monitoring charts that we have used for the past four decades,” said Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.

It is expected to peak in December, with its impact lasting into 2027 and beyond.