Five people have been arrested in Lady Gaga’s dognapping crime
Five people were arrested on Thursday (April 29) on suspicion of shooting Lady Gaga’s dogwalker Ryan Fischer four times (he survived) and making off with two of her three prized French bulldogs. The shooting happened February 24 in a residential area of Hollywood north of Sunset. Both dogs were later “found” (more that in a moment) and returned to police by a woman.
James Howard Jackson (age 18), Jaylin Keyshawn White (10), and Lafayette Shon Whaley (27) are all charged with one count each of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit robbery and second-degree robbery. Jackson also faces two more additional firearm charges. They are all known gang members.
Harold White and Jennifer McBride, two people apparently not involved in the actual shooting, were charged with one count each of accessory after the fact. White, the father of Jaylin, one of the kidnappers, was also charged with one count of possession of a firearm.
McBride–the woman who “found” the dogs and showed up with them at a police station–faces one count of receiving stolen property.
The theory is that the kidnappers freaked out by all the publicity surrounding the crime and decided to dump the dogs on Harold White through his son. The LAPD thinks that White then contacted McBride (apparently his girlfriend) to take the dogs to the cops in hopes of collecting the $500,000 in reward money. She showed up with the dogs two days after the dognapping. The reward money was never paid.
From the NY Post: “Detectives do not believe the suspects were targeting the victim because of the dogs’ owner,” the police said in a release. “However, evidence suggests the suspects knew the great value of the breed of dogs and was the motivation for the robbery.”
All suspects are being held on $1 million bail.
