Did old friends set up musician who was killed?

Pair who say they knew Maria De La Rosa from childhood are suspects in case.

- BY MATTHEW ORMSETH AND RICHARD WINTON

POLICE at the scene after Maria De La Rosa, 22, was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest while sitting in a vehicle in Northridge.

Around 1:30 a.m. on a Saturday last month, two masked men approached a black Cadillac Escalade idling outside a Northridge apartment building.

One held a shotgun, the other a handgun. A surveillance system captured the sounds of what happened next: A gang challenge, confusion, a demand for property.

Then six shots and sounds of the Escalade speeding off.

In the passenger seat was Maria De La Rosa, 22, with a gunshot wound to the chest. A musician who performed as De La Rosa, she had a growing following at the time of her death on Nov. 22.

Authorities said De La Rosa was killed during a robbery but revealed little else about the case. The Times recently reviewed a search warrant affidavit written by the Los Angeles Police Department detective who investigated the homicide. According to the document, De La Rosa was set up by her friends—two of three people now charged with her murder.

Arrested the day after the homicide, Francisco “G Boy” Gaytan told police he'd known De La Rosa since they were teenagers, Det. Siranush Simonyan wrote in the affidavit.