Investigators arrest alleged gunman in 2021 Bay Terraces shooting

San Diego police this week arrested the alleged gunman in a 2021 Bay Terraces shooting in which the 23-year-old victim’s body was found in a car days after he had been killed, investigators said.

Reginald Mitchell was found July 21, 2021, after a witness reported finding a vehicle emitting a foul odor and bullet holes in one of the windows near Casey Street and Appian Drive, police Lt. Lou Maggi said.

Paramedics arrived and found Mitchell’s body inside the vehicle, Maggi said. Investigators believe he had been shot several days earlier.

Maggi said detectives learned a man had been living out of the vehicle. Nobody had seen what had happened to Mitchell but reported hearing gunshots in the area a few days earlier.

Four years later, Maggi said detectives had identified the suspected gunman but declined to identify him by name, citing that he was a minor at the time of the shooting.

The two men are believed to have been strangers to one another at the time of the shooting, according to Maggi.

Homicide detectives said the alleged gunman was already in custody on an unrelated charge being handled in Juvenile Court when he was arrested this week on suspicion of murder.

Further details about the suspect or what led up to the shooting were not immediately available.