Woman shoots sister in law and drives around with body

Rialto police: Woman shot sister-in-law, drove with dead body for hours
By Stacia Glenn
Posted: 05/02/2010 05:42:16 PM PDT


An armed transient was found pacing a Rialto street early Sunday after fatally shooting her sister-in-law and driving around with the body for hours, police say.
Sandra Lee Kotz, 48, is being held without bail at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on suspicion of murder.

"This is just really bizarre," said Rialto police Lt. Joe Cirilo. "We have a victim, we have a gun but what we don't have is the motive and the location where this occurred."

It was 12:45 a.m. when Kotz's sister in Washington State called police to report a conversation she'd just had with Kotz.

Kotz "told her she'd killed their sister-in-law and had been driving around for several hours with the body in the car," Cirilo said.

The sister was able to direct police to a home in the 500 block of S. Joyce Street, where Kotz allegedly told her sister she was headed.

Officers found a distraught Kotz walking on the street just after 2 a.m., armed with a handgun they believe was used to kill 58-year-old Ellen Ann Bayless.

Kotz took police to the victim's white 2005 Dodge Neon, which was parked in a nearby field. Bayless, who had been shot in the upper body, was dead in the car.

Detectives are trying to figure out where the shooting occurred and how the two women came to be in the same place. It's possible that Kotz was in Yucaipa, where Bayless lived, immediately after the shooting.

Bayless' husband - Kotz's brother - has not been located. Kotz is a transient whose last

known address was in Upland.

Crazy shit right, she must have been on a good one. Reminds me of that Eminem song where he's talkin about killin his baby moms and ridin round with the body.

I think she got into an argument with her sister in law, let it go too far and let loose on her and realized AFTER the fact that she made a mistake and when she didnt know what to do, she called her sister up all frantic and explained the whole thing..... what's sort of cold is how her sister called the cops on her AND told them where she was going.

If my sister ever called me saying she killed our sister-in-law, we gotta meet up and figure some shit out first. Burn the car, ditch the body and call in a missing persons report in a day or so or shoot her off wit a visa and a goodbye hug if she gotta run. I dont believe in calling the police on family. We handle our own shit. Fist or the pistol. Fuck the law....

Only way i'm driving around with a body in the car is if i plan on ditching it somewhere. She was on one. But when you afraid, you do some silly stuff anyway. Not in your right mind. I feel sorry for the family, having to go through that.