Engaged Couple Found Dead Inside Car. Police detectives said robbery does not appear to be a motive in the slaying of a young Irvine couple who were found shot to death late Sunday in a parked car at the upscale condominium complex where they lived.

“They could tell by physical evidence,” Irvine police Lt. Julia Engen said. “The car wasn’t rummaged through.” Engen said there is no clear motive in the deaths of Monica Quan, 28, and her boyfriend, Keith Lawrence, 27. The two were engaged to be married, according to reports.

Engen said the crime involved “multiple gunshots” but would not be more specific. She said it does not appear to be a murder-suicide case, though that has not been ruled out as a possibility.

Quan and Lawrence both graduated from Irvine's Corcordia University, where both played basketball. Quan, a star basketball player in high school in Walnut, was the assistant basketball coach at Cal State Fullerton.

"I'm sorry we're gathered here today for news like this," Fullerton head women's basketball coach Marcia Foster said at a campus news conference. "There just aren't words."

Quan's father, Randal Quan, was the first Chinese American captain in the Los Angeles Police Department and later served as the police chief at Cal Poly Pomona.

Gunshots were not reported Sunday night but a passerby called police after seeing Lawrence’s body slumped over in the car, police said.

Entry into the parking structure requires a key code and there are security cameras throughout the complex, a resident said, adding that some spaces are allocated for overnight guests.

“We moved here because it was so safe -- Irvine was the safest city in America,” said Sharon Smith, who has lived in the complex for a few years.
“I guess like anywhere else, we're going to have a few incidents. ... Nobody worries about living here.”