A Santa Monica man accused of kidnapping a female UCLA student and raping another woman in Culver City killed himself a day before he was schedule to appear in court.
Police and paramedics found 26-year-old Alexander Schecter unresponsive around 6:00 p.m. on Monday in the 800 block of San Vincente Boulevard after a family member called authorities to report that he was not breathing, the New York Post reported.
First responders pronounced Schecter dead at the scene. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner concluded his cause of death was suicide. Authorities did not provide any further details.
Schecter was supposed to go to the Airport Courthouse on Tuesday for a preliminary hearing for several felony counts, including kidnapping to commit another crime, first-degree residential robbery, forcible rape, and two counts of forcible oral copulation.
Prosecutors had accused Schecter of offenses involving extreme violence, threats of great bodily harm, and acts demonstrating a high degree of cruelty, the report states, citing court documents.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office alleged that he kept a female UCLA student from leaving his car at around 3:00 a.m. on March 6 of this year while dropping her off on Landfair Avenue. He allegedly threatened violence, but the student was able to make an “escape half a mile away on Gayley Avenue,” according to the report.
UCLA Police arrested Schecter six days after the kidnapping, and the investigation tied him to an unsolved sexual assault from 2025.
Investigators accused Schecter of sexually assaulting and raping a woman in Culver City on October 12, 2025, according to the report.