A renowned California Institute of Technology astrophysicist who spent decades uncovering the mysteries of distant planets and the structure of the Milky Way was shot and killed on the front porch of his rural desert home Monday morning, authorities said.
Carl Grillmair, 67, died from a gunshot wound to the torso at his residence in Llano, an unincorporated community in the Antelope Valley, according to the LA County Medical Examiner, which ruled his death a homicide. Deputies from the LA County Sheriff’s Department found him on his front porch at approximately 6:10 a.m. on February 16, 2026, after responding to a 911 call reporting an assault with a deadly weapon in the 30700 block of 165th Street East. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.
Authorities arrested 29-year-old Freddy Snyder and charged him with murder, carjacking, and first-degree burglary. The carjacking occurred near Grillmair’s home while deputies were investigating the shooting. Court records show the burglary charge stems from a separate December 28 incident. As of Friday, Snyder remained in custody, held on $3.175 million bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned March 26 in Lancaster. Investigators have not disclosed what relation, if any, Snyder had with the scientist.
Jail records reveal that Snyder was previously arrested in Palmdale on December 20, 2025, on suspicion of carrying a loaded firearm in a vehicle. He was charged, but the charge was later dismissed for unknown reasons, and he was released on his own recognizance on December 23—less than two months before Grillmair’s killing.
The Los Angeles Times reported that deputies arrested Snyder while investigating a carjacking in the same area, initially detaining him as a person of interest before formally charging him with murder. The LASD Homicide Bureau continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
Grillmair worked as a research scientist at Caltech’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center in Pasadena, a facility that partners with NASA and the National Science Foundation to advance astronomical research. Over more than four decades in the field, he established himself as an expert in galactic astronomy, with particular focus on dark matter, galactic structure, stellar populations, and exoplanets.
“He was very famous in astronomy and a very renowned scientist,” said Sergio Fajardo-Acosta, who worked alongside Grillmair at Caltech for 26 years.
The scientist’s research contributions earned him the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 2011. He had been awarded substantial observation time as a principal investigator on both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope, using these powerful instruments to probe the cosmos and unlock secrets about the universe’s structure and composition.
Among his most significant achievements was leading a team that captured groundbreaking spectral data of exoplanet HD 189733b in 2007, work that contributed to identifying water signatures on planets beyond our solar system. Colleagues described this discovery as extremely important because water is considered a key indicator of conditions potentially suitable for life.
Grillmair also gained recognition for identifying faint stellar streams and substructures within the galactic halo—trails of stars left behind by disrupted star clusters and dwarf galaxies. This work advanced understanding of how the Milky Way formed and evolved. He named several of these galactic streams that he discovered, achievements that earned him a form of scientific immortality. More recently, he focused his research on studying comets and asteroids that could pose hazards to Earth.
Colleagues remembered Grillmair as an extremely serious person who possessed a good sense of humor, spoke eloquently, and read voraciously. Beyond his professional pursuits, he maintained a personal observatory at his home and was an avid pilot and outdoorsman, enjoying flights over the desert and home improvement projects.
The scientist deliberately chose to live in the remote Antelope Valley because the area’s isolation provided ideal conditions for stargazing. The dark night sky, largely free from light pollution, allowed him to observe bright stars clearly. He built an astronomical observatory at his home, outfitting it with several telescopes that enabled him to continue his passion for studying the cosmos outside his professional work.
Robert Perkins, Caltech’s senior media relations manager, confirmed the university employed Grillmair as a research scientist. The institution’s academic community mourned the loss of a colleague whose expertise and discoveries shaped modern understanding of galactic astronomy.
The killing occurred roughly two months after MIT physicist Nuno Loureiro was shot at his Brookline, Massachusetts, home on December 15 and died the following day—another tragedy that devastated the international science community. That suspect, Cláudio Manuel Neves Valente, had carried out a mass shooting at Brown University two days earlier that killed two people and injured nine before he was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New Hampshire.
The LA County Sheriff’s Department urged anyone with information about Grillmair’s death to contact the LASD Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500. Anonymous tips can be submitted through Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or at lacrimestoppers.org.
Fajardo-Acosta reflected on his colleague’s death with profound sadness, telling FOX 11 Los Angeles that Grillmair “takes knowledge with him that will be irreplaceable.” The astronomer’s curriculum vitae listed hundreds of publications, contributed papers, and abstracts accumulated over four decades of groundbreaking research into the structure and mysteries of our galaxy and beyond.