Caltech and the science world are in mourning today after the senseless murder of genius scientist Carl Grillmair at his rural home in Antelope Valley, north of L.A.
On Monday, the 62-year-old astrophysicist was found by sheriff’s deputies with a gunshot wound to his torso on the front porch of his home. Paramedics arrived soon afterward but were unable to save Grillmair, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Soon afterward, deputies arrested 29-year-old Freddy Snyder as a suspect in a nearby carjacking, soon linking him to Grillmair’s death. He has now been charged with the murder of Grillmair, carjacking, and first-degree burglary relating to a Dec. 28 incident.
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Caltech genius found gundowned on his front porch
Carl Grillmair was a Caltech astrophysicist at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center, specializing in galactic astronomy, dark matter, stellar streams, galactic structure, and exoplanets.
He led projects on Hubble… pic.twitter.com/PNMhDHzvur
It’s difficult to understate Grillmair’s contributions to our understanding of the universe. He’d been researching astrophysics for over 40 years, and in that time had helped reveal the structure of the Milky Way, identified a “galactic halo” around our galaxy, and clarified man’s understanding of how galaxies form.
There’s no justice in this world
Grillmair also published a key paper in 2007 about the presence of water on a planet outside the solar system, an important step on the road to discovering organic alien life. Astronomer Sergio Fajardo-Acosta, a longtime research partner of Grillmair, was distraught, saying “his legacy will live on forever” and that he’s “immortalized because the discovery of those galactic streams is attributed to him.”
NEW – Carl Grillmair, Caltech astrophysicist and research scientist (NASA principal investigator on Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes), shot and killed at his home in California. At the time of his death, he was researching comets and asteroids hazardous to Earth — LA Times pic.twitter.com/hUDETikEZj
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Grillmair had moved to Antelope Valley because it provided clear skies for him to observe free of light pollution, and had even constructed an observatory in his home outfitted with telescopes in order to continue his research uninterrupted.
His recent research saw him studying asteroids and comets that pose a hazard to the Earth and all of humanity, hoping to use his talents and intelligence to stop us all from going the way of the dinosaurs. And now he’s dead, senselessly shot in the gut so some loser could make a couple of bucks.
