A California man who rapped about burying his girlfriend just hours after she disappeared has been charged with her murder, prosecutors announced this week.
Robert Camou, 27, was charged Wednesday night with one count of capital murder after allegedly slaying his girlfriend, Amanda Custer, 31, last July, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. Custer has been missing since July 29, when authorities responded to the couple’s house after receiving a domestic violence call.
The charge also comes with a “special-circumstance allegation” that says Camou committed the crime while out on bail. L.A. prosecutors declined to provide details on the enhanced charge.
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If convicted, Camou either faces the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors allege Camou took his girlfriend against her will from their shared home in Monrovia before killing her on or around July 29. At the time, Camou was out on bail after being charged in April with domestic violence for beating, strangling, and threatening Custer with a stun gun, prosecutors said.
Camou, according to authorities, left his house on July 29 after deputies responded to the domestic violence call, stopping by Del Taco and a gas station to buy cigarettes. He removed his court-ordered ankle device about five hours before he showed up to an open-mic night at the King Eddy Saloon in downtown Los Angeles and rapped about murdering and burying his girlfriend.
Wearing a black blazer and button-up, the 27-year-old introduced himself as a “gangster in the house,” before rapping that he had cut off his electronic monitoring device.
“You don’t even know,” Camou said during the performance, which was caught on video. “I killed my bitch and buried that bitch in the fucking dirt.”
Before leaving the rap circle, he muttered, “The cops are trying to look for me... and I’m trying to shut my mouth.”
Neighbors told police they saw Camou dragging a “lifeless” body into the trunk of his Toyota Prius after the performance, said Sheriff’s Lt. Scott Hoglund.
Early the next morning, police found Camou sleeping in the back seat of his car about a half mile from the bar—and blood and a “tool used for digging” in the trunk. When police tried to arrest him, he refused to get out of the car. After a five-hour standoff, the Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team tossed a canister of tear gas inside to apprehend him.
Investigators later found blood inside the couple’s home, which is about an hour outside of Los Angeles.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that the allegations against Camou highlight months of warnings from Custer about her boyfriend’s abusive behavior throughout their two-year relationship. Camou has also previously been charged with first-degree burglary, injuring a girlfriend, as well as assault and battery, the district attorney’s office said.
According to court records, Custer filed for a restraining order against Camou in February, alleging he had been harassing her with countless texts and phone calls using “over 100 fake numbers” before he allegedly jumped a fence to break into her bedroom. Custer, the mother of an 8-year-old son, said in court documents that when she didn’t let her boyfriend inside, he returned with a hatchet.
“I also think he would go as far as hurting her or killing her to hurt me,” she wrote in the petition, first reported by The Los Angeles Times.
Camou’s public defender did not immediately respond for comment. Camou is currently in jail and is expected to return to court for an October hearing.
