A judge ruled Wednesday that there is enough evidence for a Long Beach man to stand trial on accusations he murdered a 17-year-old girl and two weeks later opened fire on a car containing four teenagers.

Briana Soto, a Poly High School student, was walking home from her job at McDonald’s on the evening of March 26 when she was fatally shot within a few steps of her Cambodia Town home.

Soto’s boyfriend, Ricardo Choza, testified Wednesday at a preliminary hearing that he was on the phone with her when the shooting occurred.

Choza said he suddenly “heard her scream, then a pop noise.” A few moments later, a bystander picked up the phone and said Soto was bleeding on the ground.

Briana Soto in an undated photo courtesy her family via GoFundMe.

Nearby security camera video showed the suspected shooter wearing dark clothes with a hoodie concealing his face. Prosecutors allege the man was 34-year-old Troy Lamar Fox, who is now charged with murder and four counts of attempted murder.

With about twenty of Soto’s family and friends in attendance, Long Beach Superior Court Judge Debra A. Cole ruled that Fox would be held to answer for charges related to Soto’s killing and the separate shooting two weeks later.

Cole said the evidence was “overwhelming” and that Fox “smirked” when prosecutors played security camera video they allege ties him to the Soto’s killing.

“For the record, I didn’t smirk or nothing,” Fox said as he was escorted out of the courtroom following the hearing.

Troy Lamar Fox. Courtesy the Long Beach Police Department.

None of the evidence presented at Wednesday’s hearing hinted at a potential motive for Soto’s killing, and police said previously that it didn’t appear Fox had any prior relationship with Soto or any interaction with her before the shooting.

Prosecutors allege that DNA collected from a bullet casing at the murder scene returned as a match for Fox.

Fox’s girlfriend at the time of the shooting, Tyrisha Hawkins, testified Wednesday under an immunity deal from the prosecution.

In an interview captured on video with detectives in September, Hawkins identified Fox from the surveillance videos and said the man shown in the clips matched his walk and had on black, white and red Nike Jordan 11s, which Fox also owned at the time.

In court Wednesday, Hawkins attempted to walk back that identification and said she gave detectives that answer to appease them at the end of a roughly two-hour interrogation.

Hawkins also testified that when she was arrested on Sept. 10 on suspicion of possessing ammunition, she thought she would be charged in connection with the murder.

She told detectives that on the night of the murder, she was sitting in her black Nissan Altima with a friend on Lewis Avenue near 10th Street when she saw a man walk by wearing clothing matching the description of the shooter. She told detectives she did not see his face because he placed the hoodie over his head and drew the strings to conceal his face.

Hawkins also testified that Fox had access to her Nissan, which prosecutors allege Fox used to carry out a separate shooting on Pine Avenue just north of West Anaheim Street early in the morning on April 9 when Fox allegedly fired at, but missed, four teenagers as they drove away.

At the time of both shootings, Fox had a warrant out for his arrest dating back to November 2023, when he allegedly violated the terms of his conditional release related to a conviction of illegal weapons possession, police said.

His history of convictions dates back to 2013 when he accepted a plea deal on one felony count of making criminal threats in Antelope Valley.

Since then, Fox has also served time for grand theft in 2015 and 2017, felony burglary and grand theft in 2018, commercial burglary in 2019 and illegal possession of a firearm in 2023.

If convicted of the latest charges, he would face life in prison, prosecutors said.

He is due back in court on Nov. 13 for arraignment before trial. He’s being held on $6 million bail.