Police make arrest in cold case homicide of South Lake Tahoe man

Nearly seven years after the search for a South Lake Tahoe man’s killer went cold, police made an arrest in the case Tuesday.

Sean Donohoe, 34, was arrested by an FBI task force in Las Vegas on suspicion of the shooting death of Manpreet Singh in 2013, said Lt. Shannon Laney of the South Lake Tahoe Police Department.

Donohoe was determined to be a suspect in the case after the El Dorado District Attorney’s Office released a video of the crime in 2017, asking for the public’s help in finding the killer.

The video showed surveillance footage of a man wearing a black hoodie and a mask walking into the gas station store on Lake Tahoe Boulevard. The man then levels a gun at Singh and shoots him while he is standing behind the counter. The shooter doesn’t appear to take anything from the store.

Laney said the shooting was “chilling” and shocked the community.

“There was no rhyme or reason to it,” he said.

Police were able to gather forensic evidence from the crime scene, but without a match in a statewide DNA database, they couldn’t identify a suspect, Laney said.

After the district attorney’s office released its video, one person called in and identified Donohoe, who had lived in South Lake Tahoe at the time, Laney said.

“When we got the tip, it lit the case back up,” he said.

Police began working with a FBI task force in Las Vegas and surveilled Donohoe until his arrest Tuesday morning.

“Its our responsibility not to forget . . . and bring closure to the family,” Laney said.