The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved or re-established rewards in hopes of solving the fatal shootings of a young woman in the Vermont Vista area last month and a 71-year-old retired steel worker in East Los Angeles more than 12 years ago.
Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas recommended the $10,000 reward for information leading to the gunman who killed 18-year-old Chloe Evans in a car-to-car shooting on Oct. 25, saying detectives believe there were neighborhood witnesses to the shooting.
About 6 that morning, Evans was sitting in her tan Chevrolet Tahoe, parked in the 500 block of West 104th Street, when a white sedan with tinted windows approached and someone inside fired several shots, authorities said.
A candlelight vigil was held the following night at the crime scene.
The victim’s mother told City News Service that she went to the scene before the vigil in her effort to “understand what happened.” On the day she was shot, Evans had picked up mail from her mother’s house.
“We said goodbye. She said she had to go,” Leah Evans said.
The young woman graduated at age 17 from a nontraditional high school, took some college courses and was “still trying to find herself” when she died, her mother said.
Chloe Evans was “a brilliant young woman,” her mother told CNS. “She didn’t deserve to leave us like that.”
Ridley-Thomas urged anyone with information to call LAPD homicide Detective Michael Levant at 323-786-5100.
Supervisor Hilda Solis recommended re-establishing a $25,000 reward for information in the killing of Luis Sandoval. The reward had expired in February 2010, but will now be available for at least the next 90 days.
Sandoval was riding his bicycle near the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Hicks Avenue in East Los Angeles around 5 a.m. on Feb. 25, 2007, when he noticed two males tagging the side of a business. One of the taggers pulled out a handgun and shot Sandoval before the pair drove off in a white sedan.
Sheriff’s homicide Detective Ken Perry told the Long Beach Press-Telegram in 2008 that the bicyclist was likely caught in the crossfire between two rival tagging crews.
Sandoval was just four doors down from his own home and was able to make his way there. He spent 109 days in intensive care before dying from his injuries.
Sandoval, who was orphaned at a young age, was the father of six, grandfather to 14 and a great-grandfather to two children, his youngest child told the Press-Telegram.
“My father was a great person, a great father and a great provider,” Angie Soto said.
Supervisor Hilda Solis did not say what prompted her to re-establish the reward so many years later, but reward requests often come from detectives on the case.
She asked anyone with additional information to call sheriff’s homicide Detective Rich Lopez at 323-890-5500. Tipsters can also call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).