Just In: Suspects arrested in case of young job-seeker

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Det. Kevin Lowe of the Sheriff’s Department homicide squad has cleared the case of Wilbert Jamaal Mahone, 18, who had left Compton for safety reasons, then returned to find work, only to be murdered there on May 14. Two men are in custody facing murder charges. More on them to come.

Mahone was one of seven children of Yolanda Mahone and her husband Wilbert, a Boeing line supervisor. The couple had moved their family to Georgia from Compton four years ago because ‘we had sons and we didn’t want them to be killed,’ said Yolanda Mahone. Mahone spent his teenage years in Georgia.

But hunger for a job drew him back to California, back to the old neighborhood, where he still had family--and old associations. Young Wilbert Mahone was planning to stay in Compton with his younger brother just long enough to find out whether he had been selected for a union laborer job here in Southern California.

He was at the home of a family member at 3740 E. Pauline St. in Compton on May 14, 2007, when drive-by shooters came down the street. He was shot in the side. He made it inside the house, and died there, holding the hand of his 16-year-old brother.

A letter arrived after his death accepting him for the job, his mother said.