$10,000 Offered for Killer at Taco Bell

The Taco Bell restaurant chain is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a man who shot and killed an employee in Tarzana Sunday.

A Taco Bell official announced the reward Tuesday as Los Angeles police released a composite drawing of the suspected killer of Leroy Everett Moore, 25, of Van Nuys.

Moore, an assistant manager at the Taco Bell on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana, was cleaning the restaurant with another employee at about 3 a.m. Sunday when the killer forced his way inside, waving a handgun and demanding money, police said.

Gave Robber $200

Moore was shot after he gave the robber $200, police Detective Pat Conmay said. The killer then ran, Conmay said. A spokesman for the city coroner’s office said Moore died at the scene of a shot to the chest.

David Peterman, northern Los Angeles area manager for the Irvine-based restaurant chain, said Moore had been trained to meet a robber’s demands by giving him the contents of the cash registers. Conmay said, however, “There was some indication in the restaurant that there was a very small struggle” after the robbery. He declined to elaborate on the struggle or to name the other employee present during the robbery.

Conmay said the composite drawing was based on descriptions provided by Taco Bell employees who saw the killer eating earlier at the restaurant on Saturday night, and from the one employee who witnessed the Sunday morning robbery.

Moore, who was single, lived with his mother in Van Nuys, Conmay said. Police described his killer as a white male in his late twenties, about 5 feet, 10 inches tall, weighing 140 to 150 pounds, with a white or light yellow cap, a brown jacket and blue jeans.