Band Manager’s Murder a Baffler : Police Have No Leads in Death of Rock Music Promoter

Police on Saturday said they are still baffled by the Wednesday night murder of 36-year-old rock band manager David Sterling, who was apparently ambushed and shot to death as he and his former wife locked up his new Los Alamitos office.

“I suppose we would classify it as a whodunit-type thing,” Los Alamitos Police Lt. Gary Biggerstaff said of the slaying, the city’s first in nearly a decade.

“I’d like to be able to give you the name and address of the (person) who did this and tell you we’re going to break his front door down him and drag him into jail in five minutes. I can’t,” added Biggerstaff, who said that four detectives were working through the weekend on the investigation.

Relatively Unknown

Sterling--described by acquaintances as relatively unknown but ambitious in the music industry--was fatally shot in the back at the front door of Sterling Entertainment Inc., 10541 Bloomfield St., at 10:35 p.m. last Wednesday. The next day, detectives roped off and searched a section of the parking lot where the killer is believed to have lain in wait for Sterling.

Two shots may have been fired at the heavyset Sterling, who staggered back into his office, collapsed and died.

His former wife, Kathy Sterling, with whom he shared an Ontario home and planned to remarry, was the only witness to the shooting, officers said. They said she did not see who fired the shots because her back was turned at the time.

The four detectives working on the case were talking with musicians and other performers with whom Sterling worked, Biggerstaff said, but a motive in the slaying had not been established.

Interviewed Ex-Wife

Investigators have interviewed Kathy Sterling, 24, who worked with her ex-husband and who is “from out of state,” Biggerstaff said. She is not considered a suspect in the shooting, he said.

“We do not believe it was random and we don’t believe it was drug-related,” Biggerstaff said of the shooting. “Other than that we just don’t know yet.”

For six months in 1980 Sterling had worked as a Pomona Police Department officer in training, but police and acquaintances said he had always been involved in music.

“I think at one time he had even been in a small band,” Biggerstaff said. Described as amiable and enthusiastic about his work, Sterling managed rock bands and booked engagements for actors, actresses and models. He also represented “a couple of Penthouse (magazine) Pets,” according to Steve Shoemaker, who works in advertising and promotion for San Francisco-based BAM magazine’s Los Angeles office.

Had Expanded Activities

Recently, Sterling had expanded into production, adding a video production facility and a recording studio next door to his Los Alamitos office, Shoemaker said.

He said Sterling had placed a half-page ad in the most recent edition of a biweekly statewide music trade magazine, offering a wide range of services.

His clients included the bands Planet, Leandro and Rain, which performs a Beatles revival show and frequently plays at Huntington Beach’s Golden Bear nightclub.

Shoemaker said Sterling also managed or booked engagements for actors such as Darryle Grant, who sang on a Rolling Stones record and who appeared in the movies “The Tempest,” “Trading Places” and “Blow Out.”

Little Known About Him

Although he appeared to have a substantial list of clients, very few of them seemed to know much about Sterling.

“He was beginning to flake out as an agent, but he was a nice person,” Mark Lewis, the lead singer of Rain, said Saturday. “I didn’t really know him that well, his personal life, I mean. . . . There might be another whole side of his life that we didn’t know about.”

Sterling had only recently moved his budding business to the Los Alamitos office in an industrial complex north of Katella Avenue. A grand opening had been planned for tonight (Sunday), Shoemaker said.

“A lot of heavies were going to be there, media people,” Shoemaker said. “He wanted to let everybody see the new place, get media exposure and celebrate. . . . He worked around the clock, he was very proud of it.”