Drug Link Suspected : Studio City Shop Owner Killed Execution-Style

Los Angeles police Friday were investigating the execution-style killing of a Studio City poster shop owner and the disappearance of an artist friend who was last seen with him.

The body of Marshall E. Brevetz, 47, owner of Framed Art Posters store in Studio City, was found Wednesday night on a grassy slope in the El Sereno section a few miles north of downtown Los Angeles. His hands were tied behind his back and he had been shot repeatedly, Police Lt. Jim Duke said.

Police found Brevetz’s body at 9:15 p.m. in the 4400 block of Lynnfield Street after being called by neighbors who heard gunshots and a car engine.

Authorities were searching for Gary Abrams, 36, an artist employed by Brevetz. Abrams was last seen leaving the poster shop with Brevetz about 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, police said.

“There’s a very good possibility he’s been killed or will be killed,” Duke said.

Investigators were examining the possibility that Brevetz’s killing and Abrams’ disappearance are drug-related, Duke said.

Kathryn Owens, a friend of Brevetz’s interviewed at his house Friday, said he had telephoned another friend Wednesday night and reported that he needed $30,000 to pay a group of Colombian drug traffickers.

“I need to get 30 grand for these people by tonight or I’m a dead man,” Owens quoted Brevetz as telling the friend.

“We’ve heard that,” Duke said. “We have not been able to substantiate that. It’s just a rumor.”

A source close to the victim said Brevetz dealt drugs but was not a major dealer.

Police also were looking for Brevetz’s car, a mid-1970s reddish-orange BMW with no license plate, Duke said.

Brevetz, a former recording studio owner and business manager for entertainers, was paroled from Soledad prison in January, 1983, after serving 15 months of a three-year sentence for possession of cocaine for sale.

He was arrested in April, 1979, at his Agoura home after Ventura County sheriff’s deputies found a vial containing $3,000 worth of cocaine. Five pounds of cocaine found in a closet was ruled inadmissible as evidence on the ground that it had been seized without a warrant.

Violated Parole

Deputies and U. S. marshals had gone to Brevetz’s home to arrest him for violating parole on a 1977 conviction for harboring a federal fugitive.

Donald R. Wager, the attorney who represented Brevetz in the cocaine case, said Brevetz had “a reputation as a sort of chemist. He could make lousy coke look good, could make it salable.”

Abrams has no criminal record, Duke said.

“He was described to us as a very quiet individual, kind of a meek person who worked in the gallery,” the lieutenant said of Abrams.

The tiny art shop is in a small shopping center in the 11000 block of Ventura Boulevard. A person in a position to observe it frequently said it was not popular with neighboring businesses.

“There was just tons and tons of lowlife traffic in and out of that place,” he said. “I’ve never seen anyone walk out with posters.”

Neighbors and friends said Brevetz owned the tan one-story house on Katherine Avenue in Van Nuys where he lived with his 7-year-old daughter. He also had a grown son and daughter.

‘Lots of Problems’

“Lots of cars came by here every night,” a neighbor said. “There was lots of noise, lots of problems. People would come and then go right away.”

Another neighbor described Brevetz as a devoted father.

“His whole life was his little girl,” the neighbor said. “He had a heart of gold. He was truly a good man. No one was a better father.” Like most others interviewed, she refused to give her name.

Brevetz was described as being 5-foot-7 and weighing 330 pounds.

In the early 1970s he discovered rhythm and blues singer Bobby Womack, according to Wager, his former lawyer. He said Brevetz was a record industry executive, “hot, driving a Rolls-Royce, playing it up real big. . . . Then he just blew it all on cocaine. He just got sidetracked by drugs.”