Suspect Sought in Killings of Merchant, Artist

An arrest warrant was issued Thursday for a Los Angeles-area man wanted in the execution-style shootings of a Studio City poster shop owner and his artist friend, Los Angeles police said.

Marco Flores, 26, is being sought in the Sept. 3 shootings of Marshall E. Brevetz, 47, the owner of Framed Art Posters, and artist Gary Abrams, 35.

Police do not know where Flores lives, Sgt. Robert Suter said.

Investigators believe Flores was supposed to meet Brevetz the night of the shooting, Suter said. He would not say what the meeting was about, but said Flores and Brevetz had “a business arrangement” for more than seven months and that the case was “narcotics-related.”

A friend of Brevetz has said the shop owner was worried he would be killed because he owed for drugs.

Brevetz, a former recording studio owner and business manager for entertainers, was arrested in 1979 on charges of possessing cocaine for sale. He was sentenced to three years in prison in the case, but was paroled in 1983 after serving 15 months.

Brevetz was found dead on a grassy hillside in El Sereno, north of downtown Los Angeles, and Abrams’ body was discovered in a field in Fontana. Both were bound and gagged and shot several times.

They were last seen Sept. 3.

The arrest warrant alleges murder with “special circumstances” involving the execution nature of the shootings, indicating that prosecutors may seek the death penalty.

Suter said police hope to identify associates of Flores who also may have had a hand in the killings.

Kathryn Owens, a friend of Brevetz, said that he had telephoned another friend the night of his disappearance 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 unidentified friend.

Suter said police believe Abrams was not part of the dispute that led to the shootings.

The artist was “probably in the wrong place at the wrong time. . . . He probably didn’t know what was going on,” Suter said.