Police Seek Woman in Slaying of Beverly Hills Pawnbroker

Pawnbrokers throughout California were in a state of shock Thursday after a shooting at the posh Beverly Hills offices of the Beverly Loan Co., known in industry circles as the “Rolls-Royce” of pawnbrokers, which left the elderly co-owner dead and his son critically wounded.

“They were one of the most prestigious houses in the country,” said Dennis Hooker, president of the Collateral Loan Assn. of California, a trade association. “They were known as the pawnbrokers’ pawnbroker. They numbered among their clients many movie stars.”

Beverly Hills police said they were seeking a 31-year-old Reseda woman, Asuncion Carag Espina, in connection with the Wednesday afternoon attack.

Julius Zimmelman, 79, was shot in the abdomen and died shortly after arrival at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. His son, Harry, 38, remained in critical condition Thursday in the hospital’s intensive-care unit with a gunshot wound in the head.

Beverly Hills Police Lt. Robert Curtis said a murder warrant had been issued for Espina “as a result of evidence obtained at the scene.”

While the lieutenant would not specify the evidence he was referring to, he acknowledged that a handgun had been recovered at the crime scene--a high-security, third-floor office in the Wells Fargo Bank building at 9350 Wilshire Blvd., a couple blocks east of Rodeo Drive.

Thursday afternoon, authorities announced they had impounded Espina’s Honda automobile, which was found near Thayer Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard in West Los Angeles.

Espina was described by police as 5 feet, 2 inches tall, weighing 135 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes.

Curtis refused to disclose a possible motive for the shooting, although other sources indicated that the assailant may have been an angry customer.

Louis Zimmelman, who co-owned the business with his brother, Julius, said that “from what I gather, it was someone they may have known.”

“She came in evidently to pawn something and from then on I don’t know what happened,” said Louis Zimmelman, 81, who was not in the office at the time.

Access to Beverly Loan, which features displays of precious jewelry, antiques and art, is restricted by an electronically controlled front door with inch-thick, bulletproof glass.

The bank building, which also houses the offices of actors Gene Wilder and Sidney Poitier, has a security guard in the lobby.

Neither Wilder nor Poitier were in the building at the time, according to employees of their offices.

The Zimmelman brothers, who started out as diamond sellers, had been in business in Beverly Hills for 47 years, offering loans for such collateral as jewelry, silver and occasionally a fur coat.

In past interviews, they talked of conducting transactions ranging from friendly, $10 loans for gas to a $300,000 credit extension to a foreign princess who pawned her crown jewels.

Many of their clients were foreign nationals--including members of the deposed Russian czarist dynasty in the 1940s, Cuban exiles and, more recently, well-heeled Southeast Asian and Iranian immigrants. One regular client, they said, was a Saudi Arabian princess who took out loans on her diamonds while waiting for her $10,000 monthly checks from her oil-rich father.

“They didn’t handle guitars or ice skates or hockey sticks,” noted a tenant in the building. “They handled small items like jewelry, diamonds--items of value. . . .”

‘Growing Trend’

According to Hooker, Beverly Loan served as a “pace-setter” for an industry in which there is a “growing trend toward an upstairs, or at least more well-lighted, more open, more prestigious type shop.

“People were trying to emulate them all over,” said the San Jose-based Hooker, who succeeded Louis Zimmelman as head of the state trade association 15 years ago. “Their reputation was the best.”

Nonetheless, the Zimmelman brothers had had at least one past scrape with the law. In 1979, the two men were indicted by a federal grand jury, which accused them of being the masterminds behind the heist of nearly $1 million in jewels belonging to the estate of comedian Red Skelton’s late former wife, Georgia.

A U.S. District Court judge later dismissed the charges against Louis and ordered a new trial for Julius after 10 jurors returned a guilty verdict against him. Julius was acquitted in the the retrial.

Noren Cohen, owner of Film City Loan and Jewelry Co. in Hollywood, Thursday called the Zimmelmans “the most honest, upright, straightforward people I know in the business. They never wronged anybody, and I am totally in shock.”

“This business has a large liability exposure,” Cohen added. “You get people from all walks of life--the rich and the middle class to people down on their luck. I guess you have to deal with people who are in a large range of mental attitudes.

“Sometimes people get very nasty when you turn them down for a loan,” he continued. “They ask for $5,000 for a diamond, and it’s only worth $500, but they get angry. . . . You try to be secure and look over your shoulder as best you can, but you can only do so much. . . . When you’re number is up, it’s up.”