Police Link Cocaine Ring to Murders at ‘Rock’ House

Suspects arrested this week in the slayings of four people at a Lake View Terrace house are thought to be members of a drug ring that controls the distribution of “rock” cocaine in the northeast San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles police said Friday.

Police think the Aug. 28 killings, which occurred at a house where cocaine was sold in the 11400 block of Wheeler Avenue, were sparked by a drug dispute. They said the four suspects arrested Thursday were associated with an organization that has sold cocaine through rock houses in the northeast Valley for several years.

“They seem to be the controlling interest in that area,” Valley narcotics unit Lt. Gary Rogness said of the organization.

Stanley Bryant, 30, and Levi Slack Jr., 24, both of Pacoima, were arrested Thursday morning on suspicion of murder in the Aug. 28 shooting deaths of Andre Armstrong, 31, and James Brown, 43, both of St. Louis, and Lorretha Anderson English, 23, of Seaside, Calif., and her 28-month-old daughter, Chemise.

Antonio Johnson, 28, and Nash Newbil, 52, both of Lake View Terrace, were arrested on suspicion of being accessories to murder. The four are scheduled to be arraigned Monday and are being held without bail in the Foothill Division Jail.

Linked to Other Slayings

Authorities said the quadruple slaying may be related to the fatal shootings in Pacoima of Douglas Henegan, 21, of Panorama City on July 31, and Tracy Anderson, 24, of Sylmar on Sunday. Police said Leroy Wheeler, 19, of Sylmar was arrested on suspicion of Anderson’s murder and has been implicated in the quadruple slaying.

The arrests came during a joint narcotics-murder investigation in which 15 locations, including three suspected rock houses, were raided and searched. In addition to the arrests in the multiple murders, police arrested two men on drug-possession charges and seized a small quantity of cocaine, $10,000 in cash and six automatic weapons.

Because of an ongoing investigation, police declined to elaborate on the drug ring or on the suspected dispute that led to the murders. In court records, the group is referred to as the Jeffrey Bryant Organization, named for Stanley Bryant’s 37-year-old brother.

Jeffrey Bryant has been in prison since his 1986 conviction for operating a drug house--the Wheeler Avenue home where the four murders took place.

Court records of that case contain statements by two police officers that Jeffrey Bryant, convicted of bank robbery in 1974, was believed to be a member of the Black Guerrilla Family, a prison gang, and that he directed the sale of drugs at three rock houses from a pool hall on Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima.

‘Second in Command’

The records identify Stanley Bryant as “second in command” in the organization.

“His responsibilities included recruiting and scheduling persons to work in the rock houses,” said a statement from an undercover detective.

The Bryant brothers were arrested after the rock houses operated by the organization were repeatedly raided by police in 1985, records show. In one of the raids, Johnson was arrested in a rock house on suspicion of possession of drugs, according to the records. The disposition of that case against Johnson was unavailable Friday, but the records show that Stanley Bryant pleaded guilty on Feb. 27, 1986, to conspiracy to possess cocaine for sale and was sentenced to three years probation and 60 days in county jail. Jeffrey Bryant was sentenced to four years in prison for operating a house in which drugs were sold.

Rogness said investigators think the organization remained “alive and well” after Jeffrey Bryant went to prison.

However, detectives said drug sales stopped at the house on Wheeler Avenue after the 1985 raids. And, according to county records, the house was sold to Newbil last year. Police said they think drug sales resumed at the house less than two months before the quadruple slaying.