3 Arrested in Kidnap-Slaying of Landlord Collecting Rents

Three men have been arrested in connection with the November kidnap-murder of a Vietnamese-American landlord, whose burned body was found at the edge of Los Angeles International Airport hours after he had left his Rancho Palos Verdes home to collect rent from delinquent tenants, Los Angeles police said Saturday.

Charged with the murder of John Long are Kerry Bernard Ephriam, 24, of Hawthorne, his brother, Kacey Gerard Ephriam, 18, of Los Angeles and a friend, Michael Anthony Valentine, 24, of Inglewood. Long was the elder Ephriam’s landlord, police said.

Long, 53, disappeared Nov. 8 after departing for two Hawthorne apartment buildings to make his rent-collection rounds, police said. His body was found that evening, bound and gagged, in a dead-end street near 91st Street and Stanmoor Drive, at the edge of a fenced vacant lot that is now part of LAX.

The body was on fire when a passing truck driver discovered it, and was so badly burned that it took coroners’ investigators a week to identify the remains. Long’s beige 1980 Mercedes-Benz was found abandoned and ransacked near 53rd Street and Central Avenue in Southeast Los Angeles. Scattered inside were Long’s business papers, his Rosary beads and a deposit slip for several thousand dollars dated the day of his disappearance.

Valentine was apprehended Wednesday and arraigned Thursday. The Ephriam brothers were arrested Thursday. Los Angeles Police Sgt. Greg DeWitt said the Ephriam brothers will be arraigned Feb. 13. All three have been booked on charges of suspected kidnaping, murder and grand theft, and are being held without bail, DeWitt said.