LOCAL : Police Seek Motive in Killing of Ailing Man in Woodland Hills
Los Angeles police this morning were trying to determine the motive for the slaying of a man who was found shot to death in a house he was watching for his sister and her husband in Woodland Hills.
Police said Arthur Lee Ekrem, 59, of Palmdale was found in the house in the 22300 block of Quinta Road about 7:30 p.m. Sunday when his sister and brother-in-law, Phyllis and Robert Matthews, returned home after a weekend out of town.
Ekrem, who was retired and in poor health, had been shot numerous times in the upper body, Detective Rick Swanston said. He had been staying at the Woodland Hills house about a week while sick and agreed to house-sit while the Matthewses went away for the weekend.
Swanston said there was no sign of forced entry or a struggle at the house and robbery was apparently not a motive. Ekrem’s car was not taken.
The Matthewses left the house in a quiet hillside neighborhood near Mulholland Drive and Topanga Canyon Boulevard on Saturday morning, Swanston said. It appears from evidence at the crime scene that Ekrem was probably killed Saturday afternoon, he said.
Swanston said there was nothing to indicate that the victim’s brother-in-law, the owner of a chain of car lubrication shops, was the intended target.
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