Furniture Executive Found Slain in His Van : Crime: Joseph Backer of Newport Beach was the victim of a ‘violent murder,’ police say. Several leads and motives have been developed.

Police on Thursday were investigating the bizarre slaying of a prominent furniture manufacturer and retailer from Newport Beach, whose bullet-riddled body was discovered on the floor of his blood-spattered van.

Authorities reported that Joseph Backer, 47, died sometime Wednesday after he was beaten in the face with a blunt object, shot several times in the upper body and then abandoned in his new Plymouth Voyager.

“It was a very violent murder,” Lt. Marc Hedgpeth said.

Business associates said Backer, who bought Image Furniture Manufacturing four months ago, was last seen on Wednesday when he left his Huntington Park office.

“He was supposedly calling on accounts,” said Lynn Wilson, the floor manager of Image’s showroom in the Los Angeles Mart, a large marketplace for home furnishings. “But I don’t know where he went.”

Another friend, Elizabeth Alexander, who works at the headquarters of Stylus Furniture--a seven-store chain founded by Backer five years ago--said she chatted on the phone with her former employer on Wednesday. But she also did not know where he might have gone.

“He was in great spirits,” Alexander said. “He said his business was doing very well.”

Hedgpeth said that about 9:45 p.m. Wednesday, a police officer on patrol near an apartment complex in the 3000 block of Frontera Street noticed a 1991 Voyager parked in front of a fire hydrant. It appeared to be unoccupied.

Because the new van had not yet been issued a permanent license plate, the officer used a flashlight to peer inside the front windshield to copy down the vehicle identification number on the dashboard, Hedgpeth said.

It was then that the officer saw “a large quantity of blood, and Backer’s body lying face down on the floorboard behind the front seat, Hedgpeth said. It appeared that Backer was killed inside the van and then driven to the Frontera Street location.

After the grim discovery, seven detectives and six patrol officers canvassed the area until about 2 a.m. Thursday, asking residents if they saw anyone park the van.

Using information from interviews and a number of tips from callers, Hedgpeth said detectives have developed several leads and motives in the killing, but they declined to elaborate.

“We are pursuing a number of different avenues,” Hedgpeth said. “But at this time it’s too early to say what they are.”

Hedgpeth also declined to say if investigators were able to obtain fingerprints in the van or if any evidence provided clues to a suspect. No weapons have been found.

Friends and neighbors were shocked and dismayed to learn about Backer’s violent death. They described the furniture executive as a mild-mannered man who loved traveling and went out of his way to help others.

“He was just the ideal type of neighbor that anybody would want,” said Gary Newton, 49, who has known Backer and his wife, Leatrice, since he moved into the Back Bay neighborhood where the Backers lived.

“If I asked for the shirt off his back, he would give it to me,” Newton said.

Neighbors said that when Backer sold his interest in Stylus and retired more than a year ago, he and his wife spent a month in Europe, traveling from country to country.

The couple had no children, but Backer cared for the their miniature schnauzers as if they were his kids, Newton said. “He and Lea walk those dogs up and down the street every night.”

But late last year, Backer grew restless again, friends and business associates said, and he purchased Image, which manufactures upholstered furniture in a Huntington Park factory and sells it in the Los Angeles Mart.

“What a shame,” said Kent Smith, 30, who lives on the other side of Backer’s single-story Dover Drive home. “What a hell of a nice guy. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body.”