Tip From Cabby Leads to Arrest in Robbery-Murder of Fellow Driver

Authorities on Monday credited a Los Angeles cab driver with helping them track down a suspect in the murder of a Long Beach cabby earlier this month.

Los Angeles police homicide detectives on Sunday arrested Kenneth Eugene Redman, 20, of Inglewood, who is accused of shooting cabby Titus Imaku from the back seat of his cab on the evening of May 1, taking less than $30 from his wallet and dumping his body in an alley.

Redman, held in Parker Center jail without bail pending arraignment today, was picked up Sunday morning in the 6500 block of Victoria Avenue in Los Angeles, about five blocks from the spot where Imaku’s abandoned cab was found. Although homicide detectives provided few details of their case, they said putting the pieces together would have been tough without the informant’s aid.

“We were jumping up and down after we got the call,” said South Bureau Homicide Detective Larry Kallestad. “Without this person coming forward to us, resolving this case would have been very difficult, if not impossible.”

The tipster was Herman Garvin, a cab driver for 39 years who works for Independent Cab Co. He said he contacted police after hearing about the murder on television. “I had tears in my eyes when I saw the story on TV,” Garvin said. “I feel sorry for him and his family but it could have been me. The detective told me I’m a lucky man.”

The 61-year-old Garvin said he told authorities that, a few hours before the shooting, he picked up a woman, two teen-age girls and a young boy on Brynhurst Avenue in southwest Los Angeles and took them to Long Beach. When detectives contacted the passengers, one of the teen-agers helped them contact Redman, Kallestad said.

Investigators believe Imaku picked up a passenger in Long Beach near where the woman and children were dropped off about 9 p.m. on May 1. Redman, detectives said, got in the cab sometime later. Authorities are seeking the passenger picked up in Long Beach as a possible accomplice in the crime.

At Long Beach Yellow Cab Co., where Imaku worked in the evenings to support his wife and two children, drivers were relieved that a suspect had been arrested but still anguished over the seemingly random killing.

“I have over 600 drivers who are very happy but still not completely relaxed,” the company’s operations manager, Abebe Asefa, said Monday.

The company has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to the killer’s conviction. Asefa said it is too early to tell whether Garvin will get the reward.

Imaku’s widow, Deborah, said she is pleased that an arrest has been made. She said it is appropriate that a cab driver helped crack the case.

“I can’t tell you how nice the taxi drivers have been,” she said. “To think that one of them caused this guy to get caught is the prayer I’ve been praying.”

But she said she still has questions about what happened to her husband, a 35-year-old Nigerian immigrant who studied engineering at Cal State Long Beach by day and drove at night.

“I want to know why they had to kill him,” she said. “They got away with less than $30. All they had to do was ask and he would have given the money away. There is not a day I don’t go to his cemetery. I still don’t believe that it’s true.”