Detectives Look Into Ballreich’s Past in Search of a Motive : * Slaying: Investigators don’t know whether the former mayor was an intended target or the victim of a random crime.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators were contacting friends and associates of former Alhambra Mayor Stephen Lynn Ballreich to determine whether his political or personal past will provide clues to his murder last week.

Ballreich, 41, who served on the Alhambra City Council from 1974 through 1979, was gunned down the night of Nov. 14, while either walking or jogging in the 1700 block of Marguerita Street, not far from the home where he grew up. He was pronounced dead at the scene, shot several times in the upper torso, sheriff’s officials said.

With no suspects, and uncertainty as to whether Ballreich was a random crime victim or an intended target, investigators were delving into his history in the community.

At the time of his death, he was running a campaign consulting business in Alhambra and was political director of the Lincoln Club, a political action committee that manages campaigns for Republican candidates.

“Obviously, because of his political activity, we’re having to check that out,” Sheriff’s Sgt. Curt Royer said.

Ballreich led a colorful, and controversial, life in Alhambra.

Described by friends as a natural politician--handsome, flamboyant and hard-nosed when he needed to be--Ballreich was 24 when elected to his 1st District seat. When he rotated into the mayor’s chair in 1977, he was the youngest mayor in the United States, city officials said. In 1978, he was reelected to the council with 75% of the vote.

Ballreich had his foes. In February, 1979, four months after his second term began, he resigned amid allegations, leveled by the citizens group All We Can Afford, that he had misused city travel funds and had improperly accounted for funds used in a community cleanup program.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office investigated, but did not charge Ballreich with any wrongdoing.

After resigning, Ballreich moved to Arkansas and dabbled in a number of ventures, including public relations. He returned to California in 1989, joined the Lincoln Club and opened the campaign consulting firm with a longtime friend, attorney Merrill Francis.

Divorced with one daughter, Ballreich lived alone in a South Pasadena apartment.

He was an avid sports fan and athlete, who jogged or played tennis with Francis almost every day, Francis recalled. Recently, Francis said, Ballreich flew to Tennessee to undergo a laser heart operation, the equivalent of double-bypass surgery.

“He was loyal to his friends and antagonistic to those he did not feel were his friends,” Francis said Tuesday as he delivered a eulogy during Ballreich’s memorial service in Alhambra. “We are all shocked and jarred by the manner of his death.”

Alhambra City Councilman Talmadge V. Burke remembered Ballreich as a political prodigy, who frequently quoted Thomas Jefferson.

At the memorial service, Burke praised Ballreich for pushing through a citywide beautification program, a boxing club and other innovative ideas.

The murder scene was about a mile away from where a man was slain Nov. 10.

In that case, a 20-year-old Alhambra resident was shot to death in front of his home on Ramona Avenue. But Alhambra police--who requested that sheriff’s homicide detectives assist in investigating the Ballreich slaying--said the earlier shooting was gang-related and apparently not linked to the former mayor’s death.

On Monday, police said they received a phone call from a resident of the neighborhood near where Ballreich was killed, who said a gunman was lurking in her yard. Officers rushed to the home, but found no one.