6-Year-Old Finds Father, Friend Slain in Sherman Oaks

A 6-year-old girl who had arrived from Texas the previous night to spend Christmas with her father discovered her father and a friend shot to death in the living room of his elegant Sherman Oaks apartment Wednesday morning, Los Angeles police said.

The living room of the one-bedroom apartment was ransacked and the two men had been shot several times in the chest, officers said.

No weapon was found, and police said they had not determined a motive for the killings.

Los Angeles Police Lt. Harvie Eubank declined to identify the girl or her 31-year-old father. He also refused to release the identity of the other victim, 27, who was described as a friend of the girl’s father.

Both men lived in the Grand Apartments in the 4700 block of Sepulveda Boulevard, where a white baby grand piano and a circular staircase grace the lavish marble lobby and apartments rent for between $1,000 and $1,700 a month.

Neighbors said the father, who they could identify only as “Greg,” had been a maintenance man in the security building for the past four years.

Neighbors who asked not to be identified said police told them that the younger man’s throat had been cut, but police refused to confirm that.

Eubank said the child, who had flown to Los Angeles the night before from her home in Houston, told them that she had slept undisturbed in the bedroom of the fourth-floor apartment and that when she awoke, she heard the volume turned up on the television in the living room.

It is not clear what she did after discovering the bodies, but the Los Angeles Fire Department was contacted by the girl or a neighbor about 8:30 a.m., Eubank said.

Police estimated that the killings occurred between midnight and 6 a.m.

The girl was placed in the care of Los Angeles County child welfare officials until she could be returned to her grandmother, who police said she lives with in Houston. Police said they had not determined where the girl’s mother resides.

A Christmas party in the lobby for residents of the 280-unit building had been scheduled Wednesday night but was postponed until New Year’s Eve, according to a resident who asked not to be identified.