Tired and Homeless, He Gave Up on Life

On a rainy Saturday morning, Dennis Whitaker lay unprotected on a patch of grass near an orange grove he occasionally called home and gave up on life.

Around 2 a.m., his friend, Anthony Mastas, offered to take him back to a nearby alley in Granada Hills where the two homeless men lived. He refused.

Six hours later, a passerby found him lying motionless in his rain-soaked clothes and called paramedics. Whitaker, 45, died 40 minutes later at Granada Hills Community Hospital.

A slight and quiet man known for his piercing blue eyes, Whitaker had once been a married man with three children and had stayed with the same employer 17 years. But he spent the last two years of his life living in an alley in his hometown of Granada Hills, a regular and likable figure who lived mostly off the kindness of others.

Friends and family say a variety of troubles contributed to Whitaker’s fall from grace. He had a drinking problem, sometimes downing a half-pint of vodka a day. His marriage of close to 20 years fell apart, ending in divorce. Eventually, he took to stealing and was arrested twice for petty theft.

His death Dec. 28, the first attributed to the recent winter storms, has left some friends wondering what they could have done to get him off the street. Others note that Whitaker had been helped, but never made the most of it.

“He just gave up,” said his friend, Alvin (Blackie) Woodall.

Despite his frailties--and perhaps because of them--he was well-liked, if not popular, in the business district around Chatsworth Street and Encino Avenue.

About 60 friends and family members gathered at First Presbyterian Church in Granada Hills for the homeless man’s memorial service Friday.

The altar was adorned with vividly colored flower arrangements from family friends and business owners who had given him handouts or hired him for odd jobs.

“He was out of work and down on his luck, so he chose to live on the street,” eulogized Rev. Don Maddox. “He was a man of faith, but life got the better of him.”

Three days earlier, a handful of homeless friends and drinking buddies placed flowers and wrote “R.I.P. Dennis” in red spray paint on a wall in Whitaker’s alley. A worn-out sleeping bag was still tossed over an aqua and peach lounge chair mattress that had served as his bed.

“He was everybody’s friend,” said James Murray, a friend from Mugsy’s, a bar Whitaker frequented. “I’m 24, and he was the pop I never had.”

Whitaker came to the alley two years ago after Woodall saw him lying under an orange tree in the same grove where he was found last week.

It was a hot summer day.

“I was walking in the alley when I saw him lying so still I thought he was dead,” Woodall said. “When I shook him, he woke up and we talked. We were friends ever since.”

He said he told Whitaker he could sleep in a sheltered alcove in the alley behind E and M Appliances, at 17252 Chatsworth St., where Woodall worked for his daughter, the store’s owner. Woodall, who moved to Lufkin, Tex., 10 months ago, said he would take Whitaker home and let him sleep on a couch in the garage when it was cold and rainy.

“He was a good friend, although he was an alcoholic,” Woodall said. “I thought he should be helped.”

Before moving to the Chatsworth Street alley, Whitaker had been sleeping behind a bowling alley, where he had been beaten up twice, Woodall said.

Woodall and even Whitaker’s sister said it’s hard to pinpoint what led Whitaker to the streets in the first place.

Six years ago, he left his job with Times Mirror Press, which printed telephone books, after 17 years. The company, now called GTE Directories Corp., was formerly owned by the company which owns The Times, but was sold to GTE in 1988. Company officials declined to say whether he was fired or quit.

A year after he left the printing company, he was divorced and went to live with his mother in Granada Hills for about three years. When she moved to Palmdale two years ago, Whitaker took to the streets.

Whitaker’s mother died shortly after the move and he lost touch with his sister, Jacqueline Mihalovich. But he stayed in Granada Hills, within walking distance of the house where his ex-wife, two sons and daughter live. Woodall said Whitaker wanted to be close to his family.

Indeed, sometimes one of his sons would ride his bike to visit his father, who proudly introduced the teen-ager to business owners in the area.

His ex-wife declined to say what led to the divorce but said Whitaker had battled personal problems and sometimes drank too much. She would not elaborate.

“Different possibilities seemed like solutions at the time, but they didn’t work for him,” she said.

So he lived on the street, doing odd jobs. He wasn’t necessarily happy, but he made no effort to change his lot, friends said.

“He was a very good man,” said Louie Hannah of Stardust Liquor. “He’d come in every day to buy half a pint of vodka, and I would give him a sandwich.”

Whitaker also had an arrangement with William Brady, owner of Brady’s Chicago Style Hot Dogs. He would show up at the restaurant before closing and Brady would give him left-over wieners.

Laura Protis of Lordz and Reeves Flowers said shop employees often gave Whitaker coffee and shared lunches and snacks.

“But the bottle got to him,” she said. “If anyone gave him money, he went to the liquor store and bought liquor.”

Some people tried to steer him away from the bottle.

“I got to the point where I would buy him food to eat rather than give him money, so he wouldn’t drink,” said Norma Williams, Woodall’s daughter.

He never begged for handouts, many people said, but two months ago Whitaker told Brady his eldest son was killed in an auto accident and he needed $5 to go to the funeral. Brady gave him the money and said he looked very shaken. It was a lie. His three children are very much alive.

He also had brushes with the law. At the time of his death, Whitaker had two outstanding arrest warrants for misdemeanor theft. The first was issued in January, 1990, the second in October, 1991. Whitaker had mentioned to Woodall that the police were looking for him for shoplifting.

He finally ended up back near the orange grove where Woodall spotted him two years ago. Beverly Nguyen, an employee at 1 Natural Nails who saw him daily, was the one who found him. She was parking her car in the alley when she saw his body.

“I got scared, so I drove to the front of the shop and called the police,” Nguyen said.

Family and friends said Whitaker had no apparent health problems other than his alcohol addiction. Authorities initially speculated that he may have died from hypothermia, but autopsy results were still pending Saturday.

When the autopsy tests are complete, Whitaker’s body will be cremated and his ashes will be placed with his mother’s at Glenhaven Memorial Park in San Fernando.

After the memorial service Friday, Whitaker’s sister said she hopes her brother is finally at peace.

“The only thing he had to do was quit drinking, and that’s the truth,” Mihalovich said.

His ex-wife, meanwhile, said she did what she could to help him.

“I don’t have deep feelings of ‘I could have done or should have done,’ ” his ex-wife said. Of the slide that led to his death, she said: “This didn’t just happen suddenly.”

On that rainy Saturday morning when his friend, Anthony Mastas, found him lying on the soggy grass, Whitaker appeared tired, incredibly tired. Mastas begged him to come inside.

“I can’t, Anthony,” Whitaker replied. “I can’t walk anymore.”

With tears in his eyes, Mastas recalled recently how he tried for an hour to talk Whitaker into returning to their alcove in the alley. Mastas even tried to lift him, but Whitaker refused the offer of help.

Mastas finally left him, and now regrets not calling authorities. And he still remembers Whitaker’s last haunting words.

“You know what, Anthony? I’m going to die.”