Pacoima Man Gets 55 Years in Shooting That Left 2 Dead

A Pacoima man was sentenced Friday to 55 years in prison for his part in a shooting that left two bystanders dead and a third paralyzed in a North Hills parking lot.

Kenneth Ford Fuqua, 30, was sentenced by San Fernando Superior Court Judge Malcom H. Mackey. Fuqua was convicted on two counts of second-degree murder, attempted murder, burglary and auto theft.

Fuqua and an accomplice, Edward Furnace, were convicted in February of multiple charges stemming from the shooting in a lot behind an apartment complex in the 8800 block of Langdon Avenue on Jan. 2, 1989.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Sid Trapp said evidence in the trial showed that the two men dressed in black, put on black ski masks and carried Uzi submachine guns to the complex, where they hoped to find a drug dealer who they believed had set up a burglary at Furnace’s Van Nuys apartment. Once at the complex, they held two residents at gunpoint and forced them to go with them to the drug dealer’s apartment. They kicked down the door to the apartment but found it empty.

The couple held at gunpoint by Fuqua and Furnace escaped, and as the gunmen left the complex, Furnace opened fire with his Uzi on five men in the parking lot, striking three. Offering a possible motive, Trapp said one of the victims resembled the drug dealer.

“All of the evidence shows that Furnace did the shooting,” Trapp said. “He sprayed 13 shots from the Uzi. It looked like he wanted to kill everyone there.”

Killed in the shooting were Willie Johnson, 21, of Panorama City, and Brett Boswell, 28, of Saugus. Timothy Brown, 24, of Van Nuys, was shot in the spine and temporarily paralyzed. He is still recovering.

Furnace was sentenced earlier this month to life in prison without parole. Fuqua received a lesser sentence because he was not the shooter.