Police Find Cocaine at Shooting Site : Crime: The five victims were killed execution style, officials say. Robbery may have been a motive.

A “substantial” amount of cocaine was found in the apartment where five people were shot to death Monday, suggesting that the residence was a center for drug trafficking, Inglewood police said Tuesday.

“The shooting probably involved a robbery or a robbery gone bad,” said Sgt. Alex Perez, a Police Department spokesman. “You could have had drugs that were taken, you could have had money, or you could have had both.”

Perez said the department had no suspects in the shootings, which occurred about 2:45 p.m. Monday in a second-floor apartment behind a house in the 3600 block of West 109th Street.

Police identified the victims Tuesday morning as Shane LeRoy Wheeler, 24, who lived in the duplex apartment; his roommate, Nichol Elizabeth Thrower, 17; Molynthia (Mo) Smith, 19, who listed the apartment as her residence but apparently did not live there full time; Jimmie Lee Lewis Jr., 24, and Pedro Angel Lopez, 22, both of Los Angeles.

A preliminary autopsy indicated each of the victims had been shot several times, “execution style,” with one or more handguns, Perez said. He declined to elaborate.

Bloodstains in the tidy, two-bedroom apartment--left open and unattended after police finished their examination--indicated that the victims had died in the living room, kitchen and bedrooms.

Despite the carnage, the furnishings were relatively undisturbed, showing no signs of a struggle. A cursory examination showed no bullet holes in the walls.

Three neighbors who said they heard the gunshots reported hearing neither conversation nor shouting from the apartment before, during or after the attack.

Although one witness said he saw a man staring at him out of one of the apartment windows during a brief hiatus in the midst of the gunfire, none told of seeing anyone walking or driving away after the shooting.

Detectives said the relationships among Wheeler, Thrower, Smith and the two other victims had not been determined. Neither they nor the apartment were believed to have been the subject of recent police activity, Perez said.

Perez declined to specify how much cocaine was found in the apartment.

Most of the residents interviewed described the neighborhood as a high-crime area, rife with gang activity. Although police downplayed such reports, they conceded that many of the neighbors seemed reluctant to talk about the crime.

“Obviously, many of them are concerned and afraid,” Perez said. “I’m hoping that the fear will turn to outrage, and people will come forth.”

Martin Day, 28, who was packing a U-haul truck for a move back to his native Oregon, said Monday’s violence underscored his reasons for leaving his house on 110th Street.

“California’s just too dangerous for me,” he said.