Sister of Slain Man Begs Police to Catch Killers

The letter was postmarked from Lima, Peru, and addressed to the North Hollywood homicide detectives. Kathy Bustamante, whose 21-year-old brother Eric was fatally shot in the back by gang members, had a request.

“There is not one night I don’t pray for Eric while my father and mother cry in the other room as my own tears run for him,” wrote Bustamante, 22, whose family moved back to their native country after the January killing. “What I would please like to tell you and ask you in the name of God, is please . . . please!! find them . . . please!!”

Bustamante’s impassioned plea deeply touched detectives Mike Coffey and Gil Uribe. Over several months they had run into several discouraging dead ends, but Bustamante’s Sept. 5 letter inspired them to intensify their efforts.

Leaflets offering a reward for any information related to the slaying have been posted and distributed in areas near the crime scene. Last week, detectives began going door-to-door asking neighbors for help.

“We are brainstorming, trying to figure out what we haven’t done yet and what other things we can do,” said Uribe, who has been on the case from the start. “This is another instance where an innocent kid was killed for no reason. We know Kathy and how much the family loved Eric and want to solve the case.”

On Jan. 28, at about 2:20 a.m., Eric Bustamante was walking from a friend’s house in Burbank to his North Hollywood home when five to seven men, apparently gang members, chased him down Burbank Boulevard to the corner of Satsuma Avenue. They shot him as he ran, killing him instantly.

The death of his eldest son was too much for Carlos Bustamante to bear. He sold his swimming pool excavation business and put the house on Elmer Avenue up for sale. When a new owner was found in April, Carlos moved his wife, Rosario, and two daughters, Kathy and Chantell, 7. His other son, Steve, 20, had gone back to Peru the day after the killing.

“My brother took it really badly,” said Felipe Bustamante, Carlos’ brother. “I just spoke to some relatives in Peru and they say whenever he opens his mouth, the conversation always turns to Eric.”

Referring to her father, Kathy said: “He’s totally destroyed. I’d like to go back to California, but my father won’t return until the killer is caught. I think if they find those jerks, I could have my parents back.”

In her letter to the detectives, Kathy wrote that she is constantly worried and preoccupied “trying to snap out my mother from her sad dazes and trying to help a grown man, a great father to smile a little and stop asking himself what did he ever do wrong to lose his son.”

Uribe says either Kathy or her uncle Felipe calls the North Hollywood police station monthly to check on progress in the case. Unfortunately, after serving three search warrants, interrogating more than 30 gang members and visiting three prisons, detectives have turned up few leads. In June, Councilman Joel Wachs announced a $25,000 reward for information leading to Eric’s killer. It produced no results.

“We have six or seven suspects and a handful of witnesses,” said Uribe, who looked troubled as he composed a letter back to Kathy and the Bustamante family in Peru. “I want them to know we are working on it, but I don’t want to give false hopes.”

Kathy says Eric was the most ambitious of the Bustamante family. He graduated from Notre Dame High School in 1992 and then opened his own auto body shop in North Hollywood. Racing around in his 1967 Dodge Dart was an obsession for Eric, as was a dream of playing professional soccer. His little brother Steve has taken that dream to Peru, where he hopes to become a professional player.

“He was the kind of guy who laughed at everybody’s jokes, no matter how stupid,” Kathy said. “That would always crack me up. He didn’t go out a lot. He just liked hanging out with my dad and racing cars. Sometimes I can still feel him.”

Kathy says the family wants to return to California in January to visit Eric at Forest Lawn Cemetery for his 22nd birthday. He was killed three weeks after his 21st birthday.

“Please . . . please find them,” she writes, “so that when I do go visit Eric for his birthday in January, I will not have to wonder if the person down the street, walking toward me, is my brother’s murderer.”