Police Want to Question Friend of Slain Teenager

Police investigating the death of a 15-year-old boy were encouraging the victim’s best friend to turn himself in for questioning Friday.

Denrel Martell Hudggins of South Los Angeles died Thursday afternoon. A neighbor who heard a shot called police, and officers who arrived at the apartment complex at 14322 Valerio St. found Hudggins lying on the living room floor, dead from a single gunshot wound to the head.

Det. Jim Rahm said Hudggins had been shot with a pistol. He said investigators have gathered some preliminary physical evidence from the scene, but declined to say whether it included the gun that killed Hudggins.

Rahm urged Hudggins’ friend, also 15, who may have been with him, to come out of hiding and tell his side of the story.

“None of the evidence can make total sense to us without hearing from this kid,” said Rahm, who would not release the boy’s name because he is a juvenile.

Tshima Steward, 24, whose mother lives at the apartment where Hudggins was found, said her mother, Gloria Vasquez, had recently taken the victim’s friend in. Vasquez had met the teen through a friend, said Steward, who lives across the street.

“We saw him around here every day and he just kind of grew on you,” said Steward, who said that neither she nor Vasquez ever met any of he boy’s family members.

Concerned that the boy was missing out on his education, Vasquez had hoped to enroll him in a local high school after spring break, Steward said.

The teen had invited Hudggins for the day to play video games, according to Steward, who said her information came from her mother, who had spoken to detectives. The boys would have been home alone while Vasquez was at work, she said.

Steward said no one in her family owns a firearm.

Steward said she has not talked to the teen, but got word from a mutual friend that he planned to come out of hiding soon.

“They were minors, they were staying there and they were unsupervised,” said Monica Apalategi, the manager of the complex. “It’s sad that he died, because it didn’t have to happen.”

Another neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said the boys often played with guns.

“They played with guns a lot,” the neighbor said. “You play with guns, sometimes they might go off.”