Police Post $25,000 for Leads in Killing of Couple

It has been nearly a year since the night 18-year-old Yvette Blue and her boyfriend Patrick Washington were sitting in their usual meeting place -- a Chevrolet Blazer in a Southwest Los Angeles vacant lot -- when two men came up and killed them, execution-style.

On Monday, Los Angeles police announced a $25,000 reward for information in the double homicide case, which LAPD Det. Frank Weber called exceptionally brutal and frustrating for detectives.

Blue and Washington, 30, had a habit of retreating to a parked Blazer on south Leighton Avenue near the intersection of Vermont Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to get some privacy from family members, police said.

They were living with relatives, and the car was their refuge, Weber said, a place to talk in peace. That’s where they were at about 9:20 p.m. on Aug. 5 when two men approached them from behind and fired multiple rounds into the car at close range. Blue had just enough time to speak to her attackers, and died pleading for her life, detectives said.

It was a seemingly businesslike, deliberate act for reasons that are unclear, police said. Blue and Washington are described by police as simply a young dating couple from Los Angeles with no serious criminal involvement. Yet the killers seemed to have “really wanted them dead,” Weber said.

Washington’s family members said they were stunned by the crime. Washington was a local electrician who had graduated from Inglewood High School and then completed technical school in the area. “It’s really horrible for us,” said one family member. “He was not gang-affiliated. Just a hard-working father with two daughters.” The girls are 7 and 9, the family member said.

In the months since the killings, police have been frustrated. They are trying to piece the evidence together, but say they need the public’s help. They believe other witnesses have yet to come forward, and hope the reward offer will encourage them.

On Monday, detectives made public composite sketches of two suspects, still at large.

Anyone with information on the crime can call (213) 485-2418 or, after hours, (800) LAWFULL.