Victim of Slaying at Store Mourned

Every day for nearly 15 years, Percy Taylor bought scratch-off lottery tickets at Y&Y; Market in South Los Angeles. A picture of him above the counter celebrates his many wins, particularly the time he won $40,000 on a $2 ticket.

After that, his friends at the store called him “40G.”

On the afternoon of Feb. 4, the day after his 72nd birthday, Taylor was hanging out at the West 39th Street store as usual. About 2 p.m., three would-be robbers came in, one of them carrying a gun.

Jumping over the counter, one of the men began patting down an employee to see if she was armed. Then he saw store owner Kazuyo Yoshida, who was down the hall, hit the panic button.

“She’s calling the police,” he yelled, and the three turned to run. But for no apparent reason, one turned and shot Taylor once in the face, police said.

He was taken to County-USC Medical Center, where he had worked for 31 years before retiring. He died the next day.

A surveillance video captured the scene and led to the identification of three suspects. On Wednesday, police arrested Zach Gaines, 20, in Inglewood. On Thursday, they arrested Kaheal Parrish, 22, after officers pulled him over on a routine traffic stop, police said. He was driving the car in which the three men had fled from the market, said Officer April Harding, a Police Department spokeswoman.

The third suspect, and the one who police say fired the shot, remains at large. He is Earl Lamont Childs, 21.

On Friday, the air was hot and the pews were full at Sunnyside Baptist Church on Budlong Avenue in South Los Angeles as the funeral for Taylor began. Family members held each other, sobbing over the open casket. Store owners Kazuyo and Yuji Yoshida and their employee, Irma Castro, came to pay their respects.

“He would spend half his day here,” Yuji Yoshida said after the service. Taylor was more a friend than a customer. “I used to take him out to dinner.... He used to bring spareribs for us to the store.”

Taylor lived alone near the Coliseum, on Flower Drive just west of the Harbor Freeway. Each day, he crossed under the freeway to go to the market. If he was planning to go out of town, Yuji Yoshida said, Taylor would tell them so they wouldn’t worry.

“If he doesn’t come” to the store one day, Yoshida said, “we call him. We call his pager, we call his son Andrew.”

Taylor retired in 1988 from working at the hospital as a tram operator. It’s where he met his girlfriend of 25 years, Thelma Liggins, 60, who is a custodial supervisor.

The two never married and never lived together, but their families came together anyway. “He would say, ‘These are my daughters,’ ” Liggins said. “They loved him like a father, and he loved them as daughters.”

Taylor had three children of his own, one of whom died before him. He also had three grandchildren.

“My father was a very caring person,” said daughter Vishnu Taylor, 46. “He showed me a lot of love.”

Her brother, Andrew Taylor, 37, said, “He made it a point to just be nice to people.”

When Percy Taylor won money from the lottery, he would give portions of it to his family and to his church, his son said.

Liggins, who had just returned from burying Taylor, said she was still in disbelief at her loss.

“He meant the world to me,” she said. “He was my right hand, my heart, my lover, my friend.... If I could just see his face again. I was so hurt. If I could just say hello to him once more.”