Young man gets 50 years to life in fatal shooting of teen drummer

Jocelyn Mull recalled finding the lifeless body of her 18-year-old son, Eron, lying in an alley near the Beverly Center. She had rushed to the scene after receiving a phone call from her sister alerting her of a possible shooting involving her son.

She saw Eron’s mouth gaping wide, she said. He had been shot once in the neck. Blood was everywhere.

“A mother never expects — it’s unthinkable — to bury her child,” Mull said in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Friday as she demanded the maximum sentence for his killer, Kenneth Webb. “We poured life into him. Dreams. Expectations. This was a child of promise.”

Webb, 20, sat silently in dark jailhouse blues as Mull described her son as a talented percussionist who played for the Crenshaw High School marching band and was preparing to enroll at Prairie View A&M University in Texas on a music scholarship.

Eron Mull was killed Jan. 12, 2008, after he and some friends tried to attend a teenage club party on La Cienega Boulevard. The group was turned away after a fight broke out inside and the party was shut down. Among those leaving the party was Webb, then 17, who had brought a handgun.

As Mull and his friends walked back to his car, they noticed Webb and another man staring at them from the end of the alley. After a brief confrontation between one of Mull’s friends and Webb, Webb drew his gun and fired a single shot, striking Mull.

A jury convicted Webb of first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Public defender Seymour Applebaum argued that Webb had been acting in self-defense and asked Superior Court Judge Monica Bachner to reduce the murder conviction to voluntary manslaughter.

Bachner declined, saying that jurors had rejected the same argument during the trial. She sentenced Webb to 50 years to life in prison.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney, who prosecuted the case, told the court that Webb was an intelligent high school student with a supportive family. He said Webb was capable of helping others in prison and beyond if he ever earned parole but deserved a lengthy sentence behind bars.

“On those days when Mr. Webb feels sorry for himself,” McKinney said, “he should remember what he took from Mr. Mull.”

jack.leonard@latimes.com