Pascal, whose security firm is now in Beverly Hills, confirmed last week that Mentzer and Lowe worked for his firm when it was hired by the Cavalli family. But he would not comment further. Pascal has not been charged with any crime.

4 MEN ARRESTED IN LAKE VIEW TERRACE QUADRUPLE KILLING

LOS ANGELES TIMES

September 30, 1988

Four men were arrested Thursday in a quadruple slaying in which two men, a mother and her 28month-old daughter were shot to death at a Lake View Terrace house where “rock” cocaine was sold, Los Angeles police said.

The four men may also be implicated in two more San Fernando Valley murders, police said.

A team of nearly 200 police officers, including members of the department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team, raided three fortified drug houses and 12other locations in the northeast Valley before all the suspects were arrested, a department spokesman said.

Lt. Fred Nixon identified the suspects as Stanley Bryant, 30, of Pacoima; Antonio Johnson, 28, of Lake View Terrace; Nash Newbil, 52, of Lake View Terrace; and Levi Flack Jr., 24, whose address had not been determined.

Bryant and Johnson were arrested on suspicion of murder, and Newbil and Flack were arrested on suspicion of being accessories to murder. All four were being held without bail at the Foothill Division jail.

“The arrests of all four of these people refer to the quadruple murder,” Nixon said. “There are indications they are implicated in two others. The warrants for the searches of the 15locations came out of the investigation of all six murders. The investigation is continuing.”

The locations of the raids and arrests, as well as complete details of the investigation, were unavailable Thursday. But detectives said the arrests stemmed from an investigation centered on the Lake View Terrace shooting Aug. 28that left the four people dead.

In that incident, police said, two St. Louis men, Andre Armstrong, 31, and James Brown, 43, were killed after they went inside the house in the 11400block of Wheeler Avenue. After the two were shot, a man ran out with a shotgun and fired into the car in which Armstrong and Brown had traveled to the house.

The blasts killed Lorretha Anderson English, 23, of Seaside and her daughter, Chemise, who were sitting in the backseat. English’s 1-year-old son, who was also in the backseat, was only slightly injured. Police would not release the boy’s name.

After the shooting, police said, the man with the shotgun jumped into the car and drove about a mile away from the house before abandoning it in an alley. The bodies and the injured child were still inside.

Meanwhile, the bodies of Armstrong and Brown were loaded in another car and driven away from the house, police said. Police found them three days later in Lopez Canyon.

Nixon said he could not comment on the motive for the slayings. Earlier, police speculated that a drug dispute ignited the violence.

County records show that Newbil is the owner of the Wheeler Avenue house, which police said had been the scene of drug sales for two to three months before the shootings.

The house was formerly owned by Jeffrey A. Bryant, 37, once described by police as a drug kingpin who controlled a sales network in the northeast Valley.

In February 1986Jeffrey Bryant pleaded guilty to operating a drug house at the Wheeler Avenue location and was sentenced to four years in state prison. He is believed to be the brother of Stanley Bryant, one of the suspects arrested Thursday.

The Wheeler Avenue case may be linked to shootings July 31, in which Douglas Henegan, 21, of Panorama City was killed, and Sunday, in which Tracy Anderson, 24, of Sylmar was slain, police said. The victims of those shootings were close friends, police said.

Henegan was gunned down while he sat with friends on a curb at Hansen Dam Park. Anderson was shot to death on a Pacoima street after an argument involving several men. On Monday, Leroy Wheeler, 19, of Sylmar surrendered to police and was arrested on suspicion of murder in the Anderson case.

Police declined to discuss the motives for the Henegan and Anderson killings or how they may relate to the other four. However, Nixon said Wheeler is also suspected of involvement in the quadruple slaying.

DRUG RING KINGPIN CALLS THE SHOTS FROM PRISON, POLICE SAY

October 16, 1988

Los Angeles police think that a prison inmate in San Diego is directing a San Fernando Valley drug organization whose top members were charged this month in the slayings of four people at a Lake View Terrace “rock” house.

Investigators said they think that the inmate, Jeffrey A. Bryant, 37, of Pacoima, is the leader of a drug ring with as many as 200members that has controlled the sale of rock cocaine in the northeast Valley for nearly a decade.

Bryant is serving a four-year sentence at the Richard S. Donovan Correctional Facility for a 1986 conviction for operating a drug house.

“We believe he calls the shots from prison,” said Lt. Bernard D. Conine, chief of Foothill Division detectives.

Authorities said Bryant and other top-level members of his organization have been linked to the Black Guerrilla Family, a gang formed in California prisons in the early 1970s. The BGF, as it is more commonly known, at first focused on revolutionary politics but now is accused of operating a statewide drug network, authorities said.

Bryant faces no charges in the Aug. 28quadruple slaying at the house he previously owned in the 11400block of Wheeler Avenue. But investigators said the arrests of several lieutenants in the killings have depleted his organization’s top echelon.

Although police think they eventually will be able to break up the Valley organization, they noted that lower-level members are in line to take over for those arrested in the Wheeler Avenue killings.

“We know there are people in the organization who want to step up,” Conine said. “The bottom line is, you can still buy rock cocaine in Pacoima.”

Through informants and witnesses and from evidence gathered during searches of 26locations where organization members lived and operated, authorities said, they have pieced together what happened at the house on Wheeler Avenue and why.

Andre Louis Armstrong, 31, and James Brown, 43, both of the Pacoima area, were hit with shotgun blasts at the door of the house, police said.

They said Lorretha Anderson English, 23, of Seaside, and her 28-month-old daughter, Chemise, were fatally shot while waiting in a car parked out front. English’s 1¹⁄2 -year-old son, Carlos, was slightly injured by flying glass.

So far, 11people, including Bryant’s younger brother, Stanley Bryant, 30, have been charged in the killings. Stanley Bryant; Le Roy Wheeler, 19; Levie Slack III, 24; Tannis Bryant Curry, 26; James Franklin Williams III, 19; John Preston Settle, 28; and Antonio Arceneaux, whose age was unavailable, each face four charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder. All are Pacoima residents.

Antonio Johnson, 28, and Nash Newbil, 52, both of Lake View Terrace, and William Gene Settle, 30, and Provine McCloria, 19, both of Pacoima, each face charges of accessory to murder.

The Settle brothers, McCloria and Arceneaux are still sought.