Student Found Slain; Younger Brother Vanishes

A 20-year-old Moorpark College student was shot to death on New Year’s Eve in his family home in Agoura Hills and his 18-year-old brother disappeared, but whether the younger brother was also a victim is unknown, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported Wednesday.

Michael Minkoff was found dead about 11:30 a.m. Sunday on the kitchen floor of the house in the 28900 block of Dargan Street, Deputy Roger Hom said. He had been shot several times, Hom said.

The victim’s brother, Bradley Minkoff, 18, is missing along with the family’s 1987 light blue four-door Volvo, Hom said.

Detectives want to find Bradley Minkoff so they can question him, but they have not ruled out the possibility that he could be a victim as well, Hom said.

Investigators found no sign of forced entry into the home.

“There’s always been sibling rivalry” between the two brothers, Sgt. Bill Gaynor said, “but I don’t know there was enough to kill.”

Michael Minkoff’s body was found by sheriff’s deputies who were sent to the one-story stucco house in response to a 911 call that apparently was placed by the victim, Gaynor said.

“He didn’t say anything,” Gaynor said. However, the address of the location from which a 911 call is made appears on a monitor screen at the dispatch office.

When the deputies arrived at the house, the telephone was off the hook, he added.

No weapon was found.

The home is “in the back of a cul-de-sac,” Gaynor said, and neighbors did not report hearing or seeing anything unusual.

The parents, Barbara and David Minkoff, were vacationing in Mexico during the holidays. They were told of the shooting by sheriff’s deputies who met them when they arrived late Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport, he said.

Bradley Minkoff was last seen Saturday evening at home with Michael and one of Michael’s friends, Gaynor said.

Michael Minkoff was about to begin his second year as an engineering major at Moorpark College, college spokesman Gerry Olsen said.

He had attended Agoura High School but graduated in 1987 from Indian Hills High School, a continuation school in Calabasas, school officials said.

Indian Hills Principal Walter Bulloch remembered Michael Minkoff as a good-humored young man with “a kind of impish smile.”

He had to finish high school at the continuation school because he had fallen behind in his course work, but not for a lack of ability, Bulloch said.

He described Michael as “definitely on the right track, positive, just kind of a fun kid.”

Bradley Minkoff attended Agoura High School from fall 1985, until January, 1989, but he did not graduate, said Fred Williams, school assistant principal.

He did not attend Indian Hills, school officials said. Recently he was unemployed, Gaynor said.