Family Makes Appeal for Help in Search for Killer of Boy, 11

The family of an 11-year-old whose body was found in a trash bin near his South Los Angeles home stood in front of its apartment complex Sunday, clutching the boy’s sports trophies and asking for help from anyone who may have witnessed his slaying.

Bryan Lockley, a sixth-grader at Bret Harte Middle School, died of a shotgun wound to the chest, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said Sunday.

The child’s grandmother, Mildred Lockley-Pickens, was overtaken by tears as she described how she raised the boy she called “my baby” and how he would always check in every two hours when he was out playing with friends.

“But yesterday,” she said, her voice faltering, “he never did.”

Bryan was last seen by his family between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturday near his apartment at Hoover and West 73rd streets. His body was found a few hours later by a woman digging for recyclables.

“People saw what happened here; there’s no doubt in my mind,” said Los Angeles Police Capt. Kenneth Garner, who joined the family at Sunday’s news conference.

Garner offered few details about the investigation but did say the slaying probably occurred indoors. He named no suspects but said detectives wanted to question friends who had seen the boy Saturday afternoon. The victim, he said, was “a young, good kid.” Police do not believe he was a gang member.

Before Bryan disappeared, he had been hanging around the neighborhood, playing basketball and asking for money to buy fries at the nearby McDonald’s or Tam’s Burgers No. 12. In many ways, it was a typical Saturday morning. The day was more remarkable for Bryan’s mother, Francine Lockley, 44, who had given birth to Bryan while imprisoned on drug charges at a state women’s prison in Chowchilla, family members said. That morning, she had graduated from Phoenix House, a substance-abuse program in Monrovia, about 30 miles away.

Lockley-Pickens said her daughter arrived in South L.A. on Saturday with a handful of programs from the graduation, eager to show her family that she had changed. Instead, she found police in the tiny apartment, asking about the child who was missing. By 9 p.m., they had identified the body.

Lockley returned to Monrovia on Saturday night, fearful of having a drug relapse. On Sunday evening, she was back with her family in South L.A. She said over the phone that she had been hoping to return to “a normal life in society -- something that we never had because I was in my addiction. I went out and got a job and I was just ready to be the mother that I was meant to be.”

The rest of the family spent the hot Sunday in and out of the apartment where Lockley-Pickens, 69, and her husband, Willie Pickens, 61, raised the boy. Amid a tangle of mourners and their toddlers, the family fielded phone calls, pieced together their timelines and watched a makeshift monument to Bryan grow on the iron gate outside.

Above flowers and votive candles, the neighborhood kids had written their goodbyes in ballpoint pen on the bottom of a cardboard box. Some drew Bryan in his basketball uniform.

Bryan was a good kid, one wrote, fumbling the rest of the sentence: “He always played on with everybody on the block he was a good person.”

The boy’s sister, Tiffany Reese, 22, joined some neighbors and their children to retrace what they believe was a long, bloody trail in an alley near their apartment. They speculated that the dark stains showed where Bryan may have been dragged about 100 yards down the alley, a mess of trash, broken glass and graffiti. The trail ended behind a nondescript cream-colored apartment. The trash bin had been hauled away.

“I can’t see nobody killing a child 11 years old,” Pickens said, sitting with his wife near a window overlooking the street. “They broke his arms and they broke his back. A grown person had to do it. I can’t see no kid doing that.” The coroner would not comment on the other injuries to the boy’s body. Family members said police had told them about the broken bones.

Lockley-Pickens, a diabetic, checked her blood sugar levels. She recently had suffered a series of strokes but said she was determined to survive this. A Georgia native, she moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles in 1970. At the time, she was single mother with seven kids who thought the air in L.A. would help one of her sons with his asthma.

When Francine gave birth in prison, Lockley-Pickens drove to Chowchilla to pick up Bryan.

“When I saw the police come in the place last night, I said, ‘Lord, give me strength because I don’t want to fall apart,’ ” she said. “If my kids fall apart, then I fall apart. It’s not easy.”

Anderson, Bryan’s 44-year-old uncle, was lying in the adjacent bedroom that he shared with his slain nephew.

Anderson said his nephew enjoyed watching wrestling with his grandfather. He listened to hip-hop, and more than anything, loved sports. He played basketball in a league at the YMCA and a nearby recreation center. His friends said he’d been playing in the apartment’s parking lot Saturday morning, even though it doesn’t have a basketball hoop.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Anderson said. “Who would want to do that to him, ‘cause everyone around here likes him.”

Later in the day, Bryan’s grandmother was helped down the apartment steps as the family gathered to face the TV cameras at the news conference.

In her apartment, the grandmother had spoken softly about her boy. Outside, her voice boomed: “Whoever did this, I hope they will be found sooner or later.”

Najee Ali, a community activist and director of Project Islamic HOPE, announced a candlelight vigil for 7 p.m. today at the same location.

Debra Reid, founder of the Jonathan Reid Family Rights Coalition, said her group planned to canvass the neighborhood pleading for witnesses to come forward.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call police at (213) 485-1385 or (877) LAWFULL.