This story sounds pretty typical of black-white relations. We have a hard-working white woman who does a business deal with a charming black guy who does not pay her, lies, and then kills her.
Ambition brought Carrie Jean Melvin to Hollywood, where she chased a career in entertainment between waitressing and working odd jobs.
Unlike so many with similar dreams of stardom, Melvin had a side gig that police say led to her death.
On a Sunday night in early July, as Melvin, 30, walked toward a restaurant near Sunset Boulevard with her boyfriend, someone walked up behind them, aimed a shotgun at her head and pulled the trigger. The gunman fled in a black sedan, police said.
Following weeks of investigative work, Los Angeles police on Friday arrested the man who they say fired the shot: Ezeoma Obioha.
A onetime security guard with a fledgling clothing line and civic ties, Obioha, 31, had contracted with Melvin’s newly launched social media company to market his business, LAPD Lt. John Radke said. A dispute erupted when Obioha wrote her a check that bounced and she threatened to take him to court, authorities said. She never received the several hundred dollars she was owed, police said.
“I’m thankful that he was apprehended and arrested, but we can’t celebrate,” her father, Bernie Melvin, said Saturday. “This was a violent, senseless, meaningless act.”
Her father said he knew his only daughter was dealing with a client who had written a bad check. The ordeal strained her finances and forced her to add waitressing shifts. She couldn’t celebrate her father’s birthday in mid-June or visit her parents’ home in Morro Bay for Father’s Day, he said.
