Company mourning loss of murdered employees
The small company where a slain Santa Monica woman worked has lost another employee to murder.
CNCG Cellular, based in Marina Del Rey, is a wholesale cellular phone company with just nine people in the office. Within the past seven months, the company has had to deal with the loss of two employees, both killed in violent crimes.
In February, the company lost 21-year-old data entry worker Kristi Johnson when she was raped and murdered in the Hollywood Hills by a man police describe as a predator with a history of victimizing women.
Last Thursday, the company lost its warehouse manager, Durwin Williams, 32, when he was shot at 8:55 p.m. while sitting in his car at 123 East 77th St. with a woman he was reportedly dropping off at home.
“The suspects decided to pull a strong-arm robbery and they shot him,” said LAPD’s 77th division homicide supervisor Rudy Lemos, adding Williams’ passenger was able to escape unharmed.
Williams, who was shot in the upper stomach, was taken to Martin Luther King Hospital, where he died. The LAPD has identified two suspects in the killing and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office has issued two felony murder warrants for their arrests. The first suspect is Steven Devon Tyre, 26 and the other is a juvenile — both are reportedly gang members.
Williams apparently was in a south Los Angeles neighborhood that is the territory of a particular gang.
“His murder occurred because he was in the wrong neighborhood,” said LAPD Detective Bill Fallon. “They didn’t recognize his car so they robbed him.”
Edwin Ortiz, a manager at CNCG, said his employees are in shock.
“Everybody is walking around in a haze,” he said. “It’s strange that it’s this company... This is all a little bizarre.”
When employees learned of Williams’ murder, the company closed the office on Friday as Williams was a vital part of the operation. The company’s owners, Daniel Gazal and Simon Blitz, who work in CNCG’s headquarters in New York, immediately flew to Los Angeles to offer support to their employees.
The employees gathered around Williams’ work station on Monday for a moment of prayer and the owners held a brief meeting to offer their support to their workers.
Williams, who had a 13-year-old daughter, Jasmine, and a 6-month-old son, Darvis, held a special place in his heart for Johnson, who was found dead in the Hollywood Hills on March 3. He kept a photo of her near his work station. He also helped Johnson’s mother, Terry Wark, load her daughter’s belongings out of her Santa Monica apartment.
Williams, who grew up in Los Angeles and lived near the Crenshaw district, was working his way up at CNCG. Ortiz hired him a year ago as a warehouse employee. He rose through the ranks and had recently become the warehouse manager, in charge of orders and shipments from cellular phone distributors throughout the country.
Ortiz said Williams, who cared deeply about his family, was always waiting in his car when he arrived to work.
“I would say to him, ‘Good morning, Durwin, how are you?’” Ortiz said. “And he would say, ‘I’m blessed.’”
During lunch, Williams would read books in his car and eat fruit.
“Durwin was one of those people who always had a smile on his face,” Ortiz said. “He always talked about his daughter and his son... He stood completely out of trouble.”
While it appears that Williams’ life had been centered on his job and family, he was an “inactive” gang member and was on parole five years ago stemming from a 1992 robbery conviction, Detective Fallon said. He has a criminal history dating back to 1987.
“His past is his past,” Detective Fallon said. “He had the bad luck of taking her home.”
The loss of two of CNCG’s employees epitomizes the violence in Los Angeles. Johnson was a young, middle-class white girl who grew up in the Midwest. She was murdered by a man who allegedly lured her by saying he was a publicity photographer for a James Bond movie.
Williams, a black man, grew up in south central Los Angeles. His murder appears to be a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, the woman he was dropping off knows the suspects that shot him and it could have been a gang-on-gang shooting — between the Bloods and the Crips, Detective Fallon said.
And while the two-week search for Johnson, the murder investigation and the court proceedings for her alleged killer — convicted felon Victor Paleologus — has received national media attention, not one word has been written or said about Williams’ death in the media.
“I’ve been realistic about racism in this country, but even this I was floored that nothing was written about it,” Ortiz said, adding that a black man dying in a south LA neighborhood apparently isn’t enough to warrant media exposure.
Johnson’s desk had been empty since she disappeared on Feb. 15. It wasn’t until recently that Ortiz allowed someone to sit there, although he hasn’t filled her position. Now, employees will have to walk by yet another empty work station.
Ortiz said he was especially close to Williams because he hired him and worked closely with him every day.
“With Kristi, it was hard, but this is harder,” Ortiz said. “I don’t think it has really hit me yet. I know it will soon.”
CNCG will close its offices again this Friday for Williams’ funeral, which will be held at Mount Zion Church, 1301 50th St., at 11 a.m.
Ortiz, a New York native, said he has never had to experience so much violence.
“There are some really miserable human beings out there roaming this earth and the good ones are taken,” he said. “The crime in this city is completely out of control.”
“There are some really miserable human beings out there roaming this earth and the good ones are taken. The crime in this city is completely out of control.” — — EDWIN ORTIZ CNCG Cellular, Manager
Meanwhile, CNCG employees are on edge.
“It’s like, what else is going to happen?” Ortiz said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 24, 2003. Read the original PDF.