Envy may have motivated the shooting death of a mixed martial arts master, said several individuals who knew both the victim and the suspect now in custody.
Fahness Lutalo, 44, was shot to death Thursday as he was working out in his OC Boxing & MMA Academy in Tustin. Friday morning, shortly after midnight, Kirk Vernell Price, 53, and also a martial arts devotee, went to the Orange County Jail in Santa Ana and surrendered to authorities, said Tustin Police Lt. Robert Wright. Price was booked into custody on a murder charge. Wright said police had no comment on possible motives.
Family and friends of Lutalo said the men had known each other for more than a decade in their work as martial arts trainers and coaches. Lutalo moved ahead when he opened his own gym, relocating several times as his clientele grew and he needed more space. Price had often worked out in Lutalo's gym until he was banished a year ago for misconduct, said Lutalo's father Jerry Wilson, and others familiar with the gym.
"He had this, 'I'm the bad guy, the guy to beat.' Fact he couldn't do that with my son, I think he was jealous," Wilson said.
It bothered Price that Lutalo was more successful, and Price tried to compete, said Lutalo friend Andrew DeLeon. He called Price a "Fahness wannabe."
Then last week, for the first time in months, Price returned to the gym, and met with Lutalo.
"The guy came back begging for a second chance," said Wilson.
"Think they even hugged it out and had a few laughs," said Kevin Clinton, a Lutalo friend whose wife trains at the gym.
"You want to make sense of it, but you can't," Clinton said, tearing up as he remembered his friend. "Just a beacon of light. He was someone you want to be around, someone who inspires you.
Lutalo even created his own synthesis of martial arts and self-defense he called Zulu-Kai.
"He felt like he had made it," said Clinton. "There were just good things to come. For it to be cut short is tragic."
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Thursday at 12:12 p.m., police responded to a report of shots fired at the academy location in a shopping mall off Newport Avenue near Interstate-5. The attacker approached Lutalo in the back of the building and opened fire inside the gym, according to a police statement. Lutalo suffered multiple gunshot wounds.
"Jealousy, envy, whatever it may be, at the end of the day it was just hatred," said Kwesi Kordorwu, who trains at the gym.
Lutalo had grown up in South Los Angeles, moving to Orange County as a young adult. In a county in which African Americans constitute a small percentage of the population, Lutalo earned respect and admiration, Kordorwu said,
A number of teenagers trained at the gym, and gathering there Thursday night and expressing their saidness.
"I feel like there's a big hole inside me, and it's just caving in," said Ray Tabani. "I spend more time with him than I've spent at home with my own parents because I'm here all the time and I love him so much."
After Price's arrest, Tustin police said detectives were still attempting to find his car, a black 2013 Chevrolet Spark with tinted windows and license 7BMS565, and the weapon used in the killing. Friday afternoon, police executed a search warrant at Price's apartment in Santa Ana, but declined to reveal what was found.
Price's neighbors were stunned. They recalled he often conducted outdoor gym classes for neighborhood children.
"He would teach them MMA (mixed martial arts) drills," said Diana Valenzuela, who lived next door to Price for nearly two decades.
Friends of Lutalo set up A GoFundMe account for a memorial fund. Lutalo was the father of three children, boys 19 and 23, and a daughter, 16.
In remembrance, family, friends, and students planned to gather at the gym at 7pm Saturday evening.
