Los Angeles

Parents Grapple With Pain of Man's Unsolved Slaying in South LA

"Every day we get up, we hurt," the slain man's mother says

Residents of a South Los Angeles neighborhood knew Herbert Seymour by his profession: a tech guy and member of the Geek Squad at Best Buy.

But detectives believe there are some who know much more and have been so far unwilling to come forward with information on Seymour's slaying.

"It has to come to the light," said Herbert Seymour Sr. of his son's killing. "What's done in the dark has to come to light."

It was Feb. 9, 2011 when 31-year-old father of two, Herbert Seymour, Jr. walked across the street from his parents' home in South LA to grab a drink. Seymour's father says they were making French fries and watching TV, and his son was a regular at the liquor store across the street because he worked there in high school.

"He said, 'I'll be right back, do you want anything?' I said 'no,'" Seymour's father recalls.

Seymour had moved back in with his parents when his father lost his job. He was there to help pay the bill, but his father regrets the decision to bring him home.

"Been living here for 31 years," the father says. "He just walked across the street, didn't say nothing to nobody. And this happened to him. It was devastating. Still is to this day."

Det. Eric Crosson of the LAPD's South Bureau Criminal Gang Homicide Division says his team is looking at surveillance video of the crime. He says it shows a black Ford Mustang pulling into a turning lane as they waited for the shooter, who may have been waiting outside the liquor store for Seymour.

"Based on the position of his body we believe that he crossed the street to make his way back home, when the shooter approached from behind him and shot him multiple times," Crosson said.

Seymour was wearing his Geek Squad uniform. His family could hear the gunshots in their home.

"It's boom boom boom!" the father says. "My daughter runs out and says , 'Dad those were gun shots. And junior hasn't made it back in the house yet.'"

Outside, and in clear view from their front porch, Seymour was face-down in the middle of Western Avenue at 105th Street.

"I ran to the door, I looked down the street, and you could see," his father remembers. "I knew it was him, because of the hat he had on."

He ran to be at his son's side, but says he knew it was too late.

"I reached down to touch him, try to move him," he says. "I knew he was gone at that point. It was just that fast that I could see his body from my front porch."

The years that have passed since that night have pulled the family from the neighborhood they thought they knew so well. They no longer live in South LA, but they continue to live with the pain of what they lost on its streets.

"Every day we get up, we hurt," Cynthia Seymour says. "We just go on because that's what we have to do."

She says she sees her son's killing as a call to action for South LA, but one she worries the community hasn't grasped.

"I don't want another mother to go through what I go through every day," she cries. "I don't want to see a father hurting. I don't want to see a daughter hurting because she misses her dad so much, or a son. I wish I knew what to do to stop this."

LAPD and the LA City Council have offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those involved in the slaying. Police say that includes the shooter and the getaway driver.

"If people would tell what they see, or tell who did these things, we can stop them from doing it," Cynthia Seymour says with hope. "Maybe we can stop it all together if we just open up our mouths."

Anyone with information was asked to contact Crosson at 323-786-5100.

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