Police sought the public's help Thursday to find the killer of a 34-year-old father of four from Artesia who was gunned down while walking home.
Carlos Martinez was shot about 2:30 a.m.
Alexis Alvarado, his former girlfriend and mother of two of his children, said she heard about his death a few hours after the shooting.
"I didn't want to believe it," she said. "I'm hurting because he loved my kids."
Martinez died in front of a vacant lot on 167th Street.
Investigators aren't sure who killed him or why.
"Alvarado says Martinez was a great person and knew how to connect with their daughters," said Scott Hoglund, a Los Angeles Sheriff's Department detective. "Sweet and funny, she says."
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Added Alvarado: "It was real cowardly what they did."
She's baffled.
"I don't know if they were trying to rob him," Alvarado said. "I don't know what their intentions were."
Alvarado has a message for the killer.
"To me, life has a funny way of revealing itself," she said. "You may not be incarcerated, but you will suffer."
Anyone with information on the shooting was encouraged to call the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or to contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at 800-222-TIPS.
