LAPD South Bureau Homicide detectives say a dying declaration could help lead to a killer if someone can help corroborate the story.
Warren Bood, 27, was shot and killed in South LA on April 27, 2017, in the 7600 block of South San Pedro.
"From that day I never have a good night sleep," Victoria Flores says through tears about the death of her son. She emigrated from Belize with her kids to the U.S. in the hopes of a better life.
"If anyone tell me I was going to lose my son like that, I would have said no. It's very painful for me, my kids and my whole family."
Flores says her son had just gotten home from a job interview at LAX and that she was on the phone with him when a white minivan pulled up.
"I heard him when he said, what's up with this - I don't want to say the word - I say Warren what happened? And he didn't answer and I started freaking out," she says.
LAPD South Bureau Homicide Detective Stacey Szymkowiak says investigators have a plethora of video clips showing the suspect vehicle as well as surveillance video of the moment Bood was shot.
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She says Bood had first spoken with a neighbor when the Honda Odyssey pulled up, then he crossed the street to get some groceries. When he returned alone, another person was waiting for him on the sidewalk.
"A car pulled up alongside them," Szymkowiak says. "There was a verbal confrontation between the car and Warren and the other individual standing here on the sidewalk."
"He didn't shoot him one time, he shot him twice," Bood's sister Melissa says of the shooter. "So you wasn't even a man to shoot him from the front, you shot him from the back."
Bood's family says he was a homebody, loved his video games and his family.
Beyond the surveillance video, Szymkowiak says the LAPD has one more crucial piece of evidence: Bood's own words to arriving officers on scene.
"Those things are very valid things, we call it a dying declaration,"Szymkowiak says. "Some of those things he said match very particular things that are in evidence in this case."
Now, police and Warren's family hope someone will come forward to match some of the information in Bood's last words.
A $50,000 reward has been set up for information that leads to the conviction of the killer.
Anyone with information is urged to contact LAPD South Bureau Homicide at 323-786-5113. Callers wishing to remain anonymous can do so and still receive the reward.
Editor's Note: This story was updated to correct the spelling of an LAPD South Bureau Homicide Detective. The correct spelling is Stacey Szymkowiak, not Szymkowski.
