The freakish murder of Gabe Ben-Meir, a 30-year-old MTV music staffer is believed to be linked to a series of robberies in the Mid-Wilshire area and has LAPD officers on the lookout for a possible suspect: a 35-year-old black man with wire-rimmed glasses, gold jewelry and a shotgun.
Ben-Meir was found dead in a pool of his own blood on a Mid-Wilshire sidewalk near his apartment early Sunday morning.
This morning’s lead comes from the Weho Daily who picked up on a police feed and posted the news late last night. The L.A. Times went on to report the story, but LA Weekly’s Simone Wilson aggregated it best with a comprehensive post detailing the mysterious case.
Ben-Meir, a rising creative talent who worked on the music for MTV’s “Parental Control” and “Dudesons in America” as well as “Punk’d” was reportedly shot in the back of the head, ‘execution style’ as several headlines described it, around 1am Sunday morning. Although strangely, his body was not discovered until around 6:30am Sunday morning when a neighbor was out walking his dog. Residents who live near the murder scene—at Packard Street between Stanley and Spaulding Avenues—reported to police that they heard gunshots in the middle of the night, but no one called it in. At this time, there are no reported leads on suspects.
According to the LA Times, Ben-Meir was a resident of the neighborhood and had parked his car and was walking home when he was fatally shot.
Several reports described him as a rising force in the music industry, which seems to run in the family. According to the Hollywood Reporter:
Ben-Meir worked for MTV as a music and production coordinator on such shows as The Hard Times of RJ Berger, Parental Control and Punk’d. He started in the industry as an intern at Geffen Records. His sister, Alexis Ben-Meir, is a well-known figure in the music business who has worked at MCA Records, Suretone Records and is currently at Red Light Management. Their father, Nick Ben-Meir, is a longtime business manager who has represented musicians.
The following KTLA news report talks to some of Ben-Meir’s neighbors who describe their community as close-knit. This sounds a bit odd considering his body lay in a pool of blood for an estimated four or five hours before it was found, in addition to the fact that neighbors reported hearing gunshots without calling the police.
If anyone knows Ben-Meir or any details surrounding his death, please {encode=”danielleb@jewishjournal.com” title=”email Hollywood Jew”}.
