Crime & Safety

$50,000 Offered for Both Hit-and-Run Fatalities in Sherman Oaks and Studio City—Do You Know Anything?

The Los Angeles City Council approved a $50,000 reward this week for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a driver who fatally struck a 35-year-old web designer and musician in Studio City.

Michael Bonanomi was killed Aug. 17 in a hit-and-run collision that occurred within a couple hours and on the same street as another hit-an-run that led to the death of 22-year-old Ernesto Melendez.

Bonanomi was struck while crossing Ventura Boulevard at about 11:45 p.m., just two hours before Melendez and a parking attendant were struck three miles west in Sherman Oaks.

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Bonanomi died at the scene. In the later collision, the parking attendant was uninjured, while Melendez died 15 hours later at a hospital.

A week after the council approved a $50,000 reward to spur on leads in the search for Melendez's killer, authorities said they have run out of leads in the death of Bonanomi as well.

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Bonanomi's family members today appealed to the City Council to approve the second $50,000 reward.

"He was a loving son and made it his mission to bring us joy -- and he brought us more joy than you could ever imagine," his mother, Eve Bonanomi, told the council.

Councilman Paul Krekorian, who introduced the reward motion, noted that "tragic accidents happen all the time ... but those tragic accidents become a crime when people leave the scene."

The car that struck Bonanomi was described as a white, two-door 2008- 2010 Mercedes Benz CL that was going east on Ventura Boulevard near Fairway Avenue.

The vehicle has "dark wheel rims and black paper plates with the word Encino written in yellow" and should have sustained "major front end damage and a shattered windshield," according to Krekorian's motion.

Anyone with information on the case was asked to call the LAPD Valley Traffic Division at (818) 644-8021.

—from City News Service


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