LAPD Hopes Newly Released Audio Helps Solve Taxi Driver's Murder 15 Years Ago
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) – Just after midnight June 11, 2001, a man at a pay phone near 91st and Main Streets in South Los Angeles called the Bell Cab Co. for a ride.
The cab company sent Hak Choon Chun. Fifteen minutes later, the driver arrived and told dispatch he had picked up a customer. And that was the last communication the 61-year-old had with anyone.
Mark Hahn of the LAPD is the detective in the case. "What we saw were a pair of black shoes and just the victim's legs sticking out from the drain," Hahn recalled. "Somebody tried to hide him. The mystery of that has always stood out in my mind, and the way the victim was killed."
Hahn and his partner, Bobby Bourbois, took CBS2/KCAL9's Rachel Kim back to the scene, where they believed there may have been a dispute between Chun and whoever was in his cab.
Hahn said they did not have enough information to determine a motive. Whatever the motive was, it all ended with Chun being shot once.
The victim's cab, a lime green Crown Victoria, was found along a residential street in Riverside later that day.
As Hahn tried to identify the killer, he began to home in on the call made by someone named Rick to the cab company.
As the detective listened to the call, he noticed something unusual about the caller's conversation with the dispatcher.
Rick: "I'll be outside because I'm having problems with that girl. Oh, man! It's a long day."
The caller vented and sounded troubled as he talked on a pay phone right in front of a business with apartments on top. Hahn believed the girl Rick was talking about lived up there.
Another critical piece of the puzzle was the fact that Rick told the taxi dispatcher that he was headed for La Puente.
Rick told the dispatcher that he wanted to go to Del Valle Avenue in La Puente.
But the address he gave did not exist. Hahn believed La Puente is important because Rick may have some sort of connection there.
"If this is a terrible accident, a result of a dispute, maybe a misunderstanding, we're asking that either the lady who knows Rick or Rick himself come forward. We're asking for the public's help," Hahn said.
Anyone who recognizes Rick's voice or has any information about this case is urged to call detective Mark Hahn at (323) 786-5111.