The victim was found by a tenant in a back bedroom inside the home on West 98th Street around 10:30 p.m. Sunday. The man appeared to have been strangled.
"You snatched my heart out of my body ... and ripped it apart," the victim's granddaughter, Chalona Bell, said as she sobbed.
Bell identified the victim as Earnest Dewitt Brannon and said her grandfather was a pastor who loved everyone.
According to investigators, the tenant ran to a neighbor's home to call 911. When deputies arrived, they discovered the home had been ransacked, and it appeared the victim may have been in a fight or struggle with whoever murdered him.
"We're in the process of interviewing some of the neighbors and the home owner, and then trying to go from there and see who had access to the house, and maybe who might have been inside the house, maybe his friends or acquaintances," said Lt. John Corina with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Anyone with information on the crime is asked to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
