A Gardena bail bondsman with ties to the Lomita Black Widow case committed suicide, the Coroner's Department said Monday.
An autopsy determined that Henry Lee Hoskins, 70, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Chief Coroner Investigator Craig Harvey said.
The finding backs a police report on Friday that indicated Hoskins killed himself. Police found his body in his Western Avenue apartment above his bail bonds office about 1:30 a.m.
A woman reported to be his 22-year-old girlfriend called 911, screaming hysterically for help.
Although the coroner ruled suicide, and police were set to agree, Hoskins' friends say they cannot fathom why he would take his own life.
"I'm not accepting it I just can't," said Linda Call, a real estate broker who developed a friendship with Hoskins while the two were members of the Gardena Valley Chamber of Commerce.
"How can they label that so quickly? I'm hoping it's just a ploy to draw out the killer. I just can't believe it."
Gardena
police Lt. Uikilifi Niko said Monday he had not yet seen the coroner's report, and noted detectives are still investigating Hoskins' death. Investigators have not released any details about evidence found at the scene, but said it indicates "more and more it's going to be a suicide."
"That's where we are leaning towards," said Niko, who added that Hoskins did not leave a note.
One of Hoskins' two daughters, Laura Hoskins, an attorney in Seattle, said she had no information to shed light on her father's death. But she did say that her father was not ill.
Hoskins was well-known in Gardena's business community, recently finishing a term as president of the Gardena Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Once he took over, he fired Executive Director Karen Sue Hale, who was charged with stealing about $35,000 from the organization. She is serving a prison sentence of more than five years.
"He was a pretty brave guy," Call said. "I know that young girl he was seeing was pretty rough on him physically."
Two friends said she once hit him with a skillet.
Pat Daniels, Hoskins' business partner, said the girlfriend was with him at the time.
Police detained the woman, questioned her and released her.
"She told me that she left out of the living room and went to the bathroom and she heard a gunshot," Daniels said. "Then she called the police."
The woman did not respond to telephone messages.
The CBS show "48 Hours Mystery" is expected to put a note at the end of its show Saturday night to acknowledge Hoskins' death.
Hoskins appears in the episode, "Conspiracy to Kill," the story of Sonia Rios Risken, a Lomita woman suspected of masterminding the shooting deaths of her two husbands 19 years apart in the Philippines.
Risken was found shot to death in 2007 inside her Lomita home.
Risken asked Hoskins to stand at her side a year earlier to intimidate a Daily Breeze reporter investigating her possible involvement in her husbands' deaths.
Hoskins did his job, standing in front of her in her Lomita beauty salon and looking menacing as he shooed the reporter away. Risken, who became known as the Lomita Black Widow, did not know that outside Hoskins extended his hand in friendship.
He often told his friends about his relationship with Risken.
"He just told me that he knew her and that she was quite a gal and you never knew what to expect from her," Call said. "Oh my Henry, my Henry."
Risken's nephew and one of his friends were arrested in April and charged with her killing.
