Even as res­i­dents of Cashew Patch Set­tle­ment, La Brea, strug­gled to make sense of the death of Der­ron Phillip, 32, on Mon­day evening, some ad­mit­ted that he had been dis­turbed for some time. Some de­scribed Phillip as qui­et while oth­ers said that at times his be­hav­iour showed that he was in need of help.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing re­ports that the un­em­ployed man locked him­self in­side his shack in a La Brea slum af­ter set­ting it on fire.

He had been served with a sum­mons to ap­pear in court for a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence mat­ter and told he had to va­cate the house which be­longed to his girl­friend. A neigh­bour said at around 5 pm, Phillip at­tempt­ed to harm him­self and when that failed, he set the shack on fire.

He said he saw oth­er neigh­bours try­ing to calm Phillip to calm down but he shout­ed at them to stay away, went in­to the burn­ing house and locked the door.

Phillip had moved in­to the shack with a fe­male friend just a month ago.

That friend de­clined to com­ment and his grand­moth­er with whom he lived pre­vi­ous­ly, was too grief-strick­en to speak.