LOS ANGELES - An elderly man and his wheelchair-bound wife were found stabbed to death in their apartment following what police said appeared to be a robbery.
A neighbor found Albert and Edna Patton in their home on South LaBrea Avenue on Saturday about 8:40 p.m., said Los Angeles Police Officer Marlo Lopez del Haro.
Patton, 90, and his wife, who was 85 and killed while sitting in her wheelchair, appeared to have been dead for several hours when the neighbor found them, Lopez said.
Patton played a major role in founding the Harlem Globetrotters, said Lopez, who spoke with Patton's relatives. The team was founded in 1927 by Abe Saperstein.
But the Globetrotters spokesman in Los Angeles, Lee Solters, told The Associated Press he had never heard of Patton. Messages left at the team's headquarters in Phoenix were not immediately returned.
Police said they found photographs of Mr. Patton posing with Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Muhammad Ali, Stevie Wonder and other famous people.
''I don't understand how people could have brutally and savagely murdered an elderly couple, one of which was confined in a wheelchair and had a cast from her waist all the way down to her feet,'' Kim Foster, the couple's niece, told KABC TV.
Patton was a prominent citizen in Los Angeles and had been honored numerous times for his contributions and services to the community, Lopez said.
Because the Pattons did not have children of their own, they frequently contributed to charities and scholarship funds, said another niece, Carol Hernandez.
Lopez said there was no description of the suspect and police were uncertain if anything was missing from the couple's home.
