I first met Cynthia Mendenhall two hours before the funeral of her nephew, Frank Evans Jr. We were seated in the booth of a Denny’s on the edge of Watts, eight miles south of downtown Los Angeles. I expressed my condolences. She received them with a nod. Her sister-in-law, she said, was taking it hard. In fact, she nearly refused to come to the funeral. Even though it had been almost two weeks since Frank was shot, she still couldn’t accept that he was dead.
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