Slaying Ends Cabbie’s Struggle to Provide : Homicide: He worked by night and studied by day to try to improve his family’s lot. His body was found in an alley, with robbery the presumed motive.

Titus Imaku’s body was found in a South Los Angeles alley, the cab he drove parked a mile away.

His 5-year-old daughter, Brittany, sat with her mother two days later, unable to understand that her father was dead. She looked around at her relatives gathered in the living room of the family’s Long Beach apartment and figured they were having a party.

It confused her that most of them had tears in their eyes.

Imaku, a 35-year-old Nigerian immigrant who went to school during the day and drove a cab at night, was the victim of an apparent robbery Wednesday night, Los Angeles police said Friday.

Detective Larry Kallestad said Imaku picked up his last passenger in Long Beach about 9 p.m. Two hours later a neighborhood resident discovered the cabdriver’s body lying in the 5500 block of South Gramercy Place.

“We believe he was shot at some other location and the body left in the alley,” Kallestad said. “It appears robbery (was) the motive.”

Imaku’s wallet was missing, the detective said, and his taxi apparently had been used as a getaway car, driven nearly a mile before it was abandoned near Crenshaw Boulevard and Florence Avenue.

Police are investigating where Imaku’s last passenger was dropped off, and if the passenger had anything to do with the crime.

Imaku’s widow yearns for answers. What happened, and why him?

“I’m just wondering, did the people ever think that he had a family,” said Imaku’s wife, Deborah, 34, as she sat Friday with her daughter and 10-year-old son, Brandon. “Their father’s gone, my husband’s gone. What are we going to do?”

Imaku had come to the United States eight years ago to attend college, she said. The couple met at Compton College, one of three schools where Imaku attained associate of arts degrees. He went on to get his business degree at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

But “he couldn’t find a job,” she said. “He decided to drive the taxi because he needed to support his family.”

Imaku, who sometimes worked two or three jobs at a time, eventually went back to school for a degree in engineering, she said. Last August, he began to co-lease a cab from Long Beach Yellow Cab, going to school during the day and working nights, picking up and dropping off passengers from Orange County to Los Angeles.

“There were times he’d pick up people and if they didn’t have the money, he’d give them a free ride or give them the fare,” said Imaku’s widow. If those who murdered him wanted anything, she said, “all they had to do was ask.”

Imaku’s wife and employer said Imaku had always taken precautions while driving the cab, keeping his wallet and keys in the car’s trunk and making sure he carried only enough cash to make change.

Dennis Rouse, senior vice president of Long Beach Yellow Cab, said the company’s cars contain an extensive communications system so its 750 drivers can contact dispatchers if they are in trouble.

Imaku did not use it, said Rouse, “which leads me to believe that he didn’t think he was in any danger.” He said a collection has been started for Imaku’s family and that the company will match whatever the drivers raise. An Imaku Children’s Fund has also been established at Security Pacific Bank at 457 S. Long Beach Blvd. in Compton.

In the meantime, his widow waits.

She had been told her husband was dead once before, a few years ago when Imaku stopped in Italy on his way home to Nigeria. There had been shooting at the airport, and someone phoned her mother to say Imaku had been among the victims.

“It was two weeks before I knew (if) he was alive or dead,” she said, remembering she could not reach Imaku’s family in Nigeria or anyone in Italy who spoke English.

Finally, the day he was supposed to come home, she went to the airport hoping he would be there. And he stepped off the plane.

“I guess that’s why I can’t accept it,” she said Friday, her eyes welling with tears. “When the detectives came and said he was killed I kept thinking maybe it’s a mistake . . . I couldn’t sleep at night thinking maybe he’ll come through the door.

“But that’s not going to happen,” she said. This time, “it’s true.”