Something wasn’t right in that cell. Guards felt it. Inmates talked about it. And when they finally opened the door, what they found didn’t make sense. Not at first. Not until you knew who the man inside used to be. He once rolled through South Central in a red Hyundai with a sawoff shotgun on screen, but the lines between Hollywood and the street started to blur.
And once he stepped off set, the script flipped. This is Lloyd Avery II story. And trust it’s not what you think. Lloyd Fernandez. Avery II was born June 21st, 1969 in Los Angeles, California. But forget what you think you know about gang stories. Lloyd didn’t come up in no trap house or struggle crib.
He was raised in View Park right next to Bowwin Hills, a neighborhood nicknamed the Black Beverly Hills for a reason. We’re talking about black excellence, big homes, working parents, and swimming pools in the backyard. His pops, Lloyd Avery Senior, was a self-made man, electrician, plumber, carpenter who ran his own business.
His mom, Linda, held it down at the bank. Lloyd was one of four kids. And from the outside, the Avery family looked picture perfect. Clean-Cut church clothes on Sundays, family photos, the whole nine. His younger brotherqi once said, “We were Silver Spoon kids. We never needed for nothing.” He went to Beverly Hills High School.
Yeah, that school where rich kids parked BMWs and movie execs pulled up for back to school night. Lloyd fit in more than folks would expect. He was tall, athletic, and lettered in baseball and water polo. He even rolled with the children of music royalty. Smoky Robinson, Quincy Jones, Clarence Avant. That was the circle.
But even back then, Lloyd was a little different. Two sides. On one hand, he was goofy, charming, the dude who’d drop off Christmas cards on December 23rd just to make folks smile. On the other, he had a slick mouth and a habit of pushing people’s buttons till they snapped.
Ask comedian Robin Harris, who once choked Lloyd out during a photo shoot just minutes after meeting him. He had that effect on people. The first real red flag popped in 1988 after a frat party near UCLA. Some words turned into a scuffle. Somebody let off three shots. Lloyd didn’t pull the trigger, but he got arrested carrying a fake ID.
Spent three days in jail and instead of being shook, he laughed it off. Told his boy he actually liked jail. That was when folks around him started worrying. Then in 1990, he got caught stealing studio gear from Guitar Center. Another arrest. His dad wanted him to get a real job. Lloyd had other plans.
He wanted the limelight. And that limelight came knocking real soon. Lloyd was at LA Trade Technical College just grinding and figuring things out when opportunity came knocking. His boy from back in the day, John Singleton, had a script, a raw, unfiltered look at South Central called Boys in the Hood.
Singleton thought Lloyd had the right look and energy for one of the roles. Not the lead, not a hero, but the trigger man. A small part that would end up defining Lloyd’s whole life. He played knucklehead number two, a blood gang member. Not much screen time, but enough to etch himself into pop culture. That red Hyundai creeping up.
The sawed off the shotgun blast that takes out Ricky played by Morris Chestnut right there on the sidewalk. Cuba Gooding Jr. screaming Ricky. That scene hit like a brick. Lloyd was only on screen for minutes, but his face locked in forever. The streets started recognizing him. Folks didn’t call him Lloyd.
They called him the dude that killed Ricky. And in the hood, that wasn’t just acting. That was status. People gave him props like he really put in work. And Lloyd started leaning into it. Casting director Robbie Reed said Lloyd had that presence. An intangible vibe you can’t teach. It made his tiny role unforgettable.
Boys in the Hood became a classic racked up Oscar nods made Singleton the youngest best director nominee ever. It put Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, and Cuba on the map. And for Lloyd, it gave him a name. Maybe not in Hollywood, but definitely in the streets. He tried to ride the wave. Got a guest spot on Doogie Hower, MD in 92.
Did a bit in Poetic Justice with Janet and Tupac. Even helped produce a song for Tisha Campbell that ended up on Martin. He was hustling, but the momentum didn’t hold. By the mid90s, his relationship with Singleton soured. Word is Lloyd started acting out on set. Didn’t prep, missed auditions, came with a chip on his shoulder.
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doors that had opened started closing. And the more his Hollywood dreams faded, the deeper he slipped into the image that got him famous in the first place. Not the actor, the gangster, a role he would eventually stop pretending to play. As Hollywood pulled back, Lloyd Avery leaned in not to his craft, not to the next audition, but into the role that had made him famous.
He wasn’t just playing a blood anymore. He started living like one. He moved into Baldwin Village, South Central LA. The locals call it the jungle. Real blood turf. No cameras, no trailers, just alleyways, turf lines, and a code you either follow or get dealt with. The same neighborhood training day used when it needed a backdrop that screamed danger.
And Lloyd fit right in. Or maybe he forced himself to. He didn’t just dress the part. He marked himself for life. Tattooed the word jungles in all caps above his left eyebrow. No turning back after that. In the jungle, he wasn’t Lloyd from View Park anymore. He was the cat from Boys in the Hood who gunned down Ricky.
The streets treated him like one of their own. In return, he soaked it up. He switched up everything. Rocked red baggy khakis and Chucks. Spoke like the homies. Move with the local blood set. the Black Pea Stones. This wasn’t method acting. This was full-blown identity switch.
His friends from the Beverly Hills days were confused. Some were scared. One story goes Lloyd and a homie at Slawson Swap meet, a group of real bangers walk up and press him. You a blood or what? And Lloyd, without flinching, says, “Yeah, I’m a blood now.” His brother Chi had already gotten mixed up in gang life, and now Lloyd had followed the same path.
Only difference, Lloyd had the name, the face, the notoriety. People already believed he was about that life. Now he was trying to actually live it. But the deeper he went, the messier it got. He started wilding. Not just flexing for street credit, but making reckless move. Pulling out a strap on Venice Beach during an argument.
Showing up to casting calls with a pistol on him. Threatened people on sets. One time he allegedly told the director he was going to murk him and his whole family. Not exactly how you get more roles. He wasn’t just burning bridges. He was torching them. Got booted from sets. Got black ballalled.
Even people in the streets started noticing he wasn’t all there. He did random petty crimes. Stole bikes and cars just to get to work. Slept on couches. Got kicked out of apartments. One time he maced his own roommate’s mom in the face. Same lady who used to be his talent agent. And just a little while later, he sprayed mace at MTV VJ Downtown Julie Brown at a club. No reason, just snapped.
A few people close to him thought it was more than gang life. They said Lloyd might have been dealing with bipolar disorder. Others just said he was spiraling. Either way, he was slipping. His aunt Carol said he was trying. He started going to church again. put on his Sunday best, showed up at the door, but then he’d just walk around outside unable to go in.
Said it felt like something was pulling him away. He wasn’t just playing both sides anymore. He was lost between them. By summer of 99, the tension inside him snapped. July 1st, 1999, just past 400 p.m. Santa Barbara Plaza in Baldwin Village. Two locals, Annette Lewis and Percy Branch, was sitting under a tree, both known in the area, kicked it around the plaza.
Nothing unusual. Then Ly pulled up. Witnesses say there was an argument. Some say it was over money, others say drugs, but it got heated fast. Ly pulled out a 45 and let off. Annette tried to run. He chased her down, shot her in the back five times. She collapsed on the spot, gone. Percy Branch caught rounds to the stomach and thigh, but he made it to the hospital barely.
Lloyd jumped in a car and peeled off. At the time, it didn’t make major headlines. That part of LA had seen his fair share of body drops. But this one, it was different. This wasn’t a turf hit or random beef. The shooter was a known face. The dude from Boys and the Hood. LAPD started piecing it together.
Shell casings were from a 45. same caliber as two other unsolved shootings in the same plaza. One from March, another from April, that one outside a Nation of Islam mosque. Both of those cases, witnesses said they saw a black Cadillac. Guess who owned a black caddy? Lloyd Avery. Now the dots were starting to connect.
Still, it wasn’t an open and shut case. Percy, before he passed, told police Lloyd wasn’t the shooter. Whether he was protecting him or scared, nobody knows. But the streets were talking. Lloyd didn’t lay low. He didn’t flee the city. He didn’t even switch cars. He moved like nothing happened.
But the law was coming. Just not yet. And the wildest part, right after those murders, Lloyd packed his bag and hit the road. Next stop, a movie set. After the shootings in July 1999, most people would have dipped out, switched coast, or at least laid low. But Lloyd, nah, man booked a movie role. Two weeks after the Santa Barbara Plaza killings, Lloyd was on the set of Lockdown, a low-budget prison drama being shot at the actual New Mexico State Penitentiary.
Yeah, the same prison where the 1980 riot left dozens dead. That’s where they were filming. And Lloyd walked in like everything was sweet. He had zero business being there. LAPD was already collecting statements, matching shells, and connecting the Black Caddy to the scenes. Meanwhile, Lloyd was in New Mexico walking around a real prison yard, pretending to be an inmate on camera while allegedly being a killer off it.
But his behavior on set told the same story the streets had already seen. Something wasn’t right. He got caught smoking a shmstick PCP laced cigarette which had him tweaking heavy, spaced out, erratic, unpredictable. Then he flipped out on a makeup artist for no real reason. And the craziest part, he literally wandered off the set and broke into a live section of the actual prison.
Real inmates, real security, real risk. Guards almost opened fire thinking he was trying to escape. It was chaos. That was it for New Mexico. He was fired from the film, banned from the set, and reportedly banned from the state. They put him on a bus back to LA. Still, he didn’t stop. Late 1999, Lloyd landed another role in a low-budget indie film called Shot, where he played a gangster named G-ide.
This time, he had a bigger role, more lines, more screen time. Director Roger Roth later said Avery was actually talented, that he had presence, but he also said Lloyd was dangerous. On multiple occasions during filming, Lloyd threatened to kill Roth and his family. Nobody knew what was real anymore.
Was this part of the act or was this dude seriously on edge? Either way, folks on set were uneasy. The walls were closing in, but Lloyd didn’t act like it. He wasn’t hiding. He kept doing him. But the streets talk, and so do people who get pushed too far. One of those people was Shawn Sprer, Lloyd’s ex- roommate.
After Lloyd makes Shawn’s mom, Christine Chapman, who used to be Lloyd’s talent agent, that bridge burned. Shawn had enough. He started working with the cops. Told them where Lloyd was staying, what he was driving, how he moved. On the morning of December 8th, 1999, LAPD spotted Lloyd behind the wheel near his grandmother’s house in Beverly Hills.
They tried to pull him over. Lloyd hit the gas, led them on a short chase through the neighborhood, but he couldn’t outrun it this time. They caught him in his car and apartment. Police found a 45 caliber handgun. Ballistics tied it to the Santa Barbara Plaza shootings. Uh, that was the last piece they needed.
Lloyd Avery II, once just an actor playing a gang member, was now officially booked for murder. Two counts, firstdegree, no parole on the table. Lloyd’s trial came up in late 2000. By then, he’d already been sitting in county jail for almost a year. No flashy lawyers, no big Hollywood support, just him and the consequences.
The case wasn’t airtight, but it was strong. Ballistics linked his gun to the crime. Witnesses placed him at the scene. And while Percy Branch had originally said Lloyd wasn’t the shooter, he passed away weeks later, so he couldn’t testify. That left things open-ended, but prosecutors painted a clear narrative.
They didn’t need to prove motive, just action. Lloyd didn’t fight hard. Some said he seemed detached during trial. Others thought he was just done. He barely spoke in court, offered a weak alibi, and didn’t take the stand. The jury came back with guilty verdicts on both murder counts. In December 2000, he was sentenced to life without parole.
Just like that, the man who once stood on a film set with Cuba Gooding Jr. was headed to Pelican Bay. Pelican Bay State Prison isn’t your average lockup. Is California’s supermax located up in Crescent City near the Oregon border. Is built for lifers, gang shot callers, and folks the state wants buried deep.
And Ly was headed there. But here’s where it flips again. While locked up waiting on his transfer, Lyd found something most people didn’t expect. God. in LA County Jail. He started attending services run by Pastor Dennis Clark, a volunteer chaplain. At first, it seemed like just another inmate trying to get some peace.
But it got deeper. He carried his Bible everywhere. Quoted scripture, talked about redemption, said he wanted to turn his life around. Other inmates started calling him baby Jesus, some joking, some not. He got baptized, wrote letters home, said he was done with the streets, told the chaplain he wanted to help other inmates find salvation.
By March 2001, when he finally got moved to Pelican Bay, he was in fullon Christian mode, preaching to others, avoiding drama, writing to family with hope. In one letter dated August 29th, 2005, Lloyd told Pastor Clark about a new challenge. He’d just been assigned a new cellmate.
He wrote, “I know God has him around me for a reason. I pray for him every day that he gives his life to God.” The new cellmate’s name, Kevin Roby, and that name would change everything. Back in 1987, Robbie had been locked up for murdering his own sister, Velmoline Hill. He had raped her, killed her, and then tried to cover it up with some bizarre excuse about ninjas.
Cops found her body stuffed in a trash can in his place covered in dog food. No remorse, no sense. He had also been convicted of sexually assaulting another sister. By the time he got to Pelican Bay, he’d already been inside for over a decade, and he had changed in his own way, not toward redemption, but deeper into something darker.
Kevin Robbie called himself the satanic Christ. Spelled it wrong on purpose. said he served Satan and believed in performing rituals to connect with what he saw as dark powers. Other inmates stayed far from him. Even correctional staff flagged him as mentally unstable, diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, history of violence, problem inmate.
So why put him in a cell with Lloyd Avery? That question never really got answered. Some say prison admin just didn’t do their homework. Others say they knew but didn’t care. Either way, it was a deadly mismatch. You had a man trying to walk with God and another trying to fight him.
From the jump, Lloyd tried to convert him. He wasn’t shy about it. Kept talking about the Bible, forgiveness, salvation. Told Roi he was praying for him. Roby didn’t take it well. He later said Avery kept pushing the Christian agenda on him. They argued, got into verbal fights, sometimes even physical scuffles. Other inmates picked up on it.
Some tried to warn Lloyd, told him to chill, said Robbie wasn’t stable. Even clergy inside told him to fall back a little. But Lloyd stayed on mission. He believed this was God’s test, that he could reach the unreachable. But what Lloyd didn’t know is that Roby had already made up his mind.
He wasn’t listening to Lloyd’s sermons. He was planning something. Roby would later tell officials he felt Lloyd was disrespecting him, trying to force something on him. He said the arguments weren’t just about religion, but about power, control, identity. And Roby wanted to send a message. A message not just to Lloyd, but to God.
He started prepping a ritual. Quietly, patiently kept it all in his head. Then on the evening of September 4th, 2005, it happened. In their shared sale, Unit D247, an argument broke out over religion again. This time it went left. Roby snapped, hit Lloyd hard, blunt force trauma to the hit. Then he wrapped something around Lloyd’s neck and choked him out.
Long, slow, no noise outside the sail, just silence. Lloyd struggled, but Roby was built stocky, shorter, but powerful. And in that moment, fueled by hate, and whatever delusions he held, Roby didn’t stop. Lloyd died from asphixxiation. Blood from the head wound filled his lungs. Ruby didn’t call for help, didn’t alert guards.
Instead, he dragged Lloyd’s body onto the top bunk, covered it, made it look like he was sleeping. Then came the creepy part. Roby managed to keep up the act for almost two full days. When guards did sell checks, he tugged the string tied to Lloyd’s arm, making it look like his cellmate was moving in his sleep.
He ate both meals, wrote a letter to one of Ly’s pen pals, trying to fake his voice. Maybe part of the plan, maybe just another layer of the ritual. Then came September 6th. That morning, Roby staged the final scene. He drew a pentagram on the sale floor. Some say he scratched it in. Others say he used soap.
Either way, he dragged Lloyd’s body down and placed it in the center. Then he took Lloyd’s blood and painted demonic symbols on the walls. Left messages, marks, the kind of stuff straight out of a horror flick. When the guards finally noticed something was wrong, they opened the door to a fullon ritual murder.
Lloyd Avery II’s body was cold. The scene was disturbing. Kevin Robbie was calm. He later told officials this was a sacrifice that he had sent Lloyd to the devil as an offering. Said it was part of a larger plan and that God himself was next. It was delusional, deranged, but deadly real.
And Lloyd, he never saw it coming. From Beverly Hills High to being sacrificed inside a prison cell, his story wasn’t fiction anymore. It was the kind of ending nobody writes because no one would believe it. When they asked Roby what happened, he said it straight. This was a sacrifice. Said he offered Lloyd up as part of a satanic right, something he planned carefully.
He believed he was sending a message to God. Even claimed God was next on his list. This wasn’t just a murder. It was calculated, obsessive, and dragged out over 38 hours. Roby faked Avery’s presence during 11 different head counts. He manipulated Lloyd’s body to move when guards checked the sail, pulled on a string tied to his arm to make him look alive, ate both their meals, wrote a letter pretending to be Lloyd, all while building up to that final ritual.
Medical reports showed Lloyd died from blunt force trauma and strangulation, but also had aspirated blood. He essentially drowned from the beating. The way Roby went about it suggested he wanted it to be slow and controlled. Inmates and staff who knew Robbie weren’t surprised. He’d always talked about rituals, control, and doing something big, but no one thought it would play out like this.
For Lloyd’s family, it was unthinkable. They already lost him to the streets. Now, this worse, the Del Norte County DA chose not to charge Roby with a second murder. Said he was already doing life without parole. No trial, no sentence, just a line and a report. Roi stayed locked up and he stayed loud. Still talking Satan.
Still claiming purpose. But for Lloyd, the story was over. His death wasn’t just a headline. It was the final act in a life that spun so far off script you couldn’t make it up. Lloyd Avery II died at 36 years old alone in a cell with a man who saw him as a symbol, not a human.
But even in death, his name kept bouncing around. podcasts, true crime documentaries, viral YouTube recaps. Everyone wanted to piece together how a kid from the Black Beverly Hills ended up sacrificed in prison. Some called it karma. Others called it tragedy. But those who knew the real Lloyd, his family, his old friends said it was just sad.
He had the looks, the presence, the connections. But he also had demons. Some say it was mental health. Some say it was pride. Maybe it was both. What’s clear is he chased an image that chased him back. The tough guy, the gangster, the outlaw. And in the end, he wasn’t taken out by a rival on the street. He got done in by a disturbed man behind bars.
From Beverly Hills to Pelican Bay, from Christmas cards to ritual sacrifice. Lloyd Avery II lived fast, burned out early, and left behind a story nobody could have written better or worse. Sometimes the role you play starts playing you. Rest in peace to the man behind the movie. Appreciate you watching till the end. Make sure to subscribe to the channel for more.
