Music business legend Clarence Avant’s wife Jacqueline Avant shot dead in home invasion

Jacqueline Avant, the wife of legendary music industry boss Clarence Avant, has been shot dead during a robbery attempt in the couple’s home in Los Angeles.

Local police said they were called to a shooting at 2.23am on Wednesday morning in Beverley Hills, and that one victim had been taken to hospital but did not survive.

A spokeswoman for Netflix, whose co-chief executive is Mrs Avant’s son in law, confirmed to The Independent that she was the victim.

Mrs Avant, 81, often known as Jackie, was a former model and a steadfast philanthropist in Los Angeles, leading a support group for a childcare centre in the city’s historically deprived South Central area and serving on the board of the international student faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Mr Avant, 90, dubbed “the godfather of Black music”, is a longtime artist manager and record producer famous for his role in fostering numerous black musicians. He and Mrs Avant had been married since 1967.

The couple’s daughter Nicole, 53, is married to Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos and helped produce a Netflix documentary about her father called The Black Godfather.

The Beverly Hills Police Department said: “At 2:23 AM, [we] received a phone call regarding a shooting that had just occurred... police units arrived and discovered a victim with a gunshot wound. The suspect(s) were no longer on the scene.

“Beverly Hills Fire Department paramedics transported the victim to a local hospital. Unfortunately, the victim did not survive. Beverly Hills Police Detectives are on-scene conducting an investigation.

“The City of Beverly Hills and the Beverly Hills Police Department extends our deepest sympathies to the victim’s families.”

The couple’s home is in the Trousdale Estates, an affluent neighbourhood in the foothills overlooking Hollywood. TMZ, which first broke the news of the shooting, reported that multiple people had broken into the Avants’ home and fired shots that hit Mrs Avant.

It comes after a string of high-profile robberies against celebrities in LA, with police setting up a special task force to investigate so-called “follow-home” thefts in which criminals stake out rich areas to spot likely victims and then follow them home to rob their houses.

Last month masked bandits tailed TV host Terrence Jenkins to his home in the Sherman Oaks district and tried to block in his car with an SUV, shooting at him when he tried to escape.

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Dorit Kemsley was also targeted at her mansion in Encino, where two men followed her and then smashed their way in, confronted her, and made off with goods worth up to $1 million (£750,000).

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