FRAUD SUSPECT FOUND WITH DEAD MAN'S CAR.

Byline: Donna Huffaker and Lisa Van Proyen Daily News Staff Writers

A Las Vegas man was arrested in Nevada after he was found with a car belonging to a 68-year-old man who was found dead under suspicious circumstances in his La Canada Flintridge home.

Responding to a report of a drunk driver at a Laughlin casino, police found Martin Higgins, 59, with the identification and Ford Thunderbird belonging to James G. Cummings - a longtime friend and former boss.

Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives were investigating Higgins as a possible suspect in Cummings' death, said Deputy Mark Bailey.

``They are not ruling out that he may be involved in the death of this guy,'' Bailey said.

Higgins was being held on a fraud warrant issued by authorities in San Luis Obispo County, where he is accused of stealing $9,000 from a longtime friend and his wife earlier this year.

Sheriff's Lt. Don Bear of the Crescenta Valley station would not say how Cummings was killed, but said it appeared to be a homicide. Deputies found evidence of violence inside the residence but no forced entry, he said. The body could have been there for a couple of days, he added.

Cummings owned the Up Th' Hill bar in La Crescenta for 22 years, until selling it in January 1998, said Rich Myers, a bartender there.

Cummings and Higgins, a ``drifter and a loner,'' were regulars at the Foothill Boulevard bar and were acquainted, Myers said.

``There aren't a lot of personal things anyone could say about Jay. He would come here and then he'd just go home. He had his little quirks but no one hated him,'' Myers said.

Myers said Cummings often carried large sums of money along with a .25-caliber revolver when he owned the bar.

In the affluent hillside community where he lived, neighbors described Cummings as reclusive in his secluded home shrouded by trees at the end of a long driveway.

Neighbor Lynne Moffitt said the slaying on her street doesn't make her fearful for her own life. ``I feel terrible for what's happened to him but I think he probably had dealings with the wrong person. I don't think what has happened is reflective of the community,'' she said.

Higgins is being held on a warrant stemming from allegations that he duped longtime friend John Bassford and his wife, Marla Bassford, out of $9,000 in property and cash, said Sgt. Richard Siefert, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in Laughlin.

Losses include $1,000 in cash and credit card charges, and a 100-year-old mandolin valued at $8,000, a family heirloom, officials said.

``He seemed like a nice guy who was down on his luck. He helped me out cooking. We gave him free room and board,'' said Marla Bassford, 65.

John Bassford said he met Higgins about 40 years ago at Mike's Verdugo Room in Glendale. He described Higgins as a ``functioning alcoholic.''

``I'm in a state of shock. I'm absolutely flabbergasted,'' John Bassford said.

When Marla Bassford and her husband both fell ill in early February and were hospitalized, she asked Higgins to take home her purse. A couple days later, Higgins was on the run again - with her ATM card and other credit cards, she said.

``Three days after I came home from the hospital, he disappeared. He left his clothes here,'' Marla Bassford said. ``He didn't even go back to get his paycheck at a gas station he worked at for a week. We never saw him again.''

CAPTION(S):

photo, map

Photo: Higgins

Map: (Glendale edition only) La Canada Flintridge

Body found