Nicole Harvey, 21

Nicole Harvey, a 21-year-old black woman, was found burned with possible gunshot injuries on a roadside in the 8100 block of Tuscany Avenue in the Playa del Rey area. Her time of death was listed as 2:15 p.m. Jan. 26. Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Dets. Brian Carr or Orlando Martinez at (213) 485-2129 during normal business hours. 

-- Jill Leovy

Updated on Feb. 20: Authorities said today they are now offering a $50,000 reward for information in the investigation of the killing of college student Nicole Harvey on Jan. 26 . "She loved her job, her family, her church," Harvey's mother, Carmel Miller, told reporters at City Hall news conference. "I've hardly been able to sleep since this happened." New details of the case have been released, including that Harvey called in sick to work that day and that police believe she may have known her killer.

The reward offer, introduced by council members Jan Perry and Bill Rosendahl, was approved by the City Council early Wednesday. Harvey, 21, was a student at Southwest College and worked in a day-care center. She went to wait for a bus to work at the corner of 45th Street and Western Avenue in Los Angeles early Jan. 26, and her burned body -- pierced with possible gunshot wounds -- was found in the 8100 block of Tuscany Avenue in Playa del Rey that afternoon. Between those times, Harvey called her boss and said she had a family emergency and wouldn't be going to work. Detectives have extensively interviewed her boyfriend, they said, and have eliminated him as a possible suspect. Anyone with information is asked to call the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division at (213) 485-2129.