[MODUS[ [OPERANDI[[OOPERAND HARD BODIES. DEAD BODIES. SUNNY L.A. IS KNOWN FOR BOTH— AND FOR OUR ONGOING FASCINATION WITH WHAT LURKS IN THE SHADOWS. DAVID MILCH CONSIDERS WHY WE CAN’T LOOK AWAY HeArT Of DaRkNeSs

HOUGH THE TOURISM department won’t soon be put- motives that separate us from sim- ting it in brochures, crime in Los Angeles has always held a pler beasts—envy, bitterness, regret. certain dark allure. Maybe it’s the long shadow of noir that Most of us have a measure of self- makes our bad guys seem glamorous; maybe it’s that so of- control that reins in that little killer, ten the perp in the mug shot is familiar for his decadent TV stops us from looting RadioShacks smile. Could be that in L.A. we’ll take our mysteries unsolved, and crushing our enemies in a bloody keeping the threat loose, turning crime into legend: the Black spree. But that little killer still de- Dahlia, Nicole Brown Simpson. Crime reminds us that Tin- mands a workout. seltown can be a hard, messy place where dreams get carved Cop and courtroom shows get up and gutter out, providing some satisfying contrast to the us only so far. There’s a puzzler’s di- version in watching the mystery un- paradise promised in ads; under all those gentle palm fronds, this packed. But in stories and in natural life, what often engages us on is a city of devils. a more cathartic level than the gory details of how one person man- Sometimes the devil is us. Beneath that California nice, a little ages to kill another are his reasons why. killer lives in our chests who would knock our neighbor’s teeth in We all know that the laws governing our little killer’s choices are for the noise of his mower. We’re just animals in sunglasses, still only nominally related to laws on the books. The real forces that subject to the jungle’s fear and anger and desire as well as worse control our urges owe far more to our moral code, the individual

*** ThE *** 7 6 5 » Crime doesn’t pay, but a visit to GLIMPSES COLD CASES DOWN-AND- FiNaL LAmag.com/crime does. We have a inside the that will DIRTY DAMES new blog, featuring TrueCrimeDiary minds of the make you yearn who have RePoRt .com’s Michelle McNamara, that city’s most for answers killed for the delves into the dastardly. Here’s a deranged thrill * peek at our online-only features: criminals 82 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 CRIME IN LA

More Manson Murders? » Just after mid- 17-year-old Marina night on August 9, Habe, who was 1969, Polish actor abducted from the Voytek Frykowski driveway of a West was asleep on his Hollywood bunga- friend Sharon low on December Tate’s couch in 30, 1968. Habe’s Benedict Canyon mother was awak- when he was awak- ened around 3:30 ened by whisper- a.m. by the sound ing. “What time is of a loud car. When it?” he murmured, she looked out the and felt a kick in window, she saw a the head. A young man standing next man with a vacant to a dark sedan. expression stood “Let’s go,” he shout- LOCK & KEY over him. “I’m the ed, jumping into These American-made devil,” said the the passenger side. handcuffs, circa 1860, are one of many pairs owned by stranger, Charles Marina’s car was Los Feliz collector Joe Fox “Tex” Watson. “And in the driveway, I’m here to do the but she was gone. devil’s business.” Her corpse, which It has long been bore multiple stab thought that this wounds, was found began one of the on New Year’s Day, most infamous 1969, at the bot- disambiguation of right from wrong that In real life, even in real Los Angeles, we crime sprees in tom of a ravine o! we excavate over a lifetime. might cheer to see the criminal wind up in American history. Mulholland Drive. Our favorite criminals are the ones chains—safer that way. But in our imagina- Charles Manson Seven months later and his “family”—a the murders of Tate working not purely from animal urge, but tions we’re untouchable and thereby free to group of disciples, and her friends, operating from that personal code—out- let guilt and innocence grow as thorny and including Wat- along with Leno son—are in prison and Rosemary laws doing bad for their own good reasons: complex as they truly are. Having the dim- for their roles in LaBianca, shared Michael Corleone, Tony Soprano, Omar mest sense of our own capacity for bad be- what are com- a similar overkill- from The Wire. We know that a man’s spe- havior, we ought to not be comfortable with monly called the by-knife signature. “Manson murders.” A connection was cific sense of justice is often more complex cartoon notions of white hats and black. But 44 years later suspected but and thoughtful than rules applied to the Secretly we wonder whether guilt is just a do we know the never confirmed. full extent of the A year after Habe masses could ever manage, and watching matter of perspective, that if we knew the business the devil disappeared, the someone live in subtle negotiation with whole story, breaking the law would seem did? The LAPD bodies of two Sci- broad laws excites our understanding that like justice. could be closer to entologists, Doreen finding out now Gaul, 19, and James life is always more complicated than gover- that a Texas judge Sharp, 15, were nance would allow. When the criminal acts David Milch, a TV writer and producer, has given the de- found dumped in partment access downtown L.A. in defense of what he believes, he becomes created Deadwood and Luck and was a to eight hours of Both had been

HANDCUFFS: COURTESY JOE COMRADE FOX CRIME TAPE: MANSON: AP PHOTO; ([email protected]); someone we can understand, even root for. co-creator of NYPD Blue. taped conversa- stabbed repeatedly tions between Wat- and beaten. Man- son and his now- son family member deceased attorney. Bruce Davis was Detectives recently an ex-Scientologist began listening to and rumored to 4 3 2 1 the tapes, search- have dated Gaul. HIGH-SPEED EXPERT Q&As CRIME MAPS FACE-TO-FACE ing for clues about If detectives get CHASES with, among that show what ENCOUNTER the Manson fam- lucky, the Watson ily’s involvement tapes could help all caught on others, a lawyer happens where with “Night in several unsolved solve this mystery tape who once de- (plus a guide Stalker” homicides. as well. fended Michael to local gangs) Richard One cold case of > MICHELLE Jackson Ramirez interest is that of MCNAMARA

Photograph by JESSE NARDUCCI LAMAG.COM [RIPPED[OFF[ Of tHe ArT StEaLHOME BURGLARIES AND AUTO THEFTS ARE LESS THAN RARE IN THE BIG CITY. HERE’S THE DIRTY LOWDOWN

HeAdEd FoR A PlEaSuRe CrUiSe

PoInTs oF EnTrY » Burglars slip BrEaKdOwN through an unlocked door ThE BiG HoT ItEmS or window in 40 BuMp Of a bReAk-In: percent of cases. » Purses, wallets, credit cards, and cash are Forcible entry » Used by lock- the first to go, followed by electronics 4 fAcTs through a door is smiths, a “bump” (a laptop worth $1,000 can pawn for $50 to the most common key opens 90 per- $100) and jewelry (which often lands in form of access cent of traditional the JewelryJewelry District).District). YoU ShOuLd when a house has door locks. And been locked tight. with help from KnOw the Web, it’s easy to make. Lock- smiths, though, StOp sIgNs can install locks that are impervi- ous to bump keys. » A security sign in the front yard and stickers on your windows do lower the odds of burglary. But the LAPD can’t attest to whether security WhO GeTs systems themselves make a di!erence. BuRgLeD ThE MoSt? ≥ BURGLARIES ARE DOWN by 20 percent in L.A. County and more than 30 percent in the city.city ButButa attm moreore ththanan 1717,000 000 a yeayear,r thetherere aare still plenty to go around. ≥ RENTERS are burgled at a rate that’s about 50 percent higher than that for home owners. ≥ YOUNG HOUSEHOLDS— those headed by people between 20 and 34—are hit far more often (59 out of 1,000 households) than those headed by someone 66 or older (just 12 per 1,000). ≥ SOLO DADS are targeted far more (59 out of 1,000) than CHILDLESS COUPLES (14 out of 1,000). ≥ THE POOR—those earning less than $7,500 a year— are burgled the most (47 per 1,000). ≥ BETTER-OFF HOUSEHOLDS—with incomes of $75,000-plus a year—are struck at a fraction of the rate (17 per 1,000).

[STICKY[FINGERS[A GoOd gIrL’S SeCrEt tHrIlL FOR MANY, SHOPLIFTING IS A CRIME OF WANT, NOT NEED

FIRST DID IT with two friends, prob- ed. Like, “I don’t really need this, but it’s know. We’d go to Nordstrom and I’d ably in the eighth grade. I want to say I free!” I just wanted something new. bring a big purse. First you’d take a top. took lip gloss or something small from When I was a junior in high school, I Then a pair of jeans. You’d test the lim- the drugstore. It wasn’t like I couldn’t got another friend to do it with me. It its. It was easy. None of the clothes had a!ord to pay for the stu!. It was just the didn’t take a lot of coaxing. I’d say, “Let’s sensors on them. You’d simply put idea that I could have anything I want- go to the mall,” and she’d just sort of things in your bag and walk out, won-

84 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 Graphic by BRYAN CHRISTIE CRIME IN LA

ThE FaTe oF YoUr cAr: 4 sCeNaRiOs

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CaSeD AnD FoLlOwEd GoEsGoEs tOtO TaKeN FoR DuMpEdDuMppEdd » Thieves troll FoFoRR DoUgHDoUgH PoRtPoRt oF L.A.L.A. A JoYrIdE car shows and » As manmanyya assf fourour » Often found the classic-car » SinceSince the eco-eco- stolenl vehicleshi l within a week. gathering at the nomic downturn,downturn, can be slipped Burbank Bob’s Big there’s been a rash unnoticed into a Boy. Candidates of cash-strapped sea-bound ship- for theft are fol- SUV owners stag- ping container. lowed home and ing thefts of their TeStEd fOr stolen days later. own cars; they LoJaCk ttorcho them in the ddesert to collect » Thieves may insurance. leave a car parked for days in case GoEs tO ThE ChOphOp sHoPsHoP it has a tracking ArRiVeS system. » Chop shops can be as smallsmall as a hhomeomemee AbRoAd garage; they often relocate ttoo avoiavoidd ddetectionetectioon » German while they break cars downown intointo parts.parts. performance cars aarere shishippedpped to Eu-Eu- rrope,ope, the formerformer Soviet UnionUnion,, andand ReAcHeSReAcHeS the MiMiddleddle EastEast.. MeXiCo ScRuBbEdScRuBbE SoLd fOr » The vehicle OOff iiTsTs pAsTpA PaRtS may cross the » AtA the cchoph » Hard-to-find border within shoshoph p your car’scar ID vintage parts hours. Criminal numnumberber and DDMV fetch high prices; gangs and drug ttitleitle are switswitchedc thee third-rowthird row cartels often favor with ththoseose oof a seatsseats ooff EEscaladesscalades largelarge SUVs. sasalvagedlvaged vevehicleh areare alsoalso hot; ooff the samesame mmodel HondaHonda ownersowners anandd year. YourYo use blackbblack marketmarket car sellssells as a high-performancehigh-performance restored version AAcuracura parts to of the wreck. bboostoost horsepower.horsepower.

dering if anyone was going to stop you. know this is wrong—I’d think, “Oh, it’s didn’t give me an ultimatum, but he was That moment was kind of scary, but excit- OK, they make enough money.” I didn’t disappointed in me. After that, the temp- ing, too. think much about the risks. A girlfriend of tation was still there because I knew it’d My parents have a very clear sense of mine got caught in a grocery store, and it be so easy. But I pretty much stopped. right and wrong, and I was always the was embarrassing. I figured the odds that It’s interesting, but now that I have a good kid growing up. I never did drugs. I I’d get thrown in jail were pretty low. job and make my own money—I’m a law- didn’t drink until my senior year of high When I got to UCLA, I’d go to the stu- yer—I’m very strict about paying for ev- school. I hung out with the good kids and dent store and take workout clothes, mag- erything. I don’t know if that stems from got good grades. So shoplifting was the azines, little stu!. But then my boyfriend guilt or trying to make up for the past, but one thing I did that was against the rules. caught me with something from the Gap. if I’ve been undercharged, I’ll go back and Since I took things from big stores—I I didn’t tell him I’d done it before. He make sure that I pay. > ANONYMOUS

LAMAG.COM [BODY[[COUNT][COOUUNT

BrInGiNg OuT ThE DeAd IF THERE WERE A MARKER FOR EVERY PERSON WHO DIED A VIOLENT DEATH IN THE CITY, THE LANDSCAPE WOULD BE RIDDLED WITH HEADSTONES. CRIME NOVELIST DENISE HAMILTON PAYS HER RESPECTS TO THE DEPARTED

N JUNE 20, 1947, an unknown Even in a metropolis built on fame, murder is the great leveler. It assailant sprayed bullets can bestow the same notoriety on actor Sal Mineo—stabbed to death through the living room win- in a West Hollywood alley in 1976—as it can on retired airline clerk dow of a Beverly Hills home, Hervey Medellin, whose head was found last year by dogs below killing gangster Benjamin the Hollywood sign (see sidebar). I can’t run in the Hollywood Hills “Bugsy” Siegel as he sat on his without thinking of him—or about all the people who pass through lover’s couch reading the eve- the area without being any the wiser. ning paper. Almost 70 years The dead are lost amid the sheer size of the city, an ever-expand- later, the lushly landscaped ing geography of violent endings. Here’s the Pyrenees Castle in Al- Spanish home hambra where Phil Spector shot actress Lana Clarkson. blends in with its posh surroundings, except for the M I NA L C There’s Wonderland Avenue in Laurel Canyon where C R I O D E buses that pull up daily to disgorge tourists eager to ex- four people with drug ties to porn star John Holmes perience L.A.’s dark past. It’s a busy itinerary for those *** *** were massacred. Shall we order gnocchi tonight at Vi- on the murder circuit, because L.A. is a city of ghosts, SLAMMING tello’s, the Studio City eatery where Robert Blake took ≥ A term used by a spectral landscape teeming with invisible grave- taggers and gra!ti his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, the night she was killed stones. It’s only if you know where to look that these artists to describe just around the corner? Is that the Beverly Hills inter- painting? in a very anonymous sites and their sad stories snap into focus. conspicuous or section where Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was risky area. Bigger slams mean more 86 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 street cred. Photograph by D A M O N C A S A R E Z CRIME IN LA

The Hollywood Head » First the head was found, sni"ed out in January 2012 by nine canines led by a pair of dog walkers on an after- noon trip through Bronson Canyon Park. Then came one hand—discov- ered by police— followed by the other. Next, the feet. Finally, a name: Hervey Medellin, a 66-year-old retired Mexicana Airlines NO TRACE employee who had The body of Elizabeth Short, aka lived near the park the Black Dahlia, was found on January 15, with his boyfriend, 1947, 54 feet from the hydrant (left), Gabriel Campos- JMNWZMPWUM[_MZMJ]QT\QV\PM+ZMV[PI_ÅMTL The Daily News documented the discovery Martinez. Perhaps because the victim’s name evoked the “Medellín Cartel,” a theory was floated that he was a drug mule being pun- death and buried in sand at Venice Beach. Once I stood ished by tra!ckers. outside a boarded-up, condemned building in San- Detectives then looked for possible ta Monica where a 14-year-old chronic runaway was connections to the found murdered by her satanist street kid boyfriend in a Canadian porn basement of overflowing toilets, pentagrams, and damp star and accused ice pick murderer gunnednned ddown late one night in 2010 in her Mercedes, earth. And I wondered, Do bricks and mortar retain Luka Magnotta, but a scenario that reads more like the opening of a film memories of crimes committed in airless rooms? Can the alleged necro- philiac was soon noir than a news story? In L.A. it’s usually only the poor violence sear a pattern into walls that no layers of paint o" the suspect list. and unlucky who die on the streets. Unlike in Chicago can cover? Is this small patch of earth forever cursed? An ex-lover, Wil- or New York, much of our violence unfolds behind tall With every life taken, police tape goes up. Investiga- liam Ladewig, was also questioned: gates and closed doors. tors dust surfaces. Loved ones leave flowers, candles, Apparently feeling Not long ago I visited a Crenshaw neighborhood of photos, and mementos at sidewalk shrines, but the sun spurned by Medel- tract homes and visualized the fields that sprawled here bleaches everything of color—even bloodstains—and lin, Ladewig had allegedly harassed when the Black Dahlia’s severed body was discovered nocturnal fog smears the ink on good-bye notes. It’s Campos-Martinez. in 1947. The sidewalk is clean; the parkway, green. The only when the Santa Anas blow their devil winds and After a polygraph, police deemed tidy homes reveal no secrets. I seek a moment of still- scatter the tatterdemalion o"erings that the voices of Campos-Martinez ness to feel whether Elizabeth Short’s presence lingers, the departed wail in the alleys and fancy boulevards, “deceitful of dis- but the nearby tra!c distracts me and everything looks the tenements, mansions, and street corners, saying, membering the victim’s body and so eerily…normal. “Don’t forget us. We, too, lived and laughed.” If we lit a having knowledge As a crime novelist and reporter, I’m often haunt- candle for each victim back to the pueblo days of shoot- of the victim’s murder,” but he ed most by the anonymous victims—the ordinary folks outs and lynchings, L.A. would be engulfed in flames. vanished before he like me and my kids and the people we know. Consider could be nicked. the 18-year-old boy killed while eating at a food truck A former reporter with the Los Angeles Times, > DAVE GARDETTA on Alvarado, the 17-year-old girl allegedly hit by a gang Denise Hamilton recently published her seventh book, bullet outside Carson’s Bistro 880, the man beaten to Damage Control (Scribner).

LAMAG.COM [INK[ INNE [STAINED[ATAA NoVeL BOOKS THAT MOSLEY ApPrOaCh ADMIRES WITH MORE THAN 30 BOOKSS BETWEEN THEMTHEM,, THESE WRITERS HAVE SPENTNT AASS MMUCHUCH TIME AASS ANYONE PONDERING L.A.’S UNDERBELLY.UNDERBELLY. ANN HEROLD FINDS OUT WHATHAT DRIVESDRIVES THEM

ON EASY > I’m not Easy Rawlins. I’m not ≥ that age, that gen- WaLtEr eration, there are MONKOLOGYM a lot of things I’m MoSlEy ByBy Gary Phillips not. But there are Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins—privatelins—private investigator, forfor-- things I am, too. mer aircraft assemblybly plant worker, WWII veter-veter- > I love Gary and When I’m writing an, onetime residentent of Watts—has aappearedppeared iinn am a fan of his from Easy’s point 12 of Mosley’s novelsels set in the ’40s through ththee work.w He can of view, he says ’60s. Little Greenn was published in the spring. writewri about any- things I would thing,thi but when never say. He does he writes about things I would ON ON L.A.,L.A I like that never consider WHAT’S INSPIRATION there’sthe a kind of doing. But that’s rebellious LEFT OUT > I wanted ttoo politicspo in the me writing. So in > The interesting writewrite about a larlargege ppeople he’s a way that’s me thing about being and disparatedisparate involvedin with. completely and in a novelist—and groupgroup of ppeopleeople a way it’s a com- this is also proba- overover a peperiodriod of pletely creative bly true of nonfic- timetime in SSouth-outh- construct. tion—is, you can’t ern CCalifornia.alifornia. I tell everything. It’s wantedwanted to brbringing to ON impossible. So cer- lifelife those ppeopleeople CRIME tain things get left whowho didn’t have FICTION out. I write about a literatureliterature eveneven a time and a place thoughthough they livliveded > My father used THE BIG to work in East and a people, and inin a pplacelace that NOWHEREN I am hoping that hashas a lot of litlit-- L.A., in the barrio, By James Ellroy and how people when you read the erature. I wantedwanted lived there and book, you will in- toto talk about the form it with your displaceddisplaced AfricAfricanan > EEllroyl is a great how people lived wriwriter. Who’s the in my neighbor- own emotions and AmericansAmericans who feelings. came from Texas poepoet who wrote, hood in South- ““I’mI’m going to make Central was so andand Louisiana, mme a world?” di!erent. The cul- whowho movemovedd to ThThe poem is so ture was di!erent, ON L.A. CaliforniaCalifornia to startstart phphysical. That’s > the language was L.A. is a place a new llifeife not whwhat Ellroy does di!erent, the eco- where people are becausebecause they rre-e- when he’s always changing, allyally wantewantedd to bbee aatt his best. The nomic pressures waway he uses his were di!erent, the making the world citycity ppeopleeople bbutut better. You have becausebecause where llanguage,ang it crash- expectations. The eess iinto itself—it’s thing about Los things like the theythey came from a war of the Angeles is, there’s Watts riots that wasn’twasn’t welcoming wworlds.or I find that all kinds of life. changed America. socially.socially. wowonderfuln and in- The whole purpose The riots were teresting. of crime fiction is a surprise and a to find those dif- shock. You have ferent places. the rise of political leadership kind of early on.

PhotographPPhotograph bbyy DDU U S T I N S N I P E S 88 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 CRIME IN LA

MiChAeL ≥ CoNnElLy Connelly's most famous character iiss HieronHieronymusymus BOOKS “Harry” Bosch—LAPD detective, Vietnametnam vet, HHol-ol- THAT lywood Hills resident. He is the subjectect of 17 books CONNELLYC set in modern L.A. The Black Box cameme ooutut iinn 22012.012. ADMIRESA

ON HARRY ON > When I first AUTHENTICITYICITY started writing > Ten yearss ago a him, I was a news- detective sentent me Christa paper reporter in an e-mail.. I hahadd Helm Los Angeles, and used the phrphrasease » She didn’t find success in Holly- I made it my busi- “perp walk”k” in a wood. Tall, blond, ness to visit one book. He said,aid, ““II and gorgeous, police station a love your bbooks,ooks, Christa Helm could day. So I was see- so I hopepe you count only bit parts ing a high num- don’t mindnd if I on Wonder Woman ber of detectives say we don’tn’t use THE and Starsky and as I was formu- that phrase inn L.A. SHORTCUTS Hutch as her high MAN points. But she ex- lating this char- That’s an easternastern celled at parties and By P.G. Sturges acter. I would say phrase.” AAndnd he in bedrooms in the about half of them made the fatal—fatal— Hollywood Hills, rubbed o! on me. fateful—mistaketake of > I’veI’v read a lot of where she consort- saying, “If youu ever ccrimerim fiction set ed with the likes of need any help...”p...” So in LosLo Angeles, so Warren Beatty, Mick Jagger, Joe Namath, ON NOBILITY I contactedd him. whenwhen I find some- > Detectives go He’s been hhelpfulelpful and the Shah of bodbody with some- Iran. Details of her into the darkness ever ssince.ince. thithing new, I’m trysts Helm kept in every day in the dradrawnw to it. This her “sex” diary, and course of their iiss aboutabo a problem that is why, on the job, to the worst ON solversolve who works night in 1977 when kind of people, INSPIRATIONATION o! ththe books, and she was found and that has to > I got hookedked on the way he goes stabbed and blud- do something to crime fictiontion aass ababout solving geoned to death on a street in West you. You go into a teenager.er. The crimescrim is unique. The author has a Hollywood, police the darkness and big three fforor me suspected she had then you have were Rosss MaMac-c- coocool way of con- nnectinge small been killed for what to go home and donald, JJosephoseph she knew. The di- pproblemsrob people throw the ball Wambaugh,h, and ary, complete with havhave to a larger a rating system for with your kid and Raymond ChanChan-- socsociali reflection. be as normal as dler. Therere wawass the famous men she bedded, had disap- possible with your somethingng adad-- peared. Tapes of her family, and that’s dictive inn rearead-d- sexual encounters, hard to do. Those ing about pepeopleople secretly recorded who can do it, no who reacteded unun-- by Helm, were also one knows about der high pressureessure missing. Was the their nobility. It’s and made life-and-e-and- actress murdered the people who death choiceses and because she had can’t do it, who were willingling to turned to extort- NORTHN OF ing the celebrities break down and step up and dodo the and politicians she become a Christo- right things. TToo me MONTANAM By April Smith knew? The last lead pher Dorner, who these storiesies are in her now-cold too often stand as about the wwayay we case is a cryptic the image. shoulduld be. > ThThis novel uses postcard Helm sent the LL.A. landscape to a friend before iinn interesting she died. “I am in ONN LL.A..A. ways.way Smith also way over my head here,” she wrote. > Los Angeles is a place that could haveave eev-v- piepierced the veil erything going for it but can’t grab thee brass “I’m into something of FFBIB superiority I can’t get out of.” ring. There will always be somethingng that and invulnerabil- > D.G. will go wrong. I moved to L.A. in 1988, so asas-- ityity and showed pects of the Rodney King riots have playedplayed wwhat it’s like in several of my novels. It’s somethingng I’I’mm toto bbe a woman still trying to work out for some reason.n. ThisThThihis in that city I loved was falling apapart.parta t. bureaucracy.bu

Photograph by PRESTON MACK LAMAG.COM William Desmond Taylor » A prolific direc- tor of silent films, William Desmond Taylor was found dead on February 2, 1922, in his bunga- low in MacArthur Park, a stylish movie colony at the time. He had a .38-caliber round in his back. Irish born, with steely looks, Taylor maintained a revolving set of girlfriends who included the come- dic actress Mabel Normand, a cocaine addict whose dealer Taylor had vowed to see jailed. Nineteen- year-old starlet Mary Miles Minter, whose lust for Tay- lor went unrequit- ed, was a momen- tary suspect, as was her manipulative mother, Charlotte Shelby, who owned a .38-caliber pistol. As scandal sheets fanned rumors, Paramount studio honchos were ac- cused of a cover-up. The tabloid drama peaked when an en- terprising reporter shepherded the black butler, Henry Peavy, to Taylor’s grave site, where a confederate dressed in a white sheet cried out, “I am the ghost of William Desmond Taylor! You murdered me! Confess, Peavy!” The butler balked, but the ghost—a hoodlum named Al Weinshank—fol- lowed Taylor to the grave seven years later, gunned down in the Chicago St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. >D.G. CRIME IN LA

[night[r [terrors[[[tSlEePeerro TiGhT DOWNTOWN’S CECIL HOTEL HAS HOSTED SERIAL KILLERS AND WITNESSED MORE THAN ITS SHARE OF DEATH. STEVE ERICKSON CHECKS IN

ROM THE BED in my room at the Cecil Hotel, I see four locks on the door—a bolt, a button, two latches. Did they add the last after a 21-year-old tourist was found dead in the ho- tations, inconsolable for a glimpse of tel’s water tank earlier this year? Did they add the third af- Hollywood or the beach that the travel ter “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez slept at the Cecil by day guide promised is only “minutes away.” and terrorized the city by night in the 1980s, murdering at The Cecil hasn’t been minutes away least 13? Maybe it was when another resident, paroled Vien- from anything worth being minutes nese “journalist” Jack Unterweger, strangled at least three away from for decades. When I return prostitutes (and some undetermined number of earlier vic- from Cole’s, “my” DO NOT DISTURB tims). Was the second lock installed half a century ago when sign hangs on another door down the 5th Street, a block and a half away, became skid row’s main drag, or when the hall; this is the floor’s most coveted Depression rendered the Cecil a transient way station, advertising weekly rates item, as though the premises’ current still emblazoned across 15 floors of the building’s brick side? ¶ Actually I can psycho du jour will be diverted like the see the door locks from any place in my room because from any place in my Angel of Death passing Egyptian doors room except the shower—at a rate of $98 a night, this is one of the hotel’s pre- marked with lamb’s blood. mium accommodations—I can see any other place in the room. A bed, a chair, “It had to have been someone who works here,” a woman whispers to me a stool, and a small TV are the ameni- in the elevator. She means whoever ties at the Cecil, so old that when the might have killed young Canadian front desk gives you a room key, it’s a Elisa Lam, missing three weeks and key. At 6th and Main the hotel has be- found in one of the four rooftop tanks come the locus for the downtown L.A. only when guests complained about of the imagination as well as hub for the drop in water pressure. She was all my memories of a hundred black- last seen on a videotape in this same and-white B-movies and Dragnet epi- elevator pressing buttons—absently sodes I watched when I was a kid in the FINALFINAL MMOMENTS?OMENTS? in a daze? or frantically in flight?—to EElisalisa LamLam hides in the Cecil’sCecil’selevator elevator Valley; this is the Nameless Downtown on January 31, 2013 close the door. “You can only get to the that stands in for all the anonymous roof from the 15th floor with a key,” downtowns flickering in the projection my fellow passenger elaborates be- room of the collective conscious. Walk and the Touch of Evil score by Henry tween the eighth floor and the ninth, in the front doors that opened in 1924, Mancini, David Raksin’s theme from though there’s speculation Lam got through the marble foyer breathless The Bad and the Beautiful and Julie there by the fire escape. The Cecil will so long ago with high hopes, and you London singing It begins to tell round reveal to you whatever it is you’re a come out the other end of a metropoli- midnight, round midnight, I do pret- fugitive from. Over the years women tan rubble one or two recollections on ty well, till after sundown. In the eve- have leaped from these rooms to their the far side of forsaken. The dungeon ning when I head out for Cole’s around deaths, one landing on the marquee, of Angeleno cultural archaeology, the the corner, a saloon (or “public house,” another on a pedestrian strolling by Cecil is to urban L.A. what the Chel- as a sign still calls it) opened in 1908, below, killing him; even the sidewalks sea is to Manhattan’s nether regions, the hotel’s halls and downstairs mez- of the Cecil are dangerous. Bolts and halls inhabited not by junkie rock stars zanine are filled with other languages, latches on the door will not only keep but prowled by strange men counting a reminder of how much noir L.A. was everyone else out but trap you within, something on their fingertips, lips mov- founded by exiles—middle-aged fail- where there are no locks at all on the ing but silent. ures, desperate ingenues, windows, beyond which I steal a DO NOT DISTURB sign Germans on the run from I M I NA L C O the siren city beckons. C R D E from my neighbor and put it outside Hitler. If you aren’t at the my room, because when someone Cecil to hide, or to look for *** *** Steve Erickson, the film knocks on your door at the Cecil, it the city you’ve occupied APPLE PICKING and TV critic for Los An- ≥ The practice, isn’t room service. I have a soundtrack but never known, you’re also known as geles, is the author of nine to keep me company within my room’s probably a foreign trav- iCrime, of taking novels, including 2012’s iPhones? and iPads

LAM: LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT/AP PHOTO ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT/AP LAM: LOS barren walls: Miles Davis’s “Générique” eler stranded by expec- from victims on These Dreams of You. the street. The devices are often Photograph by TOM FOWLKS shipped overseas. LAMAG.COM mInUtE 4 s 4 ONE MORNING THE WORLD WATCHED AS FEB THE BULLETS KEPT 1997 COMING AT A BANK OF AMERICA IN NORTH HOLLYWOOD LaRrY PhIlLiPs jR., 26 BY AMY WALLACE O ≥ He and Matasareanu were the subjects M ARCHWOOD ST. of a 2003 TV movie F as well as a 2009 M AY H E Megadeth song.

IT IS PERHAPS the city’s most haunting armed confrontation—a botched robbery at a bank on Laurel Canyon Boulevard on FEBRU- ARY 28, 1997. The num- ber of fatalities (two per- petrators), injuries (11 o!cers, seven civilians), types of weapons (the robbers carried illegally modified automatic rifles and ammunition capable KITTRIDGE ST. of penetrating metal), and rounds fired (nearly 2,000) make it one of the longest and bloodiest events in U.S. police history. Here’s how it ThE BaNk went down: ≥ Because of a change in delivery schedules, the safe contained $303,305, not the 9:17 a.m. expected $750,000. Nicknamed the “High Incident Bandits” because of earlier heists they’d pulled, Larry Phillips

Jr. and Emil Matasarea- BLVD. CANYON LAUREL nu, dressed in full body armor, enter the bank. They are spotted by two o!cers, who report a HAMLIN ST. possible 211 in progress. The duo open fire at the ceiling, then force their way into the vault. team that had been on the south. O!cers 9:52 a.m. 10:01 a.m. 9:25 a.m. an exercise run. The demand they drop their Phillips heads Matasarea- weapons. The pair begin A watch that one SWAT o!cers are east, still firing. nu, who has discharging their AKMs of the robbers wearing running shoes After one of his weapons abandoned his car after and HK-91 rifles, and had sewn onto the back and shorts under their jams, he is wounded its tires are shot out, a prolonged firefight of his glove goes o" (it body armor. in the hand and then tries and fails to carjack follows, wounding 18. was set on an eight-min- shoots himself in the a pickup truck. Police Matasareanu climbs into ute timer—the estimated 9:32 a.m. head in an apparent sui- shoot him in the legs the getaway car in the average police response Phillips exits cide attempt. Police hit as he takes cover. He bank’s parking lot. Phil- time). Arriving outside through the him several more times; dies from excessive lips flees on foot. are patrol and detective bank’s north doorway; it’s unclear which of the blood loss.

units, along with a SWAT Matasareanu, through bullets kills him. AP PHOTO/GLEN- PHILLIPS, MATASAREANU: DALE POLICE; CAR, POLICE: PHOTO MIKE BANK: GENE BLEVINS/AP AP PHOTO; MEADOWS/

92 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 Graphic by BRYAN CHRISTIE CRIME IN LA

[the[[LANDMARK[[LAND

ThE GeTaWaY CaR ≥ The bank robbers’ bullet-pocked 1987 Chevrolet Celebrity is on display at the Los Angeles Police Museum.

CrImE

EmIl CeNtRaL MaTaSaReAnU, 30 THE MOST FAMOUS BUILDING IN THE LOCAL LEGAL ≥ Emergency personnel SYSTEM, THE HALL OF JUSTICE RISES AGAIN were prevented from attending to him while the area was an active ONG IT REIGNED as L.A.’s Taj Mahal of Misdeeds. crime scene. Swathed in white Sierra granite, molded in the au- gust beaux arts style, the Los Angeles Hall of Justice held 14 floors of courtrooms and jail cells, evidence rooms and coroner tables, as well as HQs for the dis- trict attorney, public defender, and sheri!’s depart- ment. From its 1926 dedication ceremony to its red- tagging after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the hall operated as a one-stop justice system, a nerve center for flatfoots and legal beagles. Perps were jailed, corpses autopsied, and punishment meted out. It was here that Robert F. Kennedy was o"cially declared dead after his assassination at the Ambassador Hotel, here that his killer, Sirhan Sirhan, was tried and convicted. Charles Manson pronounced his tiny jail digs “stone age,” while the actor Robert Mitchum—doing soft time for a 1948 pot bust—chose to gussy up his cell block, mopping floors for the news cameras. Hollywood both romanticized and feared the hall. Outside, Harold Lloyd clung to the Italianate columns for his one-reel comedies; inside, Errol Flynn and Charlie Chaplin slumped through sex and paternity cases. Beneath the hall lay sanctified criminal ground, Pound Cake Hill, where bordellos stood in the late 19th century and lynchings were staged. In 1870, half the police force was wounded or left dead in a gunfight on the site. Did mischief seep ThE PoLiCe into those marble walls? In 1990, an elevator operator was crushed to death, ≥ More than 300 law enforcement o!cers and even the building’s mice were said to be hooked on a grass stash in the responded; 19 LAPD evidence room. No matter. An ongoing $300 million restoration has stripped o!cers were awarded the interior down to steel beams. When the hall reopens for business in 2015, the departmental Medal of Valor. it will become the home once again to the sheri!’s department and public

HALL OF JUSTICE: LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY (1946) ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY LOS HALL OF JUSTICE: defenders. The mice should be out of rehab by then. > D.G.

LAMAG.COM [ON[THE[JOB[“A PiEcE Of YoUr hEaRt” LAPD HOMICIDE DETECTIVE SAL LABARBERA ON DEALING WITH DEATH AS A WAY OF LIFE

STARTED WORKING the first child victim or first double or homicide in the 77th triple, or the first murder I worked on that Street Division in took place on a holiday. South L.A. in 1986. One case that still bothers me involved That was during the a woman by the name of Michelle Lovely. It rock cocaine epidemic, was December 21, 1987. She and a young when 77th had a nephew or cousin were on their way to record high number of LAX to pick up her twin sister. They weddings,ddi andd gatherings.h i AAt crimei scenes murders. The victims stopped at a liquor store to get some soft I’ll be approached by a grandma, an were primarily young drinks and snacks. As she got back into the auntie—someone who recognizes me. And black males between car, the suspect walked up—somebody in if the kids or the gangsters see me talking the ages of 17 and 22. his late teens, most likely a gang member— to folks who are respected in the neighbor- Assault weapons were and reached into the car to grab her purse. hood, it can loosen them up to talk, too. prevalent, and the ammunition they were She fought, and he shot her in the head. I When I was younger, I learned that driving using was crazy stu! from China: steel- knew I’d have to visit the hospital to see up to gang members without drawing any core, copper-jacketed rounds for AKs. the family, something that is always very guns or throwing anybody against the wall Houses and bystanders and cars would be di"cult. You have to go to a di!erent place went a long way. You’d have better luck shot up. Nowadays drive-bys are almost old in your head; a lot of times it’s all you can buying a couple beers at the store, leaning news. Gang members are bolder. They’ll do to keep from crying. What made it against the car, and talking or having a drop o! the suspect and circle around the tougher was, I could relate to this family. cigarette with a few guys. block while he walks up and shoots you. She was going to see her twin, her dad was No two interrogations are alike. A lot is Since I started, the homicide units I’ve a preacher, and they were all getting based on the character or the makeup of been assigned to have handled over 7,000 together for the holidays. The case remains the person being interviewed, of course, cases. Murders are at an all-time low these unsolved. We did recover some finger- but we have our trade secrets that, thank days, but it’s tough for me to drive around prints, and every year I’ll have them rerun goodness, nobody’s brought out on TV. South L.A.: I’ve been to pretty much every those prints to see if we get a hit. With seasoned criminals, it can be a battle corner, every business, and every other When a loved one’s killed, the family of wits. They know what they did. They house. It’s, like, total recall. Still, I have a often connects with the detective they know what the evidence is. They know di"cult time remembering the first dealt with. So on birthdays, anniversaries, who’s talking or not. You need to go in homi cide I responded to; I think it’s only the day of the death, we get phone calls, there prepared with facts. Can you lie? Can because a lot of “firsts” come to mind, like letters, postcards. I get invited to baptisms, you cheat? Can you curse in the interview?

NCE I SERVED papers at a am.” I handed her the papers and left. “I GeT support group for drug Another time I had to serve a woman as addicts in Pasadena. I wanted she came to work. I sat outside the ThE JoB to serve the woman in elevator. She saw me and proceeded to run question outside. But it was down the hallway to her o"ce, with me raining—everyone had coats right behind her. She was like, “Don’t you DoNe” and hoods on—and I couldn’t identify her. come in here!” But with process service, VETERAN PROCESS So I walked in and sat there, clapping at they don’t have to touch it. If they know SERVER J SCOTT BERGMAN everyone’s speeches. Seeing an empty seat why I’m there, I can drop it at their feet ON DELIVERING BAD NEWS right in front of her, I went over. I said, and they’ve still been served.

“Oh, you’re such and such!” She said, “I You’ve got divorces. You’ve got civil IMAGES MARIO ANZUONI/GETTY

94 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 CRIME IN LA “I ReMeMbEr BeInG UnHiNgEd AlL ThE WaY HoMe” AN ANONYMOUS PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR ON THE STRANGE BUSINESS OF ROOTING OUT SECRETS

that a celebrity’s pro- The client sent me to spective nanny isn’t a the man’s house to get a convicted extortionist. confession. I planned The work can be like the the encounter out a city itself: lonely and thousand times in my HEN I disjointed. Almost ev- mind. But when I got BITTERBITTER ENDEND tell people I’m a private erything is done online, there, he was with his LLanaana ClarksonClarkson and the ColtColt revolver thatthat PPhilhil SpectorSpector used to kill her in 2003 investigator, the first so it’s rare to come face- mother, who’s old and thing they usually say is to-face with a subject. frail and senile, and “How sexy!” But that is When it happens, it can they wanted me to eat a not actually the case. I be weird because by sandwich with them. Sure. “We have your fingerprints at the have no guns or marti- then you think you We ended up at the din- scene.” That’s a lie we can make. Can we nis or venetian blinds in know them from your ing room table, and ev- make promises? No. There are limitations. my o!ce. Or even wom- research, and suddenly ery time I began to tell But a detective won’t be satisfied without a en who suspect their you’re interviewing him why I was there, confession or an admission of guilt. husbands are cheating them in their living the old lady would reach Sometimes, though, what someone omits on them. By the time room and you realize over and start caressing from their responses can be just as good as they get to me, they al- they have an enormous my arm, saying how admitting to having done the deed. ready know they’ve porcelain frog collec- much she loved me. I A haunting part of this job is all the been betrayed. They tion. It makes you won- couldn’t go through bodies. Each one takes a piece of your just want to know der if the things people with it. I remember be- heart. We treat every case as if it were our where the assets are collect reveal their crim- ing unhinged all the own loved one, but sometimes I can’t look hidden so they can take inal predilections. Like, way home. But I also re- at myself in the mirror and feel good about their revenge. maybe people who col- member having this in- it, knowing that so much of the investiga- These days the bread lect paperweights tend explicable sense of relief tion is being a"ected by the city’s many and butter of the P.I. in- to be forgers. And the at the realization that other priorities. Lack of personnel, lack of dustry is due diligence. rooster people are no matter how much equipment, lack of resources—we’re In L.A. that means necrophiliacs. you follow a person or dealing with the same frustrations I was working for the studios The weirdest en- go through their gar- dealing with 26 years ago. There’s so much to make sure a reality- counter I ever had was bage, you can never re- more that we could do. > AS TOLD TO show contestant doesn’t with this guy who was ally know what’s in MATTHEW SEGAL owe child support or an alleged pedophile. their heart.

litigation. Then there’s the tracked him down, “let’s just making a living. At first the want to ruin your evening, but criminal stu". That can be say you might not have a very job felt creepy. To this day, I have some papers for you.” weird. When you’re confront- good day.” I told my client it after more than 15 years, it’s He said, “Oh, just leave them ing someone who could be wasn’t worth the money for not a comfortable thing to do. at the door.” I was loose, and dangerous and you’re just a me to pursue it. I don’t need to But I’m good at it. I get the job he was, too. When I approach Ben Stiller-looking Jewish guy, be beaten up. done. And it subsidizes my somebody to serve them, of you have to be a little bit Becoming a process server music career. course I want to be successful. concerned. You’re this was my version of waiting I served a guy up in the But if I can be less intense unwelcome presence. One tables. Just out of college, in hills of Malibu. He didn’t about it—it serves me. No pun time I reached a guy on the the late ’90s, I was a singer- answer the door, but I saw intended. > AS TOLD TO phone and he told me that if I songwriter, and I was not him in his Jacuzzi. I go, “Don’t AMY WALLACE

LAMAG.COM [rogues’[ [gallery[[[ggaalleryle

ThE ThE ThE AnGeL Of dEaTh SpUrNeD LoVeR GaNgStEr

≥ A PUDGY, BESPECTACLED respiratory ≥ WHEN SHERRI RASMUSSEN’S bullet- ≥ OVER THE YEARS EDDIE NASH gained therapist at Glendale Adventist Medical riddled body was discovered in her Van Nuys a reputation for drug tra!cking and was Center, EFREN SALDIVAR would townhouse in 1986, her parents had a theory charged on multiple counts of murder that materialize at the bedsides of critically ill about who did it. STEPHANIE LAZARUS, an never stuck. During his first trial for master- patients, syringe in hand. Confessing LAPD o!cer who had been jilted by Rasmus- minding the Wonderland Murders—the to 50 murders in 1998 but pleading sen’s husband, had been harassing Sherri 1981 killing of four drug dealers—Nash bribed guilty to only 6, Saldivar explained that he for months, but as one of Chief Daryl Gates’s one juror, paying her $50,000 to vote was just trying to end his victims’ su"ering— own, she seemed above suspicion. Not until against conviction. The second trial ended in and lighten his workload on the 2012 was Lazarus convicted, her DNA match- an acquittal, and Nash accepted a plea bar- graveyard shift. ing the saliva from a bite on her victim’s arm. gain on another charge.

THIS MOTLEY CREW OF MURDERERS AND MISFITS SHOULD BE SEARED INTO OUR MEMORIES. FoRgOtTeN,

ThE ThE ThE WeStSiDe rApIsT “DaTiNg gAmE” kIlLeR FaShIoNiStA

≥ IN 2008, five decades after his conviction ≥ REPRESENTING HIMSELF during his ≥ AT 33, ANAND JON ALEXANDER for burglary and attempted rape (for which 2010 trial for the murder of four women had already dressed Janet Jackson and Paris he served nearly ten years), 72-year-old insur- and a 12-year-old girl, RODNEY ALCALA Hilton. In the spring of 2007, the fashion ance adjuster JOHN FLOYD THOMAS JR. showed the jury a 1978 video of his triumph designer was set to star in his own gave his DNA to police. Tests identified him as as Bachelor #1 on The Dating Game. During VH1 reality series when he was arrested in “the Westside rapist,” who in the 1970s sexually the penalty phase, he played a snippet Beverly Hills for raping and sexually assaulted women in their homes, strangling of “Alice’s Restaurant,” Arlo Guthrie’s assaulting models, some as young as 14. “I six of them. After serving five years for a rape Vietnam-era protest song, and warned jurors was busy designing hemlines,” he told the in Pasadena, he had resumed his crimes in the against becoming “a wanna-be killer in wait- judge after his conviction. “What, I’m gonna 1980s and is a suspect in five murders. ing.” They sent him to death row anyway. threaten them with a sewing needle?”

96 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 CRIME IN LA

ThE ThE ThE JaIlHoUsE LaWyEr OuTlAw gRaY WiDoWs

≥ AWAITING HIS SECOND murder trial, ≥ ON TRIAL FOR the 2000 kidnapping and ≥ BEFORE THEY MURDERED two homeless JOE HUNT, ringleader of the Billionaire Boys murder of a 15-year-old boy who was the men, septuagenarians HELEN GOLAY and Club’s lethal Ponzi scheme, amassed so many brother of a “business associate” in the OLGA RUTTERSCHMIDT killed them with law books and legal documents that o!cials drug trade, JESSE JAMES HOLLYWOOD tes- kindness. The women put a roof over their declared his cell a fire hazard. Already serv- tified that the 1984 film Blame It on heads and fed them for a couple of years— ing life for a 1987 murder conviction, Rio inspired him to flee to Brazil as a fugitive while taking out millions of dollars in life Hunt didn’t win an acquittal but did become from justice. Five years after the killing, insurance policies on the men and listing the only California defendant who, acting the San Fernando Valley pot dealer themselves as beneficiaries. Then they did in as his own counsel, succeeded in sparing his was caught with false papers and their victims by staging hit-and-runs in 1999 life in a death penalty case. extradited. He’s serving life. and 2005. The pair was convicted in 2008.

COULD YOU PICK A SINGLE ONE OF THEM OUT OF A LINEUP? BY ED LEIBOWITZ NoT fOrGiVeN

ThE ThE LoOsE- ThE ChIcKeN CoOp kIlLeR LiPpEd mAdAm WrOnG MaN

≥ IN 1926, GORDON STEWART ≥ IN THE GREAT ’90s crackdown on sex for ≥ CHESTER TURNER sexually assaulted NORTHCOTT brought his 13-year-old nephew money in Hollywood, Heidi Fleiss and strangled the last of his 11 known victims to live on his chicken ranch in Riverside refused to reveal the names of clients in her after another man was wrongly convicted County. For Sanford Clark, life with his little black book. Fellow madam JODY of assaulting the first three. In 1992, David uncle meant being beaten and sodomized BABYDOL GIBSON observed no such code of Allen Jones, a janitor with an eight-year-old’s and witnessing sexual assaults on at least honor. After serving time, she published a cognitive skills, had confessed to those a dozen other boys, three of whom Northcott 2007 memoir identifying some of her most killings when he was grilled by the LAPD killed in cahoots with his mother, Sarah prominent customers, prompting the without a lawyer present. Only in 2003, once Louise Northcott. The 2008 film Changeling likes of Bruce Willis and Tommy Lasorda to Turner was found guilty of sexual assault, was was based on the case. issue vigorous denials. his DNA linked to the multiple murders.

Illustrations by SAM KERR LAMAG.COM [smoke[l [signals[[[sBuRniignal nOtIcE FOR FIREBUGS, OUR CRISPY HILLS ARE ALL TOO ENTICING. ARSON INVESTIGATOR

RSON IS THE CRIME of malicious burning. understand part of it because To most people something There are various reasons why people set fires— boys normally aren’t taught burned up just looks like rage, revenge, financial gain, to cover up a murder to cook. Their experience of something burned up, but or a burglary, mental issues—but most arsonists fire is setting a campfire or every fire “speaks” to the feel powerless. Setting fire gives them a sense of using a magnifying glass to investigator. Even the air in a ignite the grass. charred building has a power. You did this to me; 35. I’ve read studies that say I’ve been a firefighter for certain weight and feel and look what I can do to you. the reason more men are 29 years; I drove the engine odor. That’s where we start— Serial arsonists are few responsible for fires is for 14, and I’ve been an arson the burned remains of and far between. They say because women are able to investigator for 8. Lots of old everything. We have more there’s no stereotype, but the channel their fascination crusty investigators/detec- arson structure fires than majority seem to be white with fire through cooking. I tives will tell you that arson arson brush fires, but the males between, say, 16 and don’t know if I agree, but I investigation is an art form. brush fires are more

INFERNO Watching the Station Fire from Tujunga in September 2009. An act of arson, the unsolved blaze SQTTML\_WÅZMÅOP\- ers and burned 160,577 acres

98 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 CRIME IN LA

ROSA TUFTS ON SIFTING THROUGH THE ASHES RosaRosa TuftTuftss onon three that got away

spectacular—for the arsonists, the cops.” I carry a .40-caliber haunts me was the father who March 2006 citizens, and the firefighters. Los handgun. There are times when strapped his two children into »“After a fire is Angeles is a city like no other: 470 the arsonist will return to the their car seats and set fire to the extinguished at an apartment in Mid square miles in virtually the scene, like the 32-year-old male car. It took seven years for the Wilshire, three bod- middle of a desert. With proper whose wife decided she pre- case to finally be adjudicated. ies are discovered. It appeared that one weather conditions, you can get a ferred the woman next door. He When the arson case includes person had stabbed fire that burns from Hollywood to set fire to the woman’s sofa, murder, the arson investigators the others to death the ocean. which lit up the whole house and are the only ones who can speak before dying of smoke inhalation, There are 16 arson investiga- threatened the block. He came for the dead. And we never stop. but we couldn’t tors in the City of Los Angeles; back to admire his handiwork. When I take an arsonist o" the prove it.” I’m the only female. We work in We arrested him on the spot. streets, I’m putting out more May 2007 pairs—two pairs on 24-hour duty I’ve been on some horrific than one fire. >AS TOLD TO »“A man leaves every day. They call us “fire incidents, but the one that ELAINE KAGAN a mortgage loan company to start his own. His former boss, convinced he’s stealing business, tells him to close down. The man refuses, and his Northridge o!ce is firebombed. After many failed at- tempts to interview the ex-boss, we surprise him at his o!ce. He’s dressed like it’s 1977 with a Saturday Night Fever outfit, and there are Scarface posters on his walls. While we were pretty sure he was behind the fire, we couldn’t prove it.” December 2011 »“Someone breaks into a Van Nuys clothing ware- house, distributes gasoline, and ig- nites it, destroying much of the stock. The owner claims she has been doing millions in sales. But the warehouse is practically full, her receipts don’t show that kind of profit, and each LOS ANGELES time we speak to her husband, he gives us a di"erent alibi. We suspected insurance fraud but lacked evidence.” WALLY SKALIJ/COPYRIGHTTIMES . REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION © 2009,

LAMAG.COM [MUGGING[

StArS In StRiPeS WHEN IT COMES TO WAYWARD CELEBRITIES, WE’RE NUMBER ONE

NEW YORK HAS facade—proof that we all its share. New Orleans, have our bad days—but the for sure. And never truth is, they’re just a dollop count out Dade County. No of schadenfreude for most place, however, can compete people. Way back, the famous with the volume of famous could rely on protection from people who run amok in an army of publicists, studio L.A. The ever-growing ros- bosses, and newspaper hacks, ter of stars whose arrests insider aces who cooked the have been documented by story like bagmen burying jailhouse photographers evidence. That’s probably one here has transformed the reason you won’t see book- mug shot into something of ing shots of Robert Mitchum an art form, complete with (nabbed for pot in 1948) or subgenres: There’s the stab Hedy Lamarr (shoplifting at at composure exemplified by the Wilshire May Co. in 1966) Mischa Barton (popped in or Charlie Chaplin (arrested 2007 for drunk driving), the for drunkenness). Another is peering-through-the-haze more mundane: Not all local squint of Ryan O’Neal (as- police departments release sault, 2007), the mania of mug shots. While the sheri!’s Phil Spector, and the keep-at- department and jurisdictions it-till-you-get-it-right style of like Santa Monica do, law Ms. Lohan. The images, we enforcement agencies in Los tell ourselves, are glimpses Angeles and Beverly Hills do of the reality behind the not. > M . S .

NaMe ThAt PeRp! FOR A COMPLETE LIST, GO TO LAMAG .COM/MUGSHOTS

100 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 CRIME IN LA

FrOm tHe cOuRtRoOm tO ThE pOpUlAr On cUlTuRe

ThE ThE BlOoDy GlOvEs ≥ Cashmere lined, size extra large, the pair turned a courtroom line into a public meme: RuN “If it doesn’t fit, WHEN O.J. SIMPSON WAS you must acquit!” ACQUITTED OF DOUBLE MURDER IN 1995, IT SEEMED THERE WAS NOTHING HE COULDNƭT EVADE. THEN LIFE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM

BEFORE THE END ThE WhItE Simpson with his then wife, BrOnCo Nicole Brown Simpson, in 1993 ≥ As O.J. report- edly held a gun to his own head, Al ATE ON THE EVENING of June 12, 1994, Cowlings drove the Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of foot- Ford into infamy. A joke on late-night ball star O.J. Simpson, was slaughtered on TV, the model was the brick walkway of her condominium on discontinued in Bundy Drive, along with her friend Ronald two years’ time. Goldman. A waiter, he was returning a pair who’d considered O.J. guilty be- of eyeglasses Nicole’s mother had left behind fore becoming convinced that the at the restaurant where he worked. Goldman evidence was lacking to prove his was stabbed more than 20 times; Brown guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Simpson su!ered a severe blow to the head, By then evasion had long been a specialty of O.J.’s. Hobbled by rick- ThE BrUnO multiple knife wounds, and a fatal slash so deep across ets as a child, he rushed past blockers to earn a Heisman MaGlIs her neck, it nearly severed her head. Trophy, a berth in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and a ≥ Their prints were all over That double homicide demoted the 1947 Black Dahl- movie career that had nothing to do with his acting abil- the crime scene. ia murder to L.A.’s second-most-famous unsolved crime. ity. In his criminal trial he slipped past prosecutors’ grasp Though he wore the size 12 shoes Unlike in the Elizabeth Short case, the most indelible despite evidence like bloody shoe prints that matched his at a Bu!alo Bills image to emerge was not of the victims but of the prime and the suicide threats he made during his slow-speed game, O.J. called suspect: O.J. Simpson. His “trial of the century” lasted car chase. Ordered to pay $33.5 million in a civil trial them “ugly ass.” Sales jumped after from December 1994 until his acquittal the following over Goldman’s wrongful death, the Juice went right on the trial coverage. October, spawning an entire industry that has fed o! playing golf and claiming penury. The Goldmans won the flip sides of outrage: those who cheered the not- the rights (and proceeds) to If I Did It, O.J.’s “fictional” ac- guilty verdict as one person of color’s triumph over an count of the murders, but then rumors began to float that LAPD conspiracy of extraordinary proportions, and O.J. was trying to sell the actual knife from the murders. those who condemned it as a rich celebrity getting away What finally tripped him up, of course, was his at- with murder. Friends, family members, journalists, tempt with a gun to reclaim some memorabilia in a Las hacks, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and witnesses Vegas hotel room. Imprisoned in 2008, Simpson reap- ThE KaRdAsHiAnS have produced more than 70 books on the peared last May seeking to overturn his ≥ O.J. was a case. Of the four jurors who contributed I M I NA L C O kidnapping and armed robbery verdict. His friend of the now- C R D E to the canon, exactly zero has professed to e!ort at another end run was no surprise. deceased lawyer *** *** Robert Kardashi- second thoughts. Juror Anise Aschenbach His appearance—shackled, gray, bloated— an. Did he father did tell CNN, “I think he probably did it, DOXING however, was. Because it turns out that de- Khloe, one of Kar- ≥ Dumping a dashian’s famous and that’s the pits.” But she’d already gone victim’s purloined spite all that dodging, there was one area personal informa- girls, too? That’s on record as one of only two on the panel tion—real name, where he had been fixed in place for 19 the rumor, but her family denies it. SIMPSONS: ROBIN PLATZER/GETTY IMAGES; GLOVES: VINCE BUCCI/AP PHOTO; BRONCO: JEAN-MARC GIBOUX/GETTY IMAGES JEAN-MARC GIBOUX/GETTY BRONCO: PHOTO; VINCE BUCCI/AP GLOVES: IMAGES; SIMPSONS: ROBIN PLATZER/GETTY (and was one of only two white jurors) home address, social years: our consciousness. security number, financial data—on the Internet. LAMAG.COM [street[LIFE[

ThUgLaNdIaWITH MANY DATING BACK 50 YEARS, GANGS ARE PART OF THE CITY’S DNA. WHAT’S DIFFERENT THESE DAYS, WRITES MICHAEL KRIKORIAN, IS HOW THEY GO ABOUT THEIR BUSINESS

S A JOURNALIST who has covered the street gangs of Los Angeles o! and on for the past 17 years, I have often stat- ń ed, with perverse pride, “L.A. NoRtHwEsT CoRnEr has the best street gangs in the > The Wanderers had a pres- United States,” the way some- ence in the northwest portion one might boast about Yosem- of the park, but this less-traf- ite’s waterfalls. Big and gau- ficked area has been taken over dy and violent, they’ve been in recent years by cliques of the rapped about and emulated Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS13. the world over. But lately if you don’t live in a gang-infested neighborhood, you’d be forgiv- en for thinking that thugs are forsaking the thug life. Annual city homicide totals are down dramatically from the early 1990s, when there were more than 1,000 killings (nearly half of them gang related), to fewer than 300 in 2012. But don’t be mistaken. The gangs are still here causing nightly heartbreak. They just aren’t as flagrant as they once were. Among the reasons: the huge drop in crack use, intense gang intervention e!orts by former gang members, and police strategies that include upping 7TH S their presence (along with surveillance cameras) in the Watts projects T. and bettering their relations with community leaders. There’s also the sheer number of dead and imprisoned gang members to consid- ń er as well as the exodus of thousands of others to “expansion cities.” SoUtHwEsT Those aren’t the only theories. “I think it’s more about business,” CoRnEr says Los Angeles Police Department sergeant Richard Lozano, who > Running the quadrant at 7th and Park works in the Rampart gang unit that oversees the area around Mac- View streets, the MacArthur Park Locos Arthur Park. “The violence brings too much attention from us, and and the Rampart Locos are factions of that ruins the potential for making money.” In the park itself several MS13, the gang whose members are as gang factions manage to sell their drugs without killing one another. well known—and feared—for their face- You’ve got the Columbia Lil Cycos, the most notorious clique of the covering tattoos as for their violence. 18th Street Gang, in the northeast quadrant. Almost half the park is held by two large factions of Mara Salvatrucha, aka MS13. Another large chunk belongs to the Crazy Riders, and several other gangs exist in the surrounding area. This year’s death toll so far? Zero. Miles south of MacArthur Park, the quest for illicit financial gain Gangs aren’t just less openly hostile to one another, though. They’re has produced some strange partnerships. “It’s not unheard of any- less specialized than they used to be, too. In the 1980s, the Rollin 60s more for some guy from Grape Street to team up with a Hoover and Rollin 90s were infamous for brazen bank robberies. Inglewood [Street Criminal] to go rob someone or break into a house,” says LAPD Family Bloods did “smash and grabs” at jewelry stores. The Bounty detective Chris Barling, head of homicide at the 77th Hunters, operating out of Nickerson Gardens, robbed Street Division. Acting on street intelligence that no one I M I NA L C O motorists along Imperial Highway on an hourly basis. In C R D E will be at a residence, members from two or three gangs Boyle Heights, Big Hazard from Ramona Gardens earned clean the place out—what they call “flocking.” Or they *** *** a reputation for their convenient “drive-ins,” where cus- KNOCK-KNOCK tomers copped drugs without leaving their cars. Home might get together for a little “OTM,” as in Outta Town BURGLARY Money: Someone has connections in, say, Phoenix, and ≥ Thieves target- invasions? They were a trademark of Asian gangs. But L.A. gangsters go there to burglarize houses with the lo- ing a"uent neigh- these days “there’s no secrets in the gang world,” says borhoods? knock cal as their guide. on a front door. If Cleamon “Big Evil” Johnson, who led the 89 Family nobody is home, they break in. Also 102 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 called “flocking.” CRIME IN LA OnE PaRk, ThReE NoRtHeAsTń
WoRlDs CoRnEr » MACARTHUR PARK is too big, > The busiest section of crowded, and profitable for a single street gang the park, by 6th and Al- to control. So for many years a détente of varado streets, has long sorts has existed that allows three or four gangs to run the drug trade—nowadays been the bastion of the Co- mostly meth—in a park that in the lumbia Lil Cycos, a clique 1990s saw several killings a year. of the 18th Street Gang. Though 18th Street is con- Notorious sidered L.A.’s largest gang, B.I.G. with as many as 15,000 » On March 9, members, it’s actually an 1997, after leaving amalgam of 20 cliques. a hip-hop event at the Petersen Au- tomotive Museum with his entourage, the Brooklyn rap- per Notorious B.I.G., aka Christo- pher Wallace, was shot four times in his SUV by an unknown assail- ant. A single bullet killed him, piercing his heart, colon, liver, and a lung, but the suspect list seemed endless. A year earlier Bay Area hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur had been gunned down in Las Vegas; Wal- lace, whose first album was titled Ready to Die, was ń
rumored to have SoUtHeAsT supplied the gun. CoRnEr The pair had been tangled in an East > The Crazy Riders, a mix of Coast/West Coast mainly Mexicans and Cen- feud that involved tral Americans but also members of the some blacks and whites, Bloods and Crips as well as Sean Combs control the park’s southeast and Death Row section. Far smaller than Records cofounder MS13, they began as a group Suge Knight. Was of guys who played Ameri- the Miracle Mile killing payback, ALVAR ADO ST. can football in the park. orchestrated and covered up with the help of rogue LAPD o!cers working security for Knight? That’s what Rolling Stone contributor Bloods and won an appeal in 2011 after spending 14 LAPD’s Southeast Division, which encompasses Green Randall Sullivan years on death row and is now in county jail awaiting Meadows and Watts, among other neighborhoods. hypothesized in a retrial. “When other gangs heard that someone was do- During the first four months of this year, there were book. Former Los Angeles Times re- ing good with a crime, they’d be on it, too.” 16 killings in 11 of the LAPD’s 21 divisions. In Southeast porter Chuck Phil- That said, no gang can do credit card or medical there were 17. In fact, the last gang-related funeral I ips, who’d written fraud like Armenian Power (I’d recommend paying went to, back in February, was for a guy from South- a contested series on Shakur’s death, cash at a 99 Cents-Only store). The Avenues have a east, and I can tell you nobody at the church that day called Sullivan’s notorious specialty as well: The region’s preeminent was celebrating that gang deaths are down. account “one of the worst reported gangster racists, they’re known for trying to rid High- news stories I’ve land Park of blacks through intimidation and murder. Michael Krikorian is a writer based in Los ever read.” >D.G. But no matter how heinous the Avenues’ crimes, Angeles. His first novel, Southside (Oceanview), is

NOTORIOUS B.I.G.: RAY TANG/REX FEATURES TANG/REX RAY B.I.G.: NOTORIOUS for sheer violence Highland Park can’t compare to the coming out in November.

Graphic by BRYAN CHRISTIE LAMAG.COM [crime[SCENES[RuThLeSs cItY THIS TOWN IS NEVER SO BEGUILING AND DEADLY AS WHEN ITƭS IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA. STEVE ERICKSON SURVEYS L.A.ƭS CELLULOID TERRAIN

RAWING THE DESPERATE and the adrift, Los Angeles has long been the dumping ground of dreams both real and cine- matic. As close to anarchic as an urban landscape can be, it’s not only the natural setting for dramas of grand larceny, illicit lust, levard, bearing witness to the and cold-blooded murder, but it has played the heavy as well. absurdity of not simply his own Here’s a moviegoer’s guide to L.A.’s most enduring archetypes: situation but any possibility that L.A. can o!er a true or redeeming TaRnIsHeD KnIgHtS passion. Hitchhiker Tom Neal in Detour—a toxic piece of poverty- “DOWN THESE MEAN streets,” wrote Raymond Chandler row cinema from 1945—is Holden’s distant cousin, on his way cross- famously, “a man must go who is…neither tarnished nor country to see his girl; he winds up at the end of the leash coiled afraid,” but L.A. private eye Philip Marlowe is more tarnished than around the hand of the most fatale of femmes, before she winds up »he knows, by disillusion if not cynicism. Marlowe has been played in L.A. at the end of the (telephone) line coiled around her neck. It by many actors, including Dick Powell, James Garner, and Robert may be that when Esquire pinup Bernice Lyon chose the name Ann Mitchum. The definitive portraits—at opposite ends of the stylis- Savage for her Hollywood career, she was bound to become film’s tic spectrum—are from Humphrey Bogart in 1946’s The Big Sleep, darkest woman. sweating through his clothes in a greenhouse yet still the cool- est man onscreen, and Elliott Gould in 1973’s The Long Goodbye, wandering among the naked nymphs of a sun-blasted era that was UnHoLy uNiOnS more noir than anyone knew at the time. ONLY L.A.’S DEBAUCHED paradise could produce alli- ances so depraved that the forbidden lovers of 1944’s Double Indemnity—golden dominatrix Barbara Stanwyck lashing Fred SuCkErS AnD FeMmEs fAtAlEs »MacMurray to her homicidal intentions—would be the most in- FILLED WITH SELF-HATRED, sexually possessed by a si- nocent, their transgressions garden-variety adultery and murder lent-movie goddess taking revenge on the talk that destroyed (that “smells like honeysuckle”). Released in 1974, the same sum- »her career, William Holden is a screenwriter in 1950’s Sunset Bou- mer that devoured the presidency of Richard Nixon, Chinatown 104 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 Illustration by S E A N M C C A B E evoked a corruption of the American spirit so indisputable that the have been written by William Thackeray had he been a pulp novel- movie’s unspeakable evil—the sexual a!air between daughter Faye ist and had Vanity Fair been a tableau of contemporary L.A. rather Dunaway and father John Huston—had a special metaphorical au- than a 19th-century European capital. Stranded by their getaway thority. Conversely in 1990’s The Grifters, con woman (and John’s driver, De Niro and company could use someone like Ryan Gosling, daughter) Anjelica Huston cons her son, con man John Cusack, the whose behind-the-wheel maneuverings from the industrial lofts to only way she knows, by an erotic seduction for which con girlfriend the Staples Center in 2011’s Drive guide us through a city—viewed Annette Bening is no match. at both ground level and from the night skies—defined by entropy rather than gravity, constantly coming apart and never cohering. ThE GoOdS IN 1949’S CRISS CROSS, L.A. descends—by Bunker Hill’s ThE CiTy aS CoNsPiRaToR airborne trolley, Angels Flight—from the bright light of day AT SOME POINT, not cop or criminal or crackpot is a match into the noir imagination, where Burt Lancaster tries to hijack both for the city itself. Somewhere in the shadows between the »an armored truck and mobster wife Yvonne De Carlo. By 1955’s Kiss beach and the palisades, before the desperation that drives Holden Me Deadly, what’s at stake is nuclear oblivion glowing from a suit- »to his doom sets in, In a Lonely Place (released the same year as case opened four decades later by Pulp Fiction’s hit men; navigat- Sunset Boulevard) finds hair-trigger screenwriter Humphrey Bog- ing L.A. at its most anonymous, they find either the Void or the art at the mercy of the very inner violence that Hollywood pays face of God, winding up dead (John Travolta) or quoting scripture him to conjure. Somewhere between city hall corruption and post- (Samuel L. Jackson). The most valuable score of all in 1982’s Blade World War II Central Avenue, black detective Denzel Washington Runner is nothing less than the essence of humanity: the memories, in Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) learns that enemy territory lies be- profoundly felt (whether “real” or not) of a life savored (whether yond the avenue, as the race-crazed cops can attest to in 1997’s L.A. “lived” or not) by Rutger Hauer’s dying android in a future where Confidential, a tabloid almanac of the city as we openly dread and L.A. descends yet again from the promise of possibility into a mael- secretly fantasize it once was. Somewhere between the elusiveness strom of decay. These four movies finished o! for good the romanti- of identity and the rapture of voyeurism, Bill Pullman, the no-wave cism that previously infused even the darkest of homegrown noirs. sax player of Lost Highway (also ’97), commits murder—maybe—in an L.A. that’s become the most depraved home movie I M I NA L C O ever, starring Patricia Arquette as the resurrection of C R D E ShOoT-OuTs aNd fAsT GeTaWaYs Ann Savage, glowing like the end of the world in a PICKING UP WHERE Criss Cross’s heist leaves *** *** suitcase. All metropolises are vice ridden, but in none o!, the best-laid plans of criminal mastermind URBAN MINING other are justice and mayhem so interchangeable; in ≥ Applied to recy- Robert De Niro run up against cop Al Pacino during cling metals from no other city does the pulse quicken so identically for one of cinema’s great firefights, the Battle of Down- electronic equip- rage and desire alike, or can the demons so easily be » ment, the term also SOURCE PHOTOS: EVERETT COLLECTION SOURCE PHOTOS: town in Heat, a three-hour 1995 crime epic that might describes stealing mistaken for angels. copper pipes, cata- lytic converters, and other materials. LAMAG.COM [straight[ PEE[ SPEED RACERS [DOPE[O Street kids shoot up in the Palms Hotel in West HiGh tImEs, Hollywood, 1988 NOVELIST JERRY STAHL USED TO SCORE AT A MICKEY D’S IN PICO-UNION. HE REFLECTS ON HOW A DAY DAWNS LoW LiVeS IN THE LIFE OF A JUNKIE

HENEVER I FIND myself near skid row, I slow gies with one of the Pretenders’ leftover narcotics, down to check out the nonstop, invisible-to-the-un- scooped right o! the carpet. We were all coming from trained-eye, hand-to-hand transit of crack, meth, the methadone clinic, telling festive lies. tar, and doctor-prescribed pharmaceuticals. It’s not One morning Lilac (picture Ving Rhames at 60, that I want to buy anything. Not anymore. It’s that with breasts and Jheri curls) came in beat and said I know that if I did, I could. Even after a busload of the cops had shot her son. A diabetic who sold nee- years o! the needle, I still have the morally ques- dles to finance her chiba jones, Lilac had a mumble tionable ability to spot who has what, who prob- that dripped with simmering resignation. That’s the ably sells a solid bag, who’s bent, and who’s under- way it was. We asked if we could kick down a little cover, parked across the street in an unmarked car with two haircuts something to help bury her boy. sitting up front. Down here, or in any of the floating drug bazaars that My own experience with the LAPD—this was the always migrate from one corner of low-end L.A. to another, people Rampart era—was limited to being picked up on the corner of Crack and Eight Ball at four in the morn- do what they have to do. In the late ’80s, early ’90s, I was one of ing with a color TV still in the box. “Asshole, you’re going to jail,” the those people who made regular trips downtown or to 4th and Bon- uniforms said as they shoved me into the piss-smelling backseat of nie Brae, 8th and Alvarado, MacArthur Park. The hoods change, but a black-and-white. But thanks to the Optima card I’d somehow been the business doesn’t. issued even after I declared bankruptcy, I had a receipt for the little Back in the bad old days, my dealer and his customers, along with Sony from the all-night electronics store in what is now the Beverly a gaggle of other criminal characters, would hang at the 18th and Connection. I’d go in there every couple of nights and charge a TV or Western McDonald’s at six in the morning. It was a Breakfast Club for boom box I could never pay for, then trade it for drugs. For a junkie, L.A. lowlifes. There was the two-time loser with a knack for B&E who that was like having a job. liked to sneak onto the Fox lot and steal Selectric typewriters. (That The police let me go with a smack on the head after I agreed to I’d worked there, writing for Moonlighting, was just a coincidence, leave the TV and get the fuck out of the car. From what I can tell, Your Honor.) There was the strung-out makeup lady whose sister’s nothing much has changed. Except these days you can’t trade a por- boyfriend washed George Hamilton’s cars and stole his Percodans. table TV for heroin. All the homeboys want iPhones. Of course, like most addicts, she was a congenital liar, as there is no evidence Tawny George ever took so much as an aspirin. That, or Jerry Stahl’s latest novel is Bad Sex on Speed (A Barnacle Book). she may have had him confused with Iggy Pop. Luz, the crack-maid, His mem oir, Permanent Midnight, was made into a 1998 film star- cleaned rooms at the Sunset Marquis and told tales of filling Bag- ring Ben Stiller.

106 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 Photograph by J I M G O L D B E R G ! MAGNUM PHOTOS CRIME IN LA

The Hole in the HiT DrUgS Ground Gang AdDeRaLl » In June 1986, a group of men riding ≥ L.A. IS A NARCO-FUELED    all-terrain vehicles city, with dispensaries that shovel out ≥The pharmaceutical psychostimulant is popular with college students and slipped unseen into the stu! by the bushel, doctors club kids pulling all-nighters. Lindsay Lohan recently tried to abort her the city’s under- who double as dealers, and dealers court-appointed rehab stint when sta!ers threatened to confiscate her supply. ground storm drain system, heading for who’ve gone tech to move their goods. the First Interstate Even with its quasilegal NiTrOuS SmIlEs Bank at Spaulding status, pot is still big on the black mar- OxIdE and Sunset. They ket, and in MacArthur Park meth   carried gas-powered is outselling coke and heroin these   ≥ Like dropping generators, ham- Used by ravers mescaline with an mer drills, power days (see page 102). But there are ≥ Ecstasy shooter, the a panoply of other ways and means by who want to feel saws, and—most dizzy, “laughing popular chemical important—digging which Angelenos are altering their compound 2C-1—a gas” is sold in shops equipment, which white powder that’s AfGhAn minds. Herewith, a taste. >D.G. that illegally label it they used to tun- as a component for snorted—debuted a InCeNsE decade ago in nel their way 100 welding torches. feet up and into SoUrCiNg Small whipped Dutch drug bars.    Increased emergen- A legal the bank’s vault. cream chargers are ≥ They made o! with a common source cy room visits in compound resem- $172,000, a Matisse, as well. L.A. are blamed on bling hash, it’s StReEt InTeRnEt ShOpS DoCtOr the substance. featured in YouTube and a reputation videos, where for audacity. The bong-wielding men following year the smoke the stu! gang hit the Bank ViCoDiN in what appear of America at Pico to be their parents’ and La Cienega,   basements. grabbed $98,000, ≥Nicknamed and then vanished hydro, norco, and forever, though tips vikes, this synthetic continued to pour and often counter- SaLvIa into the FBI: The feit opiate is avail- thieves were Viet- able for purchase nam vets, familiar on Craigslist, along   BaTh sAlTs ≥A Central Ameri- with the Viet Cong’s with warnings from tunnel systems, or sellers like “Don’t can herb, Salvia di-  maybe they were call if you’re a cop.” vinorum is smoked ≥Sold in packets in shamanistic ritu- BlUe with names like actual ex-V.C. or als. Rec users boast DoLlAr Crazy Train and mole people—trog- of going into a state Scarface, the syn- lodytes who inhabit where “injuries can  thetic stimulant the sewers yet still be sustained with- ≥Combining mimics metham- know how to get out feeling pain.” MDMA (Ecstasy) phetamine. Last their hands on a with ca!eine, ben- year a user chewed $2,000 diamond- zylpiperazine, or on a man’s face. infused drill bit. other stimulants, Whoever they were, KrAtOm these pill cocktails they were smart sell like Frappucci-    nos at raves. enough to know ≥Chewed by addicts to alleviate the e!ects of when to quit. The kicking, Kratom leaf is a natural, opiate-like SpEcIaL K vault’s alarm had stimulant that can be as addictive as Vicodin. SpIcE been tripped in the  second heist—per- Injected as a pain haps the reason   MoLlY ≥ that when a third ≥Pot on steroids. blocker in medical The shredded plant   procedures, tunnel was eventu- material (various ≥Pure MDMA, Ketamine is snort- ally unearthed in kinds are used) is it’s for drug ed by users seeking Beverly Hills, it was mixed with synthet- connoisseurs who to “slip into the K found abandoned. ic cannabinoids disdain Ecstasy Hole”—conscious > D.G. and sold online as cocktails as just but paralyzed, like K2, Yucatan Fire, or another version of watching a Michael Moon Rocks. the New Coke. Bay movie. BEN FRANKLIN: SHUTTERSTOCK

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DRAMA LAB Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan and his leading man, Bryan Cranston, on the set

108 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 CRIME IN LA

L

BY LAURIE WINER

I N O ≥ NOBODY WOULD HAVE EXPECTED BREAKING BAD TO BECOME <-4->1;176ƭ;57;< ADDICTIVE CRIME SHOW, AND WITH JUST EIGHT MORE EPISODES TO GO, NOBODY CAN IMAGINE LIFE WITHOUT IT

LAMAG.COM ViNcE Gilligan, the creator of Breaking Bad, has had the final season under such strict lockdown that actors were delivered scripts with other peo- ple’s lines blacked out. I was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement before I could step foot on the set in Albuquerque, and once there, I was never left alone. Which was smart. Draw whatever parallels you like to methamphetamine, fans of the show want a fix and they want it now. So I admit to being momentarily distracted during my interview with Bryan Cranston when I see what I think is a script poking out METHEMATICS from his Malcolm in the Middle shoulder bag one afternoon. The crew Above: Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) at the is setting up to shoot a scene from Breaking Bad ’s fourth-to-last epi- a stray vine. Gilligan wrote that mix home of cartel boss sode, and we sit on director’s chairs in the middle of a suburban street, of light and dark into the first words Don Eladio. Right: Walt (Bryan Cranston) suits a fabric canopy serving as a makeshift shelter from the mighty New uttered on the series: “My name is up for some cooking Mexico sun. All down the block, neighbors and their pets stand in drive- Walter Hartwell White. I live at 308 ways watching a little bit of television history. (Tune in on August 11.) Negra Arroya Lane.” But at the moment I can’t a!ord to peer at Cranston’s script because And so began the most unlikely crime show ever to ignite Ameri- keeping up with him takes focus; the man is quick. When a skinhead can audiences. Breaking Bad does not take as large a view of the world with a swastika neck tattoo walks by, I say, “I’m guessing that’s a bad as did, say, The Wire, which detailed the web of corruption binding all guy.” “No, just misunderstood,” Cranston shoots back, shaking his head human institutions, high and low. Like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad with pretend sadness. I note that the bruise on the actor’s cheek looks gets a lot of juice from juxtaposing criminality with the humdrum of real, and he says, “It is real. Vince decked me.” Sporting a twill buck- the everyday—setting after-murder meals at Denny’s gave the writers et hat like the kind Bob Denver wore in Gilligan’s Island, Cranston is endless pleasure. But Breaking Bad is something else entirely. It tells a clad in all beige as befits an international meth kingpin trying to pass story central to Western civilization, from Christopher Marlowe’s Eliz- for AnyGuy, USA. abethan play Doctor Faustus to The Godfather—of a man who gains I’m interviewing Cranston in snatches between scenes—first in a the world but loses his soul—and it tells it in a new way, in a way that bedroom, where he flings himself into an odalisque position and sighs makes that dusty tale profoundly personal and alive. dramatically, “I do all my interviews like this”; the second time, on a At first glance it seemed the show might be about the recession porch swing. “We’re going backward,” I say of our move from bedroom and health insurance. The Walt we meet in the 2008 pilot has two jobs to porch. “Next time we meet we’ll be shaking hands on the street,” he and can’t a!ord decent care when he’s diagnosed with inoperable lung says, practically before I finish my sentence. cancer. Inching along in his faded Pontiac Aztek, Walt evokes a pain- Cranston is known for comedy, which may be why executives at ful pity; he’s mired in circumstance and in the residue of choices he’s Sony were unsure he was the right actor for the role of Walter White. made. He turns to meth-making so that he can leave money for his Gilligan asked them to watch a 1998 episode of The X-Files—Gilligan pregnant wife and their son, who struggles with cerebral palsy. Some- had been a writer and producer on the show—in which he had cast the thing in the pilot’s diabolically comic detailing of Walt’s humiliations actor as an anti-Semite with a bizarre disorder. Cranston signaled that Gilligan had large ambitions, that major had made the miserable wretch somehow sympathetic. I M I NA L C O groundwork was being laid. “The only time we see early C R D E In addition to depth the actor brought a sublime physi- Walter come alive is when he’s teaching chemistry,” says cal agility to his part—one thinks of a tall Buster Keaton or *** *** Cranston. “But meanwhile his students are yawning, see- Bill Irwin when Walt, driven by some profound despera- SWATTING ing him as a dinosaur, completely useless to them. This ≥ Making a false 911 tion, sends his body hurtling awkwardly through a plate report of an ongoing man is professionally and literally impotent.” glass door or over a hedge, where he stops to box with incident, usually at Worse, his teenage son seems to look up more to his a celebrity’s? home, to generate a heavy police response. The LAPD’s term for it: 110 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 “911 abuse.” CRIME IN LA

were incredulous. “Who would do something like that?” they won- dered. From there the conversation led to another news item—rumors of Saddam Hussein’s mobile biological weapons labs. It wasn’t long un- til Gilligan came up with his story about a hapless pair of meth cooks working in a ramshackle RV, wearing gas masks and causing havoc. In 2005, Gilligan and producer Mark Johnson pitched the show to Sony executives Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, who had admired Gilligan’s work on The X-Files. “We wanted to be in the Vince Gilligan business,” Van Amburg told me. It took Sony a year to find a buyer. AMC at the time was known primarily as a movie channel; Mad Men did not debut until 2007; Breaking Bad, the following year. Gilligan’s sense that he had nothing to lose mirrored the view of the executives at AMC who bought the series: The network did not have much of a track record; Charlie Collier, its president, looked on risk as not only acceptable but necessary. The success of Mad Men and Breaking Bad transformed AMC into a player. In 2010, the cable channel debuted The Walking Dead, which rode the wave of pop culture’s recent craze for the undead to become AMC’s most-watched program, attracting around 11 million viewers per episode (compared to Breaking Bad’s 2.6). Now competing with network numbers, AMC today might very well pass on a script as seem- ingly uncommercial as Gilligan’s. Broadcasters have long assumed their audiences want the famil- iarity of characters who don’t stray from templates—characters who can be counted on to be who we know they are. Networks also tend to prefer self-contained episodes because syndi- cation is so lucrative and “syndicators blustering brother-in-law, Hank, a DEA agent. At a party don’t want shows that flow from one RJ Mitte, as Walt Jr., hands Uncle Hank’s Glock to his dad. episode to another,” says Gilligan. But “It’s heavy” is all Walt can muster. “That’s why they hire the power of Breaking Bad is revealed men,” says Hank, to the laughter of his friends. (Dean Nor- only in consecutive viewing—how else ris, who plays Hank, thought the show was to be a comedy to follow the incremental steps that, as when he first read the script.) Gilligan says, take “Mr. Chips and turn During the ride-along with Hank that will introduce him into Scarface.” him to the world of meth, Walt sits in the backseat wear- Every step in this transformation is ing a seat belt over a white bulletproof vest, looking like propelled by a conscious decision on a child in a life preserver. Soon after, he chooses to cook the part of Walt, a cost-benefit anal- drugs to support his family. “I am awake,” he declares, the ysis that must be either seconded or decision made. Who among us would deny him, or ourselves, that feel- slipped by his young and more emotional partner, Jesse Pinkman ing of elation, of suddenly stepping into our bodies fully alive? Who (played by Aaron Paul). Walt’s calculations almost always make sense, would give it up? Posing that question so passionately may be the true until they don’t. Part of the show’s allure lies in parsing what might innovation of Breaking Bad. have been the irreversible moment for Walter White. As Walt loses his immortal soul, Jesse discovers that he has one. Gilligan is more interested in karma than in hellfire. His writers scatter repeated images and phrases throughout the story, creating a thick collage of clues and symbols—ambrosia to narrative nerds. “Noth- PeRhApS nothing new happens in ing delights us as much as circularity,” says Schnauz, “bringing stu! television without naturally occurring cri- back.” Hence the multiple appearances of a deranged-looking eyeball ses—one artistic, the other at the executive that, ripped from a child’s teddy bear during an airplane crash, winds level. In the case of Breaking Bad, the idea up in the skimmer basket of Walt’s pool. He plucks it out, puzzles over for the show came to Gilligan in a period of it, and keeps it in a drawer, where his wife, Skyler, later finds it at a unemployment, during a freak-out over his approaching 40th birth- point when she also is crossing into criminality. Such cues—along with day. He was speaking on the phone to Thomas Schnauz, a friend since periodic POV shots from the bottom of a bathtub or a bucket—convey the days when they’d made student films at New York University. The the sense of a (for now) benign but watchful universe, taking note of two had worked on The X-Files, and Schnauz would go on to write for every trespass against it. “We like to reward the careful viewer,” says Breaking Bad. On this day in 2004, though, they were joking that their Sam Catlin, another of the show’s writers. next job might be as Walmart greeters. Schnauz had just read a New In season two Walt sits in a hospital room; through a series of lies York Times piece about two young girls made ill by fumes from their he’s made his way back to his family after being kidnapped by a drug mom’s meth operation in the attic near where they slept. The men dealer named Tuco Salamanca. As he’s inter- (CONTINUED ON PAGE 154)

LAMAG.COM CRIME IN LA C George Mastras, a novelist and lawyer, is couldn’t be too pink and girlish, but it couldn’t E M most responsible for Tuco, a character inspired be too brazen, either. I can’t imagine how his H C L I A by the time Mastras spent working at a notori- mind works: No detail is too small to escape ous juvenile facility in D.C. The strip mall law- him. Bryan and I talk about how Vince is this BY LAURIE WINER yer Saul Goodman, played by Bob Odenkirk, soft-spoken Southern guy, and how does this R T came mainly from writer Peter Gould, who is stu" come out of him?” A I N now at work with Gilligan on a possible spin- Of the actors, Aaron Paul has perhaps gained PHOTOGRAPHS BY E O JAMES MINCHIN III ≥ NOBODY WOULD HAVE EEXPECTED BREAKING BAD C TTO BECOME  <-4->1;176ƭ;57;< o" for that character. Then there’s Schnauz and the most from the show. Neither AMC nor Sony ADDICTIVEA CRIME SHOW, DRAMA LAB Breaking Bad creator Vince ANDA WITH JUST EIGHT MORE Gilligan and his leading man, EPISODES TO GO, Bryan Cranston, on the set NNOBODY CAN IMAGINE LIFE WITHOUT IT Sam Catlin, “one of the funniest people” Gilli- wanted him for the part of Jesse Pinkman, for 108 | LOS ANGELES | J U L Y 2 0 1 3 LAMAG.COM gan says he has ever met. which he’s won two Emmys. “They said I was He and the writers took more than a year too clean-cut,” he tells me between scenes, and Chemical Reaction to nail down the details of the finale. Have I his clear blue eyes for a moment register the CONTINUED FROM PAGE 111 been able to piece together what will happen? incredulity that makes Jesse so endearing. Gil- Not entirely, but I can report that every writ- ligan fought to hire him but had plans to kill o" viewed by a psychiatrist, Walt can’t tear his eyes er who worked on one of the final eight epi- Jesse in the first season. (Asked how Jesse was to away from a painting of a man rowing a small sodes told me that, in his or her episode, the have died, he laughs and answers, “Horribly.” ) boat out to sea as his family waves good-bye shit goes down. Seeing the pilot, Gilligan knew that Break- from shore. Cranston’s gaze seems to convey an When I meet Gilligan in the writers’ room ing Bad could not go on without Paul. He was ocean of ambivalence as Walt, too, drifts away three weeks after the show has wrapped, most Robin to Cranston’s Batman; their combination from his wife and kid. The painting (crafted by everything is packed in boxes but for some of strengths and weaknesses came to define the the art department) reappears in season five, books with titles like Money Laundering and show. Jesse’s emotionality, his amazement in this time in a hotel room, where Walt silently Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture, 7th the face of increasingly outrageous situations, stares at it while some ex-cons plan a prison Edition, and a crystal-growing kit for kids. In never gets tired—and the writers never tired massacre. “Where do you suppose these come his gentle drawl Gilligan talks about a “neu- of finding new ways to abuse him. “Maybe I’m from?” he asks an uncomprehending bad guy. rotic,” “hair-tearing” version of himself who sadistic,” says Schnauz, “but I love making the “I’ve seen this one before.” The painting is an appeared, for instance, the day he lost actor characters su"er.” emotional marker for us and for the charac- Raymond Cruz to another show. Gilligan had While the strings of fate run from plot point ter, who grimaces as he struggles to recover the big plans for Cruz’s ballistic dealer, Tuco. “But to plot point, season to season, Gilligan was ghost of a former yearning. losing him forced us to come up with Gustavo also careful to set the series in a timeless lim- Fring,” says Gilligan of the character played by bo. There are no seasons in Breaking Bad, no //// Giancarlo Esposito. Fring, the meticulous lo- summer vacations for Walt Jr., and no holidays, cal businessman who, like Walt, hides in plain though they do celebrate Walter’s birthdays. ILLIGAN, a bespectacled 46-year- sight, drives seasons three and four. Gilligan’s The show begins on Walt’s 50th, and he turns old Virginian with beautiful Southern lesson: “If you roll with the punches, you find 52 during the final season, though five years G manners and the facial hair of Walter happy accidents. Because, really, how much cra- have elapsed in real time. Just about the only White, is known for spending more time with zier could Tuco have gotten? He was already sense of the clock’s movement comes from the his writers than most show runners. While snorting meth o" of the tip of a bowie knife.” time-lapse sequences, in which the city or the Breaking Bad shoots entirely in New Mexico, Gilligan spent his childhood in the town of desert seems agitated by all the human drama the writers are headquartered in a suite of o!c- Farmville, Virginia, where his mother taught taking place within, or the recurring musical es on Burbank Boulevard. “The room does not reading in an elementary school. Gilligan would montage sequences that capture the way hours function as well without him there,” says Gen- roam the aisles of his grandfather’s used-book flow when one is deeply immersed in work—be nifer Hutchison, who started out as Gilligan’s store in Richmond, pulling out books to bring it making meth, dealing meth, or destroying a assistant. After she proved herself by taking on home. He loved Ray Bradbury and Kurt Von- meth superlab. what some might see as the crap job of writing negut and remembers reading Mother Night in Looking for a seamless marriage between “Hank’s Blog” for the AMC Web site, Gilligan nine hours, with plans to devour a new book a the story and the visuals, director of photogra- hired her as a writer. day. Like a lot of American men born in 1967, phy Michael Slovis borrowed references from Mad Men employed 25 writers for its first he grew up consuming a great number of mov- cinematographers as diverse as Owen Roiz- five seasons and The Sopranos, 19. By contrast ies and TV shows, and Breaking Bad constantly man (The French Connection), Tonino Delli Gilligan has depended on only nine writers to tips its hat, visually speaking, to some of Gilli- Colli (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly), and put together all 62 episodes of Breaking Bad, gan’s favorites: The Godfather, The Graduate, Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion). “The indicating that he is either extremely loyal or Pulp Fiction, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. writers take advantage of storytelling clichés, good at getting what he wants from people. Anna Gunn, who plays Skyler, recalls being in that they constantly subvert them,” he tells He and six others wrote the final two seasons. struck early on by the discipline Gilligan im- me as we sit on folding chairs in the middle Moira Walley-Beckett was writing for the legal posed on the writing process. “In rehearsal Gilli- of an Albuquerque street. “They mete out in- drama Eli Stone when she first saw Breaking gan would sometimes stop a scene, saying, ‘No, formation when you do not expect it, when it Bad and felt “I was on a mission from God to I don’t want to go down that path,’ ” says Gunn, will surprise you. I felt I had to come up with write for that show.” She was brought on after and he “right there and then starts rewriting.” a visual vocabulary to match.” That’s why we submitting a spec script, even after she’d been One scene featured Skyler brushing her hair in often get a long shot when a close-up is expect- told that the producers weren’t accepting them. the bathroom of her lover, looking down at her ed and vice versa. Gilligan credits her with deepening his own un- bare feet on his heated floor. “The script said After Slovis came onboard in season two, the derstanding of Skyler and “credible dialogue for her toenails were to be painted red,” she says, show’s palette deepened on both ends: Its shad- the most hard-boiled bad guys on earth.” “and Vince had to see a plethora of colors. It ows darkened, and its desert scenes became

LOS ANGELES 154 J U L Y 2 0 1 3 more sun-drenched. He also brought to the show some signature imagery—those dream- like vistas of the sun washing over the desert as tiny people conduct their life-and-death busi- ness. The tall, slim Easterner remembers at first turning down the series once he learned it was filmed in New Mexico. “Luckily my wife made me watch it,” he says. “This show demanded THE GOOD LIFE: MEN’S LUXURY EVENT things of me that no job ever has.” Saturday, May 4

//// Los Angeles magazine and Land Rover hosted the first annual “The Good Life” men’s luxury event on Saturday, May 4 at the Malibu Golf Club. The intimate afternoon, just for the guys, featured exclusive views of the all-new 2014 Range Rover, Range Rover N BURBANK and on the sets and loca- Sport and Range Rover Evoque. Gourmet bites were prepared by Chef Matt Zuerod tions of Albuquerque, people who work of Malibu and Vine Bar & Grille on the Sub-Zero/Wolf BBQ Trailer and Michelob Ultra was served at the bars. A putting contest and complimentary 9 holes of golf were also Ion Breaking Bad tend to see it, artistically enjoyed by guests during the picture perfect afternoon. When the men were not out speaking, as a camel passing through the eye on the course, they browsed the AG Jeans, Travis Mathews, and Matsuda Eyewear of a needle, and there has been a near-mania pop-up shops, tasted a variety of Balvenie Whisky, and were gifted hand-rolled cigars for preserving the experience. After every epi- from El Cañito Cigars. sode, Kelley Dixon, one of the show’s editors, conducts an insider podcast for AMC during which Gilligan and assorted coworkers remi- nisce, sometimes for longer than the episode itself. “I talk about how it all went down, not so much because of a sense of history but because I want to remember it,” Gilligan says. “It’s the next best thing to keeping a diary, which I have not had time to do.” Sam Catlin recalls seeing the last index cards representing scenes pinned to the large corkboard in the writers’ room. “God, is that really how it’s going to end?” he thought. “May- be we should all just be entombed together.” Everyone handles the end in his or her own way. After shooting their final scene, Gunn, Cranston, and Paul engage in a pro- longed three-way hug. Cranston breaks the tension, saying, “In six months we won’t re- member each other’s names.” Gilligan admits a part of him is relieved to “finally shed this overcoat. I pour a lot of myself into Walt, and some of Walt pours into me; the liquid levels constantly go up and down,” he says. “For six years I’ve been en- gaged in a long, slow chess match with Wal- ter White, always examining hundreds of per- mutations and possibilities. And I don’t really play chess, so it’s been exhausting.” Built into Breaking Bad from the start was the idea of an inevitable and definitive ending; there will be no Sopranos-like fade to white on September 29. “For years we’ve wondered, ‘How much more story do we have in us?’ ” says Gil- ligan. “I worked hard on The X-Files for seven years, and when I finally looked up from my PHOTO PHOTO CREDIT: JIM DONNELLY desk, I realized the world was moving on. It’s al- From top, left to right: the all-new 2014 Range Rover and Range Rover Evoque flanked the entrance of Malibu ways better to leave the party on a high note.” Q Golf Club; AG Jeans and Travis Mathews pop-up shop; hand-rolled cigars from El Cañito Cigars; guests tried on and shopped the Matsuda Eyewear Collection; guests tasting Balvenie Whisky; Chef Matt Zuerod grilling up bites on the Sub-Zero/Wolf BBQ Trailer; guys enjoying Michelob Ultra; attendees in the Men’s Luxury Laurie Winer is a contributing writer for Los Suite; golfers testing their skills in the putting contest Angeles. She has been a critic for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times and is a founding editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books.

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