July 23, 2023 • 68 mins
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department recently added an accelerant-sniffing K-9 to its arson unit. The specially trained dog can detect gasoline, diesel, lighter fluid, and many other accelerants. This segment is part of our ongoing Crime Fighter Series that features a behind the scenes look at the work to help solve cases. Also in this episode, 13-year-old Miguel Perez and 19-year-old Jose Merlos were janitors at a laundromat in Lynwood. On March 8th, 1992, after closing the business for the night, someone entered the laundromat and forced the two to the rear of the building; they were shot execution style. While robbery was the strongest motive, detectives now believe there may have been something more to it. And how will a conversation overheard at a recent party steer the 30-year-old investigation?
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You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand, KFI AM six forty live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Onany given day in Southern California, hundreds
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of investigators are working more than tenthousand unsolved cases. That's thousands of friends
and families who have lost loved ones, thousands of people who got away with
a crime, and thousands of murdererswho still walk the streets. Killers who
may be your neighbor, go toyour church, or could be dating a
close friend. For the next twohours will highlight cases that have gone cold,
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baffled investigators, or just needs thatone witness to speak up. This
is Solved with Steve Gregory. Inthis episode, we take a look at
a tool that helps solve crimes,in this case Arson. It's part of
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our ongoing crime Fighter series that highlightsthe work behind the scenes that helps investigators
find the piece of evidence they needto move a case forward or to finally
close it. The Los Angeles CountyFire Department recently added a four legged firefighter
to its ranks, an accelerant sniffingcanine and a member of the Arson Unit.
Her handlers, Captain Casey Flanders,so This is Julia. She's two
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years old. She just had abirthday on July seventh, and she is
a Golden Door half Golden Retriever,half Labrador. And they basically use this
breed for a couple of reasons.One, they're great family dogs. Off
duty. She comes home with me. She's great with the kids, great
with the family. Another reason thesedogs are in that sporting group of dogs.
Their hunting drive is what they're after, and that's what we like to
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see him go in a room andthe hunting drive gets their nose down to
find that agmainable liquid. And we'lllearn more about Julia in the next segment.
But I wanted to offer some historicalperspective, so I brought in Battalion
Chief Pete Finnerty, the head ofthe Arson unit. He explains the department
had inherited and arson K nine twentyyears ago, but that program fizzled out,
but in twenty fourteen they created newpolicies to get a Key nine unit
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up and running, and now thechief says, the department is embracing all
technologies old and new to tackle arsoninvestigations. So you have to have in
lay in many crimes as you wouldis you have to have witnesses that it
can identify people. You have tohave evidence that supports the hypothesis of what
we discover its seeing. You haveto have security video of that person,
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or in many cases, you haveto have a confession. So while cases
will we will work cases and theywill stay open until they're done. We
are getting cases back to back toback to back, So as a case
would come up that maybe takes moreor precedent because we have that evidence and
something we're sitting on, Hey,let's we're gonna put this in the background
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and we're gonna wait and we're goingto come back to this case afterward.
I don't have an exact number ofhow many of those cases are. A
lot of cases don't sit open likethat. But another thing that we have
to deal with is in La County, as we're all aware, there's a
lot of people experiencing homelessness. Thosecases tend to be frequent for us,
and there isn't a lot there becausethe county's looking at assisting people as long
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as there's no criminal intent involved inthat. Well, let's go back historically,
then, you know, when you'retalking about solving these arsons and determining
cause and manner in origin. Howmany investigators do you have in your arson
unit and how busy are they?So it's interesting. We have ten investigators,
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of which i'm one, and Iam on the entire county. Yes,
Sir, for the entire county.And if you look at the numbers,
that's one hundred and seventy seven firestations, that's twenty three hundred square
miles, that's twenty one contract cities. And now we do split the county
with the sheriffs when it comes tothe arson portion. If the sheriffs have
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patrolled duty for an area, theyare the primary, so they do divide
that with us. An interesting pointthat a lot of people don't consider is
that we cover SRA land for brushfiresstate responsibility. So we have that contract
with cal Fire that's five hundred thousandacres of land and in this time of
the year, as you know,we're getting daily starts and with that come
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having to know what the cause is. So yes, we have a pretty
big area to cover with three onduty investigators, twenty four hours of captain
and two investigators. But it's ourmission that we have and we work diligently
to solve that. And that's kindof goes back to what I said,
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we kind of have to prioritize whatwe've been given, not because we're not
going to investigate it, but whenthings come up that maybe take priority because
we have that good evidence to actuateon or to act on right away,
that's going to come into play.So chief how many fires out there remain,
like still up in the air oropen, you know, I would
say any one of my investigators probablyhas five cases that they're working simultaneously,
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something that we have concrete evidence on, something that's going to take a little
longer, something that takes longer becausewe're waiting on security video from a company
or anything like that. I wouldsay that there is a pretty good proportion
of cases that's probably exaggerating a littlethat will go undetermined, and that simply
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is due to the fact that younarrow it down. And this is kind
of arson, I would say.In a nutshell, you can say this,
Hey, the fire started in thisroom. The room didn't have power
to it, nobody was storing anychemicals in it, We didn't We don't
have any indication that somebody walked inand threw a match on the ground.
So of the stuff that's in thisroom, based on the information we have,
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here's what it could have been,and you can give. You can
give all the stuff that didn't causeit, and here's the couple of things
that could have. But you justdon't have that last piece of evidence that
is the thing that points to directlyto one thing. Conversely, you have
evidence on scene. You're looking atall this possibilities and then all of a
sudden, somebody says, hey,I have a security footage and they bring
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something and you go, oh loand behold, there's the person running in
with a gas can, dousing theroom and throwing a match, and you
know exactly what started that. It'sno different than a homicide investigation. It
is very similar with respect to policework. It is very similar these guys
myself to say, is word detectiveswho focus solely on arson crime are you
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know fire? It's one of thehardest ones to solve, right. I
don't know how arson investigators did itthirty years ago, because I will say
what we get now is we doget a lot of help from the amount
of camors that are out in thetechnology. I would think too, right,
Absolutely, science and tech advancements absolutelyso they had a lot of stuff,
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but a lot of it they don't. They didn't have as much as
we haven't. That's changing, youknow, year over year, and Julia
is kind of an example of somethingthat's been around a long time, but
something that can really bolster the case. I do want to talk a little
bit about advancements in technology. Whenyou talk about, you know, decades
ago and this is the nation's largestfire department, you know, we're you
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as innovative with arson investigations that youknow of back then as you were with
a lot of things in firefighting.You know, it's hard for me to
answer that question without having the historicalcontext of some of the folks that I
do know that that worked in theunit as far back as right now,
we don't have I would say adecade or a little bit more. Is
the is the investigator that has beenthe longest in the unit. I do
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know that one of the big thingsthat I can answer looking at historical documentation
is that the unit asked to havea fire administrative study done in ninety nine,
and it outlined all the areas thatthe National Fire Administration would say,
hey, if you really want tochange what you're doing, here's the suggestions
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we have for how you can upgradeor become more efficient. And some of
that was scheduling. As I said, before they used to be on a
forty hour schedule. They would becalled in after hours. The department saw
some of the suggestions, they movedto a fifty six hour, three investigator
type shift works so they're on duty, ready to go at any moment.
So that type of stuff advances inus working with the lab, Sheriff's,
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the county lab so we can getthings looked at, and that's a lot
of a lot of the advancements arethose things for everybody. What it's going
to come in the format of isa better reporting or better use of technology.
You know, in the past,you would take individual shots when you
were putting together a photo array,which is something we still do to this
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day. You now have technology whereyou can say at a camera in the
center of the room and it'll takethree hundred and sixty degree photos, which
as I've been told by many peoplethat are moving to that technology. When
you go to court to try tobring this to a juror that doesn't understand
arson when you're able to give that. Hey, here's the room we were
looking at. Now, let metake you over to this corner. You
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can see this corner is unburned,but see where all the damage is over
here. And people relate to thatversus single shot like, they get disoriented,
they don't understand what you're really referencing. So I would say things like
that, drones are a big one, you know, especially like with brush
fires. You know, we usedto have to bring ladders out and climb
the ladder and shoot these, youknow. Now we have that you know
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us program you know on MANARIL,and we can ask for that assistance from
our own department because we have thattechnology, which is just simply more efficient.
It allows us to move on filethe case and get to work on
either something else or move on towhat that next portion of the case might
be. We'll talk more about theKenaine Arsen in it, but first this
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is unsolved with Steve Gregory on kfI AM six forty. You're listening to
kf I AM six forty on demand, kf I AM six forty live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. I'm SteveGregory and this is unsolved. Welcome back.
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We're at the La County Fire Department'sheadquarters in training center in Monterey Park,
where we've been talking about Julia,the department's accelerant sniffing canine, or
simply put, an arson dog.Captain Casey Flanders is Julia's handler. I
asked him more about Julia's training.So the training takes place mostly in New
Hampshire, back on the east coast. We spend some time in Massachusetts to
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the south and Maine to the north. But it's a program called Maine Specialty
Dogs, and it was a monthlong program. We were there for the
entire month of April, also knownas the muddy season out there. State
Farm, the insurance company, actuallysponsors this program. They hooked up with
Main Specialty Dogs back in nineteen ninetythree, and State Farm sponsors each student
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through this program at the cost ofabout twenty five to thirty grand per student.
They pay for food and lodging andairfare, all that stuff. I
believe since nineteen ninety three, StateFarm has actually put four hundred and fifty
k nine teams into the field throughoutthe country. Right now, I believe
there's about ninety seven active teams aftermy class had graduated back in April.
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Has Julia already been working? Shehas. In fact, just before I
came here, we were working afire on the east end of the county
and she was working an exterior patiofire and she actually had a hit.
When I say a hit, Imean she gave me an alert for an
ignitable liquid that she detected. Doyou have arrest powers? I don't know,
are you guys peace officers? Yes, sir, we do. How
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frequently do you make arrests for ourcimulated crime? So based on arson,
so we're based out of the LaBasin, so we cover the county,
so we're not able to get onscene, you know, always right away.
Sometimes it takes us twenty thirty hourand a half, depending if we
get called up to the high desert. So a lot of the times the
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arrests take place by the local policeagency and then we follow up with the
case documentation and pressing and filing thecharges with the local DA. I would
imagine that the training is ongoing,and you know, you're constantly always challenged
out in the field because you don'tknow what you're running into, right.
Yeah, the training is ongoing,like you said, So the purpose of
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the K nine team is to assistthe investigation by attaining by obtaining a sample
with the higher probability of coming backpositive from the lab. So, as
an arson investigator, we can walkin a scene and go, okay,
we like this corner for our origin. This is where that fire started.
We could be off by six inchesa foot three feet. The purpose of
the dog is to come in andnarrow that down, make that size really
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small, so we can dig thatsample, send it to the lab.
If the lab confirms it for anignitable liquid or an accelerant, now we've
got an extra piece of evidence forour arson case. That arson case also
needs to be made with or withoutthe dog. That ignitable liquid is similar
to what a gun would be ina murder case. Okay, we still
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have to have a suspect. Westill have to place that suspect at the
scene. We still have to lookat motive, other things to establish a
case for arson, not just thataccelerant. So that dog helps us narrow
down that evidence for our case.We use the dogs there for three things.
Really for their olfactory capabilities right intheir sense of smell, the ability
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to set discriminate, to tell thedifference between sense between burnt wood, burnt
paper, burnt plastic, and thataccelerant. And these dogs are always unbiased.
They don't care what neighborhood they're in, who lives there. They either
detect something or they don't. Asfar as the dog's olfactory capabilities, the
average human has five to six millionolfactory receptors in our nose. The dogs
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have between two hundred and twenty fiveto three hundred million, so about fifty
times greater a sense of smell thanwe do. One eighth of the excuse
me, one eighth of their brainis dedicated to that odor processing. Half
fifty percent of their nose is dedicatedto that scent processing. As far as
her training aid during our training,I have a I can show it to
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you right now. I actually haveit in my popular ad. It's gonna
smell like gasoline to you. It'sgasoline based, but it's not pure gasoline.
It's actually produced by a local chemisthere at our sheriff LA County Sheriff's
Crime Lab. And this is theonly thing we use. This is what
I drop on floors, This iswhat I drop on evidence through all the
different evolutions that I run her through. This is the only thing that she
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sniffs during training. But through thistraining medium, she's able to recognize accelerants
spanning the full spectrum. Again talkingabout those light, medium, and heavy
disolates and those examples. I gaveyou the gasoline, the acid tone,
the nail polished remover, the lampoil, light or fluid, etc.
So by just this one based onhistorical use of the dogs. And again
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they've got you know, four hundredand fifty teams since nineteen ninety three and
all the lab confirmations that they've gottenwith all those the wide spectrum of accelerants,
So this is usual. This iskind of a way to calibrate Julia,
right, yes, sir, exactly. Yeah, this gets imprinted on
her brain and through this she's ableto recognize several different accelerants on scenes.
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Yeah. So with that said,she's a food reward dog, which means
she doesn't eat unless she smells gas. That's not to say she only eats
when we get a fire. It'sto say that on and off duty,
morning, noon and night throughout theday, I have to set up evolutions
and training for her to go through. Fine gas so that I can get
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some food on board. So firstthing in the morning, throughout the day,
and then at night and then sometimesin the middle of the night if
she gets a call. Right,we're we're setting up stuff. The kids
have to help out at home,they have to help me set up stuff.
They like doing it. And also, you know, forms a good
bond with the dog. So um, yeah, it's it's a team effort.
Well, and you're right, it'sand it's a lot of maintenance,
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a lot of maintenance. Yeah,there's there's stuff that kind of goes,
you know, unnoticed. You know, you gotta take them for walks.
You got to clean up after thedog. You got to bathe the dog.
Every scene she gets she gets into, she comes out pretty dirty.
So we got to keep an eyeon. And yeah, that's the other
thing to you we're talking about howyou know she's jumping and raring to go
when you get to a scene.I mean, I assume that the firefighters
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before you, the ones who haveextinguished the fire, have determined that it's
safe to enter. Um, areyou worried about like the heat of the
floor or has it dissipated enough towhere the pads of her feet aren't impacted.
Things like that. Usually by thetime we get there, because we
don't get there with the the firston scene cruise. Usually we're thirty minutes
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to an hour, sometimes an hourand a half behind the first on scene
units, based on when we receivethe notification for a need. By then
the floor is cooled off a littlebit. I always perform a safety walk
through through the building. I mean, I'm looking for nails, I'm looking
for sharp objects, broken glass,things to injure the dog. I'm trying
to get that out of her way, move some things, maybe give her
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a clear path so she can hitall portions of the interior that building.
We were really good about decontaminating thatdog. They're walking through you know water,
sometimes it's got all kinds of chemicals, you know, foam, whatever,
what have you. So we haveto clean these dogs after every fire,
and we're always checking them. Aswe're cleaning them, we're checking them
for injuries too. So then,and I don't know if you mentioned this,
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and I might have forgotten. Soit's Julia on a leash the whole
time you're in a building, ordo you unleash her and let her go,
she'll be on lead the entire time. Okay, yeah, through when
when we're working a scene, she'salways on lead, yes sir, yeah.
And then what about the time aftera fire has been extinguished? Is
it like in a homicide Sometimes thelonger you wait to go in and accumulate
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evidence that maybe evidence dissipates, evidencedegrades. I mean that is that the
same in an arts and investigation.Absolutely, the two biggest foes we go
up against our fire and water.So sometimes whatever accelerant is used does get
completely consumed and there's no traces forher to find. The other thing we
go up against is water. Whenwe have these big two alarmed, three
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alarm fires, we're flowing you know, at the end of the day millions
of gallons of water through this building, that those trace amounts of accelerants get
washed away. Or in a smallerexample, like a smaller residential structure,
let's say the accelerant is on thewest side of the room. Well,
sometimes that water will push it tothe east side of the room. She'll
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get a hit on the east sideof the room where that accelerant has been
pushed to. Even though the firepattern, the poor pattern of accelerant is
on the west side, so itgets confusing to some of the guys who
are looking from behind, saying,Hey, the patterns over to the right,
but your dog's hitting over to theleft. Your dog's broken, and
my job is just to trust thatdog. She knows. Hey, I
don't know what's over there, butthe accelerant's over here, and it got
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pushed by the by the water overhere. So yeah, between between fire
and water, we're always up againstvariables on scene trying to locate that evidence.
Coming up a horrific double execution oftwo teenage boys in Linwood. But
first, this is Unsolved with SteveGregory on kf I AM six forty.
You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand kf I AM six forty live
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everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'mSteve Gregory, and this is unsolved.
To reach the Unsolved team through theiHeartRadio app, press the red microphone and
leave us a story, idea tip, or comment, or simply press pound
two fifty on your cell phone andsay the keyword unsolved. Los Angeles County
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Sheriff's Homicide case number zero nine twozero three five zero eight Dash two five
one seven Dash zero one one theexecutions of nineteen year old Jose Merlos and
thirteen year old Miguel Cuts. We'retalking now with Detective Sean McCarthy. He's
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with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department'sCold Case Unit within the Homicide Bureau.
We're inside Homicide Bureau headquarters in MontereyPark. We're talking about a case going
back to March eighth, nineteen ninetytwo, the death of a thirteen year
old and nineteen year old. Let'sget started with a quick overview of the
case. Okay, This homicide acurve in the city of Lynnwood at Long
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Beach Boulevard and Cedar Avenue. It'sit's your typical coin operated laundromat self serve.
It's open most of the day,but generally it closed around seven thirty.
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In this particular night, it wasa Sunday night. The business closed.
Two employees by the name of MiguelPerez and Jose Merlos. They began
their shift after the business closed.They worked as clean up people, janitors
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if you will, and generally speaking, they would lock the front door sometime
around seven thirty, but they wouldallow custom to remain who were still doing
their wash. They would leave theback door open most of the time to
give those customers access an access pointto leave once they were finished. On
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this particular night, I can onlyassume that's what happened based on my review
of the case file, because Iwas not one of the original investigators.
Sometime after seven thirty, and I'massuming the regular customers left, someone entered
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the business or were led inside thebusiness, and at some point they produced
firearms. They led both Miguel andJose at gunpoint into a rear office,
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and they executed both of them.And I'm saying this with not a lot
of certainty, but there was someevidence to indicate that the motive was robbery,
because some of the washing machines hadbeen tampered with in the area where
money would be inserted, and therewas some coins apparently missing. But I'm
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not going to sit here and tellyou that that definitively was the motive in
this case. Okay, I gotto ask you something. It just kind
of struck me when you said theytook these two young men, this boy
and this young man to the backand executed them. Would you please describe
your definition in this case, andI don't mean to be flipping about it,
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but as opposed to just going inand robbing a place and just shooting
these folks, what in your minddefines this as an execution? The the
way that they were murdered, theywere both shot in the chest and the
left left side of the chest wecall we would call it. It's referred
to in law enforcements as the tenring on on on a target at a
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at a range. That's that's thearea where where the ten the tenure uh
is located. Um, that wasjust a random these two kids, and
I referred to them as kids becauseone was nineteen, one was thirteen.
They didn't just shoot them as theywere running out of the business, try
to trying to escape from from whatevercrime was being committed. They were led
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back there into that into that office, and they were shot in an area
of the body that clearly indicates,in my opinion, execution. And you
provided a few moments ago, andwe're not going to be posting these photos
online, but you you are showingme photos from the file. And obviously
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it's a very sad sight when yougot these two young people behind and it
looks like in this you say officearea, But um, what would be
the purpose of this? I mean, why, detective, do you take
a thirteen year old and a nineteenyear old to a back room execute them
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in the commission of a robbery?I mean, why do you do that?
My opinion only, Okay, ifyou look at the front of the
business, there's there's large windows,right if they would, if they would,
if they were to kill them,there potentially people on the street,
and Long Beach Boulevard is a verybusy street in Lynnwood. They would be
seen, they and somebody would callthe police. The gunshots would be heard,
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would be more likely be heard ifyou if you lead them into a
back office, it's more secure,included, it's more insulated from the noise
of the gunshots in that room,and it would eliminate anybody witnessing the shooting
and potentially identifying this suspect. Beingthat this is in nineteen ninety two,
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you were not the original investigator onthe case. To you kind of have
to piece this together like you doall cold cases that you did not have
a hand in originally. But youhave to take the notes of previous investigators.
You have to put this together inyour mind, and do you go
through these different scenarios on what youthink might have happened based on your experience
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and what you know that's in frontof you. Do you have enough to
connect some dots or do you haveto take some leaps. I don't know
if you and I have had thisdiscussion before, but early in my investigative
career, especially my investigative career homicideBureau, I had a part I was
being trained by a more a muchmore experienced investigator, and we had a
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case that had a lot of suspectsand had a lot of theories. And
I asked my mentor, is itwrong to theorize in a criminal investigation?
And his answer was no, Wewe all theorize. We're all human beings.
We look at a particular incident andwe ultimately theorized in some ways as
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it relates to the case, right, And some theories sound really great,
but he says, the bottom lineis you have to have evidence to back
up that theory. So to answeryour question is, yeah, I looked
at this case and I immediately startedtheorizing based on the pictures that I'm looking
at, based on my experienced butit's all meaningless unless you have evidence to
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back it up, and right now, in this case, we have very
minimal evidence to point at anybody inparticular. When we come back, let's
talk about some of those theories andlet's take a little deeper on what could
been the motive and maybe based onsome of those theories in your experience,
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maybe some possible suspects. But first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on
kf I AM six forty. You'relistening to kf I AM sixty on demand
kf I AM six forty live everywhereon the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory,
(28:36):
and this is Unsolved. You canreach the Unsolved team on email.
Just send us a message Unsolved atiHeartMedia dot com. That's Unsolved at iHeartMedia
dot com. Welcome backworth the LosAngeles County sheriffs Department's Homicide Bureau in Monterey
Park, and we're in a conferenceroom speaking with cold case Detective Sean McCarthy.
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Before the breakdo, Detective, wewere talking a lot about theories and
about some of your experience when youcrack open one of these cold case files
and sometimes and I know I can'timagine. You don't know what's on the
other side of that folder. Whenyou open that folder, you have no
idea what you're going to be lookingat. You may have stacks and stacks
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of information, and you may justhave a few pages. So you have
to take whatever's in front of youand try to put fresh eyes on an
old case. In this particular case, we're talking about the shooting deaths of
Miguel Perez, who was thirteen yearsold and Jose Merlos, who was nineteen
years old. They were cleaning upa laundromat on March eighth, nineteen ninety
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two, just after ten o'clock ontwelve o five oh Long Beach Boulevard in
Lynnwood. And I've seen photos ofthe crime scene you showed me where these
two young men were shot execution style. You said, so, theory when
you look at this in this particularcase, what dots did you connect as
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a theory? Okay, the mostas we spoken in the previous segment,
the most obvious theory, based onminimal evidence, is that the motive was
robbery. In this case, therewere some washing machines that had been tampered
with. They were they were selfserved. But the reality is it wasn't
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like they ransacked the whole place,emptied every washing machine in the place,
and there was a lot of washingmachines in this place, like there are
in most self served. There wasonly a few that were tampered with.
So the obvious theory or motive isrobbery. But based on my experience,
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I find it hard to believe thatthey led these two young I look him
as children, a thirteen year old, into a back room and shot him
execution style. I have to lookdeeper into that, and I refused to
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just accept robbery for a few quartersin this type of a murder, I
just I got to look at otheroptions and could it be robbery? Yes,
And I'll tell you why if wehaven't discussed this. This area of
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Lynnwood extremely high crime rate with vastlydifferent types of criminals. You have high
prostitution on Long Beach Boulevard, highnarcotics use, narcotics sales, you have.
It's saturated with street gangs both Hispanicand Black, a high vagrant population.
(31:55):
I know that's a big topic intwenty twenty two. Trust me in
nineteen ninety two because I worked thatarea when Firestone Station and Linwood Station merged
in nine Two years later, innineteen ninety four, I was at Firestone
Station and this is in Linwood,but when we merged, it became one
big station. So for the nextfew years, before I went to Homicide
Bureau, I worked this area.I know this area well and it is
(32:22):
an extreme it's even today, it'san extremely high crime area with vastly different
types of criminals. So is itpossible that somebody who was whacked out on
drugs or whatever went in there justjust to rob the place to steal a
few coins to go get a asmall amount of cocaine. It's possible,
(32:47):
but I don't think that's the likelymotive. It's a possible motive, but
I don't think it's the likely motive. Now, if you're asking me,
do I have a motive that I'mleaning that I'm leaning heavily on, the
answer is no. Um, okay, then let me let me pose a
(33:07):
couple of things. So, firstof all, you told me that the
laundromat, based on the notes,the only door, the only entrance exit
was backdoor, and that was thatwas generally what would happen. The two
employees, the victims in this casewould begin their shift at seven thirty.
(33:29):
They would lock the front door.That was regular and for obvious reasons,
is the high crime area. AndI would like to note too that this,
you know, with these photos youshowed me at the front, these
all these windows have a lot ofvery heavy bars onto them, so that
already indicates it's an area that's that'sof concern in terms of robbery and burglary.
(33:50):
So what I'm getting at is thefront door was already closed. The
backdoor was the only door open.Do you believe that? Again, and
only based on your experience and whateveryou might have seen in the notes the
shooter or shooters, did they comeinto the laundromat or were they among those
that were allowed to stay in there? And sort of were they lingering in
(34:12):
there or do you think or doyou think they came in there? I
honestly believe either as a possible responsibility. And do you think again, with
an execution style murders and the factthat there was very little money taken actually
taken in it's all in quarters plannedor spontaneous, I think there was there
(34:37):
was some planning and what I meanby that and I'll reveal a little bit
about the original investigation. There wastwo male black adults that were seen by
a witness shortly before the learning murderthat were loitering near the business. That
(34:57):
witness said they they honed in onthese two and watched them for several minutes,
and at one point they walked upto the window and they peered inside.
And is that a form of casingthe place could be? I think
I think this was done by somebodywho lived in the in the general area
(35:22):
of the laundromatt, who knew theworkings out of the business. I don't
think it would take a whole lotof casing to figure out they close at
seven thirty. There's no real supervisionthere, or generally there's there's two young
(35:42):
employees that come in and clean up, and with very little UH casing,
they would realize pretty quickly that theyallow customers that haven't finished or washed to
stay and exit to the back door. So and take much planning to figure
out that we can get inside thisplace very easily, very easily by just
(36:07):
going through the backdoor. Because I'msure some of those customers who use that
regularly they've verbalized it to their friends, and so I'm sure a lot of
the community knew that they were niceenough to leave the business open for them
to finish their laundry and exit throughthe backdoor. We're talking with Sean McCarthy.
(36:28):
He's a detective in the cold caseunit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department's Homicide Bureau. When we comeback, more of the case of the
two murders inside the laundromatt in Lynnwood. But first, this is unsolved with
Steve Gregory on kf I AM sixforty. You're listening to kf I AM
sixty on demand kf I AM sixforty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
(37:06):
I'm Steve Gregory, and this isunsolved for inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department's Homicide Bureau in Monterey Park ata conference room talking with cold case detective
(37:30):
Sean McCarthy about the murders of MiguelPerez, thirteen year old Hispanic Jose Merlos,
a nineteen year old Hispanic. Bothwere cleaning up a laundromat in the
twelve hundred block of Long Beach Boulevardin Lynnwood. The date March eighth,
nineteen ninety two, just after tenpm. Detective, I know in these
(37:52):
cold cases you deal with so manyof them, and I know in La
County you have a ton of differentcold cases, and you know you're only
so many people. I know thatyou have to maybe some criteria might have
to crop up in order for youto reopen a case. Was there something
about this case after all this timethat jumped out at you that said we
need to revisit it? Yes,what was that? I received a telephone
(38:16):
call from I won't identify this person, but it's a very credible and reliable
source that both me and my partner, rich Tomlin have a friendship with.
This person told us that they havea friend through their wife, who actually
(38:42):
grew up on inland Wood in relativelyclose proximity to the laundromat, and they
were very They were of elementary schoolage at the time of the murder.
We were directed to this witness.We interviewed, interviewed the witness and they
(39:05):
told us a story, And basicallythe story is is that they were a
young child. They were at agathering, a small gathering. They overheard
three people, actually four people talkingabout the murder it was relatively soon after
(39:28):
the murder, so it was atopic. It wasn't unusual that that topic
came up because everybody in the neighborhoodknew about the murder. But the conversation
is what takeued their interest. Andbasically, in the conversation, and I'm
not going to reveal any more thanthis, the statement was made that both
(39:51):
both victims pled for their lives priorto being executed, and that became an
important statement to me as an investigatorto indicate that that person who was in
that conversation and made that statement eitherwas a participant in the murder, or
(40:15):
had conversation with somebody who was aparticipant and made that statement to them,
or could have been just rumor couldhave been could have been you're grinning,
yes, because there's more to thisstory. And the more that I can
reveal is is the statement was madein the setting where a person, a
(40:45):
very strong person of interest was identifiedin nineteen ninety two, and I would
say he bordered on being a viablesuspect. So that person of interest who
was interviewed and identified by investigators innineteen ninety two was also the person in
(41:08):
this conversation that was overheard by thiselementary school witness. Okay, so why
was that person of interest never pursuedbeyond that he is being pursued today.
(41:31):
And what I mean by that ishe's still a person of interest. I
can't speak for the investigators in nineteenninety two, there's nothing in the case
file. The person of interest wasinterviewed. The person of interest made some
denials about being inside the business ataround the time of the murder, and
(41:57):
then recanted and admitted that he wasn'tside. But his alibi was I was
just helping a woman out that hedidn't know her last name, so apparently
they contract this woman out to verifyhis story, and that was and he
lived in the area, and hebasically said, yeah, I was in
(42:22):
there after he denied it, butI was helping this woman out with their
laundry, and I exited the backdoor like all the customer late customers did
and at that point, for whateverreason, the interest in him seemed to
stop. Now, I'm not goingto criticize the original investigators for stopping the
(42:44):
investigation on him. Maybe there wassome other things that were said that were
never documented that convinced them that hewas not to the point of being a
Bible suspect yet. But when Iinterviewed this with this thirty years later and
has told me this person of interestwas part of this conversation that they overheard,
(43:07):
he immediately jumped back to being avery strong person of interest. And
we're in the process of continuing theinvestigation with him as a focal point.
How old would this person of interestbe now in his fifties and you know
for a fact that he's still alive. I do is he in La County?
(43:30):
He is? Have you made contact? No? And there's reasons for
that because, as I said before, there's multiple people involved in this conversation
that was overheard, and we haveto be very delicate about how we approached
this. So if we interview one, he doesn't run back to the other
(43:54):
ones and say don't talk to thepolice. They're inquired about that, so
we have to show you. Soyou're basically implying that there is more than
one person involved in this crime.I feel strongly about that, and I
can't get into why. When wecome back, we'll see if we can
(44:16):
squeeze any more information out of DetectiveMcCarthy. But first, this is Unsolved
with Steve Gregory on kf I AMsix forty. You're listening to kf I
AM six forty on demand KFI AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
(44:40):
I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. To learn more about this case
and others, go to our websiteat KFI AM six forty dot com slash
unsolved. That's KFI AM six fortydot com slash unsolved. Welcome back.
(45:01):
We're inside Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department'sHomicide Bureau, the Cold Case Unit,
talking with Detective Sean McCarthy about acase going back to nineteen ninety two.
March eighth, just a little afterten pm, thirteen year old Miguel Perez
nineteen year old Josie Merlos both shotexecution style and the back of a laundromat.
They were there to clean up.That was their job, and this
(45:23):
was in the twelve thousand block ofLong Beach Boulevard and Lynnwood. Detective,
First of all, is the laundromatsstill there? Yes, it is still
there after all these years. Myknowledge, Now, this was just after
ten o'clock at night. What's aroundthat laundromt were there any witnesses? I
mean, when you hear gunfire andhow many shots were fired total? I
(45:46):
don't know that anybody heard the gunshots. I will say this, the
victims victims were shot one time each. I don't want to get any further
am So then did anyone see anybodyrun out of the building or leave the
area? I know I didn't mentionthis in the earlier segments, but both
(46:07):
victims lived in an apartment complex thatadjacent to the laundryman, so they only
had to walk a short distance towork. They lived with other family members.
One of the other family members wasinterviewed after the murder and and just
(46:29):
for information purposes, the Miguel's Ibelieve it was Miguel's father discovered the bodies.
He was the one who discovered thebodies. He walked. I believe
he tried to get ahold of oneof the victims, one of them,
(46:49):
one of them was married to theother one's sister. So both victims were
living in this apartment with other relativeswith Miguel's family, okay, Jose was
married to one of the sisters.Got it okay, So during the interview
(47:12):
with one of the family members.They said that around the time of the
murder, they heard some some noise. They they went out in the balconire,
looked out of an upper floor window, and they saw two male black
adults climbing over the wall behind thelaundromat and enter a small, dark compact
(47:36):
vehicle. Prior to entering the vehicle, one of the mails dropped a handgun
onto the pavement and frantically grabbed itand got into the vehicle. The only
other thing of interest would be isthat this witness was certain that there was
young children in that car because theycould hear crying from children as they entered
(48:00):
the car. And that's the vehicleleft southbound on Long Beach Boulevard. And
based on my review of the casefile was never found with the timeline fit.
Yes, so that the witness sawit well, presumably moments after it
happened in that ten o'clock area orthat ten o'clock timeframe. Yes, So
(48:25):
before the break we were talking abouta person of interest, possibly persons of
interest, and you said there's someoneyou're focusing in on now. Is that
person African American? Yes, Soat least you have that part to go
with let me say this, theperson of interest is African American. Other
(48:46):
people involved in the conversation that wespoke in the other segment where the statement
was made, there was there wasat least one that was of another race,
a different race other than African American. Okay, yes, not Caucasian.
Not Caucasian, okay. But becauseyou know, if the witness said
(49:07):
that she saw two African Americans leaving, presumably there might have been someone else
in the vehicle or just the children. I'm not going to dispute what a
what a witness said. Well,are have you talked to that witness lately?
(49:27):
The witness to the one that sawthe two people leave the building?
No, okay, I was justcurious if that person is still around.
Have you spoken to any of thefamily of perezer Merlos. So you're very
good at your job, Steve.But I said, there was a conversation
that was overheard and the group inthe conversation, the person of interest was
(49:51):
part of that, and there wasanother person in that conversation that was not
African American. But what I didn'tsay was if I believe that that person
was a co conspirator, because Ido not believe that that person was a
goal conspirator, and I cannot getinto it, so that would lend credibility
to the witnesses statement of the twomale blacks. It's possible that the person
(50:15):
of interest is one of those,is one of those male blacks, and
then somebody, another African American,is also involved, and we're pursuing that
avenue and we are looking at anotherperson of interest that may have been the
second person. But the person thatwas not African America involved in the conversation.
(50:37):
We don't believe he had any rolein the murder, but we believe
his role would be able to provideus information on what he knows based on
that conversation in that group. Isn'tit frustrating to have to dance around all
this without just telling us what you'rereally thinking. Yeah? Yeah, So
that said, I know you're tryingto unpack this and still preserve the integrity
(51:01):
of the investigation. I appreciate yourposition, So I'm gonna move on.
I'm going to ask you something elseabout the laundromat itself. You said that
you don't think robbery was a motive, and these poor too young. I
stand correct that I believe robbery isa possible motive, but I don't know
that. You were leaning somewhere else. Yeah, I'm leaning that. And
(51:25):
this is just my own compassionate nature. Is I've dealt with a lot of
pretty hardened criminals. And when youmarch two young kids back into a room
and execute them for apparently a handfulof quarters, that's frowned on in the
(51:45):
criminal community. You just don't dothat unless you're mentally ill, whacked down
on drugs, or there's a motivethat we don't know about, you know,
So I refused just buy robbery asa motive in this case, unless
it's somebody who was mentally ill,was really wacked on on drugs, or
(52:07):
just it was some sort of athrill kill. You just don't murder young
kids like that. And and criminals, hardened criminals, you know, they
have their limits too, And Ibelieve this based on my experience, it's
really teetering on being off limits.We're gonna talk more with Detective Sean McCarthy
(52:29):
from the ol County Sheriff's Department's HomicideBureau, but first this is unsolved with
Steve Gregory on CAMF I AM sixforty. You're listening to kf I AM
sixty on demand. O hey ifI AM six forty live everywhere on the
(52:52):
iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory andthis is unsolved. To leave us a
comment, hit pound two fifty onyour cell phone and say the keyword or
press the red microphone button on theiHeartRadio app. Welcome back. We're inside
the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department's HumicideBureau in Monterey Park in a conference room
(53:15):
talking with cold case Detective Sean McCarthyabout the tragic shooting deaths of Miguel Perez,
thirteen years old and nineteen year oldJose Merlos. They were both cleaning
up a laundromat on March eighth,nineteen ninety two, just after ten pm
in the city of Lynnwood on LongBeach Boulevard. Detective you said that the
laundromat still exists. This address istwelve zero five zero Long Beach Boulevard,
(53:38):
and we're looking at photos of itand it has a lot of bars on
it. The wrought iron bars areall over the front part of it,
the side windows. And at thebeginning of this case, you were talking
a little bit about the fact thatthe front door would have been locked at
this time because the boys were cleaningup, they were allowing customers to stay
in there. They left the backdooropen so customers could come and go as
(54:01):
they were finished for the night.And somewhere along the way, one possibly
more people came in, brought thenineteen year old and the thirteen year old
to a back room, executed them, and then took some quarters. You
said it looked like there had beensome quarters missing. You've also mentioned that
(54:22):
robbery, while a possible motive,is not where you were leaning. So
I want to ask you something.You got to unpack these cases, and
you said gang activity. Who wasan all time high down there a number
of both black and Hispanic gangs.Who was the owner of this property?
And does the owner play any rolein this? And the owner of the
(54:44):
business or the owner of the property. I'm just going to be honest with
you. We haven't touched on thatin our investigation yet. And what I
mean by that is is that we'repursuing the person of interest and and invest
trying to determine the context of thestatement that was made in and I know
(55:08):
you're you're you're focused on who pulledthe trigger. I'm focused on why.
I'm kind of going down the whysince since you said that robbery is a
possible but not likely motive, I'mwondering who owned the business? Was there
a property dispute or was there abusiness dispute? Um? Do you know
anything about who owned the business?Okay, I'm gonna fall on this sort
(55:30):
of a little bit here and giveyou. I know you're aware of this,
but your audiences aren't aware of this. You've you've aired several of these,
and you've made it clear that thecold case unit is made of what
I think. We're down to tenpeople, huh um. And we're all
part time employees. We're all retiredhomicide investigators from the Sheriff's or who are
(55:53):
back on yearly contracts. So wehave ten investigators. We have nineteen thousand
cases in our libraries and one hundredyear history of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department,
nineteen thousand homicides and of those nineteenthousands, over four thousand our coal
(56:14):
cases. So we have plenty ofwork right right, and each investigator is
investigating in the area of twenty casesand those are twenty cases that we believe
can be solved that you know,you've got a tree hash in this business.
(56:34):
That's just the reality of it.We're a very large department where we're
not a department that handles two murdersa year, and we can focus all
of our attention. So we haveto go with the cases that are most
solvable and the leads that are thatare most prevalent in that case file based
on the review of the case fileright now, and we have multiple other
(57:00):
cases that are either have been filedand are in the adjudication process or on
the verge of being filed, andwe have to dedicate as much as we
can equal time to each case.So on the surface, you might say,
well, why in this case haven'tyou talked to the to the owner
(57:22):
of the manager to see if there'sanother possible motive. We would love to
do that, Steve, but rightnow we have to focus on the leads
that we have, exhaust those leads, and then maybe at some point determine
is this case it are we outof leads and we have to move on,
or do we go into a differentarea and look for a different motive.
(57:45):
We're not there yet, So theshort answer is, after I just
gave you a long answer, isis that we haven't had the time to
look in the possibility of a differentmotive or a different reason in this case.
And I want your audience to understandthat that it's very frustrating for us
too. I wish we only hadone or two unsolved cases and we could
(58:07):
focus all of our time on that. You know, So no, I
totally understand that. I just itjust as I sit and listen to you,
because you provide, as you've donemany times. You provide these synopsis
for us to read and look atit, and I'm I'm formulating questions,
and you know it's it's I guessit's part of the investigator geek in me,
(58:28):
investigative reporter geek in me. ButI'm trying to I'm trying to figure
out things along the way. Andthat's when you told me that the robbery
was a possible motive, but nota likely motive. I kept thinking,
well, what the hell would somebodywalk in there and shoot a thirteen year
old boy and a nineteen year oldyoung man execution style in a back room?
(58:50):
To me, that seems like thatwas a could be a message too
that maybe this was some sort ofa I'm going to give you a complete
hypothetical here, and I want tomake a clear it's a hypothetical. Sure.
One of the most frustrating things aboutinvestigating homicide cases. You never get
to talk to your victim. Youknow nothing about your victims, right right
you. You gather information on yourvictims based on what other people tell you.
(59:15):
We don't know what's going on intheir lives because we can't. We
can't interview them, so we haveto We have to use other avenues to
find out about our victims. Complicatedwith where this murder happened in an extremely
high crime area with vastly different typesof criminals, prostitution, narcotics sale.
(59:37):
Is it hypothetically possible that one ofthese kids got themselves into a mess with
the drug dealer over narcotics. Wehave no evidence to indicate that, but
it's a possibility because of the differenttypes of criminal and the area that this
occurred at, and what complicates acase like this more this is your classical
(01:00:00):
like and I'll give you an example, high profile cases. Everybody wants to
help you out. People come outof the woodwork, to help you out
a case like this, nobody wantsto help you out because of fear,
because of not being I want tobe portrayed as a snitch because it's in
a quote unquote ghetto area. Noone don't. I don't want to say
(01:00:22):
nobody cares. But the willingness tohelp out an investigation is much less in
a case like this, and thencomplicate it with all the possibilities here.
I don't know how many murders thatI've handled in the past where you have
a theory, you have some evidenceto back it up, not enough to
(01:00:44):
go to the district attorney, andthen when you ultimately solve it, it's
it's completely different from the theory thatyou that you were working on. And
that's why you know, and thismay sound corny, is our job is
corny as it sound, but it'sthe truth. It's to get to the
truth, right, whether it exoneratesthe person we're looking at or whether it
(01:01:07):
focuses more more guilt on them.But the last thing I want to do
as an investigator is prosecute an innocentperson. Okay, hold that thought.
When we come back, we'll wrapup with final thoughts. It's Detective Sean
McCarthy at the La County Sheriff's DepartmentThumicide Bureau. This is unsolved with Steve
Gregory on kf I AM six forty. You're listening to kf I AM sixty
(01:01:30):
on demand kf I AM six fortylive everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm
Steve Gregory and this is unsolved.You can always contact the team on the
iHeartRadio app through the talk back feature. Just press the red microphone and record
your message, tip or show ideaWelcome back. We're wrapping up the case
(01:02:01):
of the murders of Miguel Perez,a thirteen year old Hispanic boy, and
Jose Merlos, a nineteen year oldyoung Hispanic man, both gunned down execution
style in the back of a laundromatin the twelve thousand block of Long Beach
Boulevard in Lynnwood. It happened Marcheighth, nineteen ninety two, just after
ten pm. And we're talking nowwith the cold case detective who has reopened
(01:02:23):
the case, Sean McCarthy with theLa County Sheriffs Department SUMASI Bureau, and
we're inside headquarters there in Monterey Park. Detective before the break, you're explaining
the fact that you know, thesecold cases are incredibly frustrating because you know,
you can't talk to the victim anymore, you can't find out what happened,
(01:02:44):
and you've got sometimes very limited informationto go off of inside of a
case file. In this particular case, you do have some interesting photos,
you've got the notes, you actuallygot a person of interest. You're farther
along today then investigators were back innineteen ninety two. Right, I believe
we're a little farther along. It'sbringing us back to particular people that were
(01:03:10):
persons of interest in nineteen ninety Now, let's clarify because when you were presenting
that before, a couple segments backon the person of interest. Let's see
if we can break that down andtighten it up a little bit. So
you were called recently by someone thatis a friend of you and another of
your colleagues, your partner, RichTomlin, also a cold case detective.
(01:03:32):
That person said that there was aconversation at a party, and what was
overheard is that these two young people, before they were executed, had pled
for their lives. Correct. Thatwas a statement made during that conversation.
Between those individuals, which tells youas an investigator that that individual has to
(01:03:54):
have some sort of intimate knowledge ofthis, and that can only happen one
or two ways. They were there, or they know who was there and
got firsthand information. And then there'sthe random possibility it was a rumor.
You're operating on the first two thatit's either someone who was in the room
or someone who knows someone who wasin the room right right. And the
reason I'm have a stronger feeling aboutthat is is because one of the persons
(01:04:18):
involved in the conversation was a personof interest in the original in the original
case or the original investigation. Correct. Is that unusual when you've got someone
that was a person of interest longtime ago and now they're a person of
interest again. No, And letme explain. I would say seventy five
(01:04:39):
percent of the cases re review,there's a there's a person of interest or
persons of interests or in a lotof cases, viable suspects. But they
just couldn't produce enough evidence to takeit that. This took attorney or they
did take it to the distric atorneyinto the district attorney didn't feel that there
(01:05:01):
was enough to proceed with prosecution.So that person of interest is just glaring
you right in the face when youopen the case file. And a lot
of times when you reopen a casefile, you're like, why didn't they
pursue a little bit harder and digharder. But each investigator in this room
(01:05:24):
out here, almost ninety active investigatorsthat's not the cold case detectives are handling
around ten cases a year. AndI remember when I was out there on
that floor. You have that casewhere that person of interest is staring you
in the face, but you don'thave enough to go to the district attorney,
and you hang onto that case.You don't send it back to the
(01:05:44):
cold case unit because you're gonna getback to it and you're going to solve
that case. And then all ofa sudden, fifteen years go by and
you haven't really had a chance togo back to the case, and then
it goes back to the cold caseunit. And I completely understand why you
hang onto that case, but thereality is, sometimes maybe it would have
been better to take that case tothe cold case knowing that you weren't going
(01:06:04):
to be able to get back toit because you're handling the new cases every
every two weeks or so, thatmaybe the cold case detectives who may have
had the time to work it whenit was much more fresh and solvable,
if you will. But I'm nota big believer in that old theory.
If you don't solve it in fortyeight hours, they odds go way down.
(01:06:25):
Sometimes, I believe in a lotof cases, time is your ally.
And if you want me to explainwhy times your ally, I will,
But I know you're running. That'sanother conversation for another day. But
that's certainly interesting to me considering theirTV shows called forty YEA and those shows
frustrate me because time is in manycases your ally. Well, you know,
(01:06:49):
what is the threshold now that youhave this person of interest and you
seem pretty confident that this person canlead you somewhere, just based on your
facial expression in the way talk aboutit, What threshold do you have to
meet to get something like a wiretap for this person? Well, the
threshold is that you exhaust all otherinvestigative options because it's very intrusive when you're
(01:07:18):
you're listening to somebody's phone calls.So when you go to a judge with
a wire tap after David, thereis a list of things that he's going
to ask you if you've done inyour investigation that could have mitigated an intrusive
wire tap. So the threshold isvery high to get to get a wire
(01:07:38):
tap, and that's that's why we'redoing all these things in these cases.
So if we do feel a wiretap is the next logical step, we
can go to that judge and say, and we've done all these other investigative
options, got it well, Detective, Always a pleasure. Always appreciate your
time and we're happy to help.I hope that this shakes some trees and
(01:08:02):
gets you some information and helps youput this one to bed. Thanks,
always a pleasure. Sean McCarthy,Detective, Ella County Sheriff's Departments, Thomas
Sibereau Coldcase Unit, Thank you foryour time, and that's going to do
it unsolved as a production of theKFI News Department for iHeartMedia, Los Angeles.
Robin Bertolucci Program Director Chris Little,news Director. The program is produced
by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez.Our field engineer is Tony Sorrentino. Our
(01:08:27):
technical director is David Callaway. Ourdigital producer for this episode is Michelle Cube.
Our social media producer for this episodeis Lena Chappelle. Coming up,
it's Coast to Coast, But first, this is kf I AM six forty
time Now for a news update.Kf I AM sixty on demand
You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand, KFI AM six forty live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Onany given day in Southern California, hundreds
(00:26):
of investigators are working more than tenthousand unsolved cases. That's thousands of friends
and families who have lost loved ones, thousands of people who got away with
a crime, and thousands of murdererswho still walk the streets. Killers who
may be your neighbor, go toyour church, or could be dating a
close friend. For the next twohours will highlight cases that have gone cold,
(00:53):
baffled investigators, or just needs thatone witness to speak up. This
is Solved with Steve Gregory. Inthis episode, we take a look at
a tool that helps solve crimes,in this case Arson. It's part of
(01:15):
our ongoing crime Fighter series that highlightsthe work behind the scenes that helps investigators
find the piece of evidence they needto move a case forward or to finally
close it. The Los Angeles CountyFire Department recently added a four legged firefighter
to its ranks, an accelerant sniffingcanine and a member of the Arson Unit.
Her handlers, Captain Casey Flanders,so This is Julia. She's two
(01:37):
years old. She just had abirthday on July seventh, and she is
a Golden Door half Golden Retriever,half Labrador. And they basically use this
breed for a couple of reasons.One, they're great family dogs. Off
duty. She comes home with me. She's great with the kids, great
with the family. Another reason thesedogs are in that sporting group of dogs.
Their hunting drive is what they're after, and that's what we like to
(02:00):
see him go in a room andthe hunting drive gets their nose down to
find that agmainable liquid. And we'lllearn more about Julia in the next segment.
But I wanted to offer some historicalperspective, so I brought in Battalion
Chief Pete Finnerty, the head ofthe Arson unit. He explains the department
had inherited and arson K nine twentyyears ago, but that program fizzled out,
but in twenty fourteen they created newpolicies to get a Key nine unit
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up and running, and now thechief says, the department is embracing all
technologies old and new to tackle arsoninvestigations. So you have to have in
lay in many crimes as you wouldis you have to have witnesses that it
can identify people. You have tohave evidence that supports the hypothesis of what
we discover its seeing. You haveto have security video of that person,
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or in many cases, you haveto have a confession. So while cases
will we will work cases and theywill stay open until they're done. We
are getting cases back to back toback to back, So as a case
would come up that maybe takes moreor precedent because we have that evidence and
something we're sitting on, Hey,let's we're gonna put this in the background
(03:06):
and we're gonna wait and we're goingto come back to this case afterward.
I don't have an exact number ofhow many of those cases are. A
lot of cases don't sit open likethat. But another thing that we have
to deal with is in La County, as we're all aware, there's a
lot of people experiencing homelessness. Thosecases tend to be frequent for us,
and there isn't a lot there becausethe county's looking at assisting people as long
(03:29):
as there's no criminal intent involved inthat. Well, let's go back historically,
then, you know, when you'retalking about solving these arsons and determining
cause and manner in origin. Howmany investigators do you have in your arson
unit and how busy are they?So it's interesting. We have ten investigators,
(03:50):
of which i'm one, and Iam on the entire county. Yes,
Sir, for the entire county.And if you look at the numbers,
that's one hundred and seventy seven firestations, that's twenty three hundred square
miles, that's twenty one contract cities. And now we do split the county
with the sheriffs when it comes tothe arson portion. If the sheriffs have
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patrolled duty for an area, theyare the primary, so they do divide
that with us. An interesting pointthat a lot of people don't consider is
that we cover SRA land for brushfiresstate responsibility. So we have that contract
with cal Fire that's five hundred thousandacres of land and in this time of
the year, as you know,we're getting daily starts and with that come
(04:34):
having to know what the cause is. So yes, we have a pretty
big area to cover with three onduty investigators, twenty four hours of captain
and two investigators. But it's ourmission that we have and we work diligently
to solve that. And that's kindof goes back to what I said,
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we kind of have to prioritize whatwe've been given, not because we're not
going to investigate it, but whenthings come up that maybe take priority because
we have that good evidence to actuateon or to act on right away,
that's going to come into play.So chief how many fires out there remain,
like still up in the air oropen, you know, I would
say any one of my investigators probablyhas five cases that they're working simultaneously,
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something that we have concrete evidence on, something that's going to take a little
longer, something that takes longer becausewe're waiting on security video from a company
or anything like that. I wouldsay that there is a pretty good proportion
of cases that's probably exaggerating a littlethat will go undetermined, and that simply
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is due to the fact that younarrow it down. And this is kind
of arson, I would say.In a nutshell, you can say this,
Hey, the fire started in thisroom. The room didn't have power
to it, nobody was storing anychemicals in it, We didn't We don't
have any indication that somebody walked inand threw a match on the ground.
So of the stuff that's in thisroom, based on the information we have,
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here's what it could have been,and you can give. You can
give all the stuff that didn't causeit, and here's the couple of things
that could have. But you justdon't have that last piece of evidence that
is the thing that points to directlyto one thing. Conversely, you have
evidence on scene. You're looking atall this possibilities and then all of a
sudden, somebody says, hey,I have a security footage and they bring
(06:25):
something and you go, oh loand behold, there's the person running in
with a gas can, dousing theroom and throwing a match, and you
know exactly what started that. It'sno different than a homicide investigation. It
is very similar with respect to policework. It is very similar these guys
myself to say, is word detectiveswho focus solely on arson crime are you
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know fire? It's one of thehardest ones to solve, right. I
don't know how arson investigators did itthirty years ago, because I will say
what we get now is we doget a lot of help from the amount
of camors that are out in thetechnology. I would think too, right,
Absolutely, science and tech advancements absolutelyso they had a lot of stuff,
(07:06):
but a lot of it they don't. They didn't have as much as
we haven't. That's changing, youknow, year over year, and Julia
is kind of an example of somethingthat's been around a long time, but
something that can really bolster the case. I do want to talk a little
bit about advancements in technology. Whenyou talk about, you know, decades
ago and this is the nation's largestfire department, you know, we're you
(07:27):
as innovative with arson investigations that youknow of back then as you were with
a lot of things in firefighting.You know, it's hard for me to
answer that question without having the historicalcontext of some of the folks that I
do know that that worked in theunit as far back as right now,
we don't have I would say adecade or a little bit more. Is
the is the investigator that has beenthe longest in the unit. I do
(07:50):
know that one of the big thingsthat I can answer looking at historical documentation
is that the unit asked to havea fire administrative study done in ninety nine,
and it outlined all the areas thatthe National Fire Administration would say,
hey, if you really want tochange what you're doing, here's the suggestions
(08:13):
we have for how you can upgradeor become more efficient. And some of
that was scheduling. As I said, before they used to be on a
forty hour schedule. They would becalled in after hours. The department saw
some of the suggestions, they movedto a fifty six hour, three investigator
type shift works so they're on duty, ready to go at any moment.
So that type of stuff advances inus working with the lab, Sheriff's,
(08:35):
the county lab so we can getthings looked at, and that's a lot
of a lot of the advancements arethose things for everybody. What it's going
to come in the format of isa better reporting or better use of technology.
You know, in the past,you would take individual shots when you
were putting together a photo array,which is something we still do to this
(08:56):
day. You now have technology whereyou can say at a camera in the
center of the room and it'll takethree hundred and sixty degree photos, which
as I've been told by many peoplethat are moving to that technology. When
you go to court to try tobring this to a juror that doesn't understand
arson when you're able to give that. Hey, here's the room we were
looking at. Now, let metake you over to this corner. You
(09:18):
can see this corner is unburned,but see where all the damage is over
here. And people relate to thatversus single shot like, they get disoriented,
they don't understand what you're really referencing. So I would say things like
that, drones are a big one, you know, especially like with brush
fires. You know, we usedto have to bring ladders out and climb
the ladder and shoot these, youknow. Now we have that you know
(09:39):
us program you know on MANARIL,and we can ask for that assistance from
our own department because we have thattechnology, which is just simply more efficient.
It allows us to move on filethe case and get to work on
either something else or move on towhat that next portion of the case might
be. We'll talk more about theKenaine Arsen in it, but first this
(10:01):
is unsolved with Steve Gregory on kfI AM six forty. You're listening to
kf I AM six forty on demand, kf I AM six forty live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. I'm SteveGregory and this is unsolved. Welcome back.
(10:26):
We're at the La County Fire Department'sheadquarters in training center in Monterey Park,
where we've been talking about Julia,the department's accelerant sniffing canine, or
simply put, an arson dog.Captain Casey Flanders is Julia's handler. I
asked him more about Julia's training.So the training takes place mostly in New
Hampshire, back on the east coast. We spend some time in Massachusetts to
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the south and Maine to the north. But it's a program called Maine Specialty
Dogs, and it was a monthlong program. We were there for the
entire month of April, also knownas the muddy season out there. State
Farm, the insurance company, actuallysponsors this program. They hooked up with
Main Specialty Dogs back in nineteen ninetythree, and State Farm sponsors each student
(11:11):
through this program at the cost ofabout twenty five to thirty grand per student.
They pay for food and lodging andairfare, all that stuff. I
believe since nineteen ninety three, StateFarm has actually put four hundred and fifty
k nine teams into the field throughoutthe country. Right now, I believe
there's about ninety seven active teams aftermy class had graduated back in April.
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Has Julia already been working? Shehas. In fact, just before I
came here, we were working afire on the east end of the county
and she was working an exterior patiofire and she actually had a hit.
When I say a hit, Imean she gave me an alert for an
ignitable liquid that she detected. Doyou have arrest powers? I don't know,
are you guys peace officers? Yes, sir, we do. How
(11:54):
frequently do you make arrests for ourcimulated crime? So based on arson,
so we're based out of the LaBasin, so we cover the county,
so we're not able to get onscene, you know, always right away.
Sometimes it takes us twenty thirty hourand a half, depending if we
get called up to the high desert. So a lot of the times the
(12:15):
arrests take place by the local policeagency and then we follow up with the
case documentation and pressing and filing thecharges with the local DA. I would
imagine that the training is ongoing,and you know, you're constantly always challenged
out in the field because you don'tknow what you're running into, right.
Yeah, the training is ongoing,like you said, So the purpose of
(12:37):
the K nine team is to assistthe investigation by attaining by obtaining a sample
with the higher probability of coming backpositive from the lab. So, as
an arson investigator, we can walkin a scene and go, okay,
we like this corner for our origin. This is where that fire started.
We could be off by six inchesa foot three feet. The purpose of
the dog is to come in andnarrow that down, make that size really
(13:00):
small, so we can dig thatsample, send it to the lab.
If the lab confirms it for anignitable liquid or an accelerant, now we've
got an extra piece of evidence forour arson case. That arson case also
needs to be made with or withoutthe dog. That ignitable liquid is similar
to what a gun would be ina murder case. Okay, we still
(13:22):
have to have a suspect. Westill have to place that suspect at the
scene. We still have to lookat motive, other things to establish a
case for arson, not just thataccelerant. So that dog helps us narrow
down that evidence for our case.We use the dogs there for three things.
Really for their olfactory capabilities right intheir sense of smell, the ability
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to set discriminate, to tell thedifference between sense between burnt wood, burnt
paper, burnt plastic, and thataccelerant. And these dogs are always unbiased.
They don't care what neighborhood they're in, who lives there. They either
detect something or they don't. Asfar as the dog's olfactory capabilities, the
average human has five to six millionolfactory receptors in our nose. The dogs
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have between two hundred and twenty fiveto three hundred million, so about fifty
times greater a sense of smell thanwe do. One eighth of the excuse
me, one eighth of their brainis dedicated to that odor processing. Half
fifty percent of their nose is dedicatedto that scent processing. As far as
her training aid during our training,I have a I can show it to
(14:28):
you right now. I actually haveit in my popular ad. It's gonna
smell like gasoline to you. It'sgasoline based, but it's not pure gasoline.
It's actually produced by a local chemisthere at our sheriff LA County Sheriff's
Crime Lab. And this is theonly thing we use. This is what
I drop on floors, This iswhat I drop on evidence through all the
different evolutions that I run her through. This is the only thing that she
(14:48):
sniffs during training. But through thistraining medium, she's able to recognize accelerants
spanning the full spectrum. Again talkingabout those light, medium, and heavy
disolates and those examples. I gaveyou the gasoline, the acid tone,
the nail polished remover, the lampoil, light or fluid, etc.
So by just this one based onhistorical use of the dogs. And again
(15:09):
they've got you know, four hundredand fifty teams since nineteen ninety three and
all the lab confirmations that they've gottenwith all those the wide spectrum of accelerants,
So this is usual. This iskind of a way to calibrate Julia,
right, yes, sir, exactly. Yeah, this gets imprinted on
her brain and through this she's ableto recognize several different accelerants on scenes.
(15:33):
Yeah. So with that said,she's a food reward dog, which means
she doesn't eat unless she smells gas. That's not to say she only eats
when we get a fire. It'sto say that on and off duty,
morning, noon and night throughout theday, I have to set up evolutions
and training for her to go through. Fine gas so that I can get
(15:56):
some food on board. So firstthing in the morning, throughout the day,
and then at night and then sometimesin the middle of the night if
she gets a call. Right,we're we're setting up stuff. The kids
have to help out at home,they have to help me set up stuff.
They like doing it. And also, you know, forms a good
bond with the dog. So um, yeah, it's it's a team effort.
Well, and you're right, it'sand it's a lot of maintenance,
(16:18):
a lot of maintenance. Yeah,there's there's stuff that kind of goes,
you know, unnoticed. You know, you gotta take them for walks.
You got to clean up after thedog. You got to bathe the dog.
Every scene she gets she gets into, she comes out pretty dirty.
So we got to keep an eyeon. And yeah, that's the other
thing to you we're talking about howyou know she's jumping and raring to go
when you get to a scene.I mean, I assume that the firefighters
(16:41):
before you, the ones who haveextinguished the fire, have determined that it's
safe to enter. Um, areyou worried about like the heat of the
floor or has it dissipated enough towhere the pads of her feet aren't impacted.
Things like that. Usually by thetime we get there, because we
don't get there with the the firston scene cruise. Usually we're thirty minutes
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to an hour, sometimes an hourand a half behind the first on scene
units, based on when we receivethe notification for a need. By then
the floor is cooled off a littlebit. I always perform a safety walk
through through the building. I mean, I'm looking for nails, I'm looking
for sharp objects, broken glass,things to injure the dog. I'm trying
to get that out of her way, move some things, maybe give her
(17:25):
a clear path so she can hitall portions of the interior that building.
We were really good about decontaminating thatdog. They're walking through you know water,
sometimes it's got all kinds of chemicals, you know, foam, whatever,
what have you. So we haveto clean these dogs after every fire,
and we're always checking them. Aswe're cleaning them, we're checking them
for injuries too. So then,and I don't know if you mentioned this,
(17:48):
and I might have forgotten. Soit's Julia on a leash the whole
time you're in a building, ordo you unleash her and let her go,
she'll be on lead the entire time. Okay, yeah, through when
when we're working a scene, she'salways on lead, yes sir, yeah.
And then what about the time aftera fire has been extinguished? Is
it like in a homicide Sometimes thelonger you wait to go in and accumulate
(18:11):
evidence that maybe evidence dissipates, evidencedegrades. I mean that is that the
same in an arts and investigation.Absolutely, the two biggest foes we go
up against our fire and water.So sometimes whatever accelerant is used does get
completely consumed and there's no traces forher to find. The other thing we
go up against is water. Whenwe have these big two alarmed, three
(18:34):
alarm fires, we're flowing you know, at the end of the day millions
of gallons of water through this building, that those trace amounts of accelerants get
washed away. Or in a smallerexample, like a smaller residential structure,
let's say the accelerant is on thewest side of the room. Well,
sometimes that water will push it tothe east side of the room. She'll
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get a hit on the east sideof the room where that accelerant has been
pushed to. Even though the firepattern, the poor pattern of accelerant is
on the west side, so itgets confusing to some of the guys who
are looking from behind, saying,Hey, the patterns over to the right,
but your dog's hitting over to theleft. Your dog's broken, and
my job is just to trust thatdog. She knows. Hey, I
don't know what's over there, butthe accelerant's over here, and it got
(19:18):
pushed by the by the water overhere. So yeah, between between fire
and water, we're always up againstvariables on scene trying to locate that evidence.
Coming up a horrific double execution oftwo teenage boys in Linwood. But
first, this is Unsolved with SteveGregory on kf I AM six forty.
You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand kf I AM six forty live
(19:45):
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'mSteve Gregory, and this is unsolved.
To reach the Unsolved team through theiHeartRadio app, press the red microphone and
leave us a story, idea tip, or comment, or simply press pound
two fifty on your cell phone andsay the keyword unsolved. Los Angeles County
(20:11):
Sheriff's Homicide case number zero nine twozero three five zero eight Dash two five
one seven Dash zero one one theexecutions of nineteen year old Jose Merlos and
thirteen year old Miguel Cuts. We'retalking now with Detective Sean McCarthy. He's
(20:38):
with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department'sCold Case Unit within the Homicide Bureau.
We're inside Homicide Bureau headquarters in MontereyPark. We're talking about a case going
back to March eighth, nineteen ninetytwo, the death of a thirteen year
old and nineteen year old. Let'sget started with a quick overview of the
case. Okay, This homicide acurve in the city of Lynnwood at Long
(21:03):
Beach Boulevard and Cedar Avenue. It'sit's your typical coin operated laundromat self serve.
It's open most of the day,but generally it closed around seven thirty.
(21:25):
In this particular night, it wasa Sunday night. The business closed.
Two employees by the name of MiguelPerez and Jose Merlos. They began
their shift after the business closed.They worked as clean up people, janitors
(21:48):
if you will, and generally speaking, they would lock the front door sometime
around seven thirty, but they wouldallow custom to remain who were still doing
their wash. They would leave theback door open most of the time to
give those customers access an access pointto leave once they were finished. On
(22:15):
this particular night, I can onlyassume that's what happened based on my review
of the case file, because Iwas not one of the original investigators.
Sometime after seven thirty, and I'massuming the regular customers left, someone entered
(22:37):
the business or were led inside thebusiness, and at some point they produced
firearms. They led both Miguel andJose at gunpoint into a rear office,
(23:00):
and they executed both of them.And I'm saying this with not a lot
of certainty, but there was someevidence to indicate that the motive was robbery,
because some of the washing machines hadbeen tampered with in the area where
money would be inserted, and therewas some coins apparently missing. But I'm
(23:27):
not going to sit here and tellyou that that definitively was the motive in
this case. Okay, I gotto ask you something. It just kind
of struck me when you said theytook these two young men, this boy
and this young man to the backand executed them. Would you please describe
your definition in this case, andI don't mean to be flipping about it,
(23:51):
but as opposed to just going inand robbing a place and just shooting
these folks, what in your minddefines this as an execution? The the
way that they were murdered, theywere both shot in the chest and the
left left side of the chest wecall we would call it. It's referred
to in law enforcements as the tenring on on on a target at a
(24:14):
at a range. That's that's thearea where where the ten the tenure uh
is located. Um, that wasjust a random these two kids, and
I referred to them as kids becauseone was nineteen, one was thirteen.
They didn't just shoot them as theywere running out of the business, try
to trying to escape from from whatevercrime was being committed. They were led
(24:37):
back there into that into that office, and they were shot in an area
of the body that clearly indicates,in my opinion, execution. And you
provided a few moments ago, andwe're not going to be posting these photos
online, but you you are showingme photos from the file. And obviously
(24:57):
it's a very sad sight when yougot these two young people behind and it
looks like in this you say officearea, But um, what would be
the purpose of this? I mean, why, detective, do you take
a thirteen year old and a nineteenyear old to a back room execute them
(25:18):
in the commission of a robbery?I mean, why do you do that?
My opinion only, Okay, ifyou look at the front of the
business, there's there's large windows,right if they would, if they would,
if they were to kill them,there potentially people on the street,
and Long Beach Boulevard is a verybusy street in Lynnwood. They would be
seen, they and somebody would callthe police. The gunshots would be heard,
(25:44):
would be more likely be heard ifyou if you lead them into a
back office, it's more secure,included, it's more insulated from the noise
of the gunshots in that room,and it would eliminate anybody witnessing the shooting
and potentially identifying this suspect. Beingthat this is in nineteen ninety two,
(26:08):
you were not the original investigator onthe case. To you kind of have
to piece this together like you doall cold cases that you did not have
a hand in originally. But youhave to take the notes of previous investigators.
You have to put this together inyour mind, and do you go
through these different scenarios on what youthink might have happened based on your experience
(26:29):
and what you know that's in frontof you. Do you have enough to
connect some dots or do you haveto take some leaps. I don't know
if you and I have had thisdiscussion before, but early in my investigative
career, especially my investigative career homicideBureau, I had a part I was
being trained by a more a muchmore experienced investigator, and we had a
(26:53):
case that had a lot of suspectsand had a lot of theories. And
I asked my mentor, is itwrong to theorize in a criminal investigation?
And his answer was no, Wewe all theorize. We're all human beings.
We look at a particular incident andwe ultimately theorized in some ways as
(27:22):
it relates to the case, right, And some theories sound really great,
but he says, the bottom lineis you have to have evidence to back
up that theory. So to answeryour question is, yeah, I looked
at this case and I immediately startedtheorizing based on the pictures that I'm looking
at, based on my experienced butit's all meaningless unless you have evidence to
(27:48):
back it up, and right now, in this case, we have very
minimal evidence to point at anybody inparticular. When we come back, let's
talk about some of those theories andlet's take a little deeper on what could
been the motive and maybe based onsome of those theories in your experience,
(28:10):
maybe some possible suspects. But first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on
kf I AM six forty. You'relistening to kf I AM sixty on demand
kf I AM six forty live everywhereon the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory,
(28:36):
and this is Unsolved. You canreach the Unsolved team on email.
Just send us a message Unsolved atiHeartMedia dot com. That's Unsolved at iHeartMedia
dot com. Welcome backworth the LosAngeles County sheriffs Department's Homicide Bureau in Monterey
Park, and we're in a conferenceroom speaking with cold case Detective Sean McCarthy.
(28:59):
Before the breakdo, Detective, wewere talking a lot about theories and
about some of your experience when youcrack open one of these cold case files
and sometimes and I know I can'timagine. You don't know what's on the
other side of that folder. Whenyou open that folder, you have no
idea what you're going to be lookingat. You may have stacks and stacks
(29:19):
of information, and you may justhave a few pages. So you have
to take whatever's in front of youand try to put fresh eyes on an
old case. In this particular case, we're talking about the shooting deaths of
Miguel Perez, who was thirteen yearsold and Jose Merlos, who was nineteen
years old. They were cleaning upa laundromat on March eighth, nineteen ninety
(29:41):
two, just after ten o'clock ontwelve o five oh Long Beach Boulevard in
Lynnwood. And I've seen photos ofthe crime scene you showed me where these
two young men were shot execution style. You said, so, theory when
you look at this in this particularcase, what dots did you connect as
(30:04):
a theory? Okay, the mostas we spoken in the previous segment,
the most obvious theory, based onminimal evidence, is that the motive was
robbery. In this case, therewere some washing machines that had been tampered
with. They were they were selfserved. But the reality is it wasn't
(30:26):
like they ransacked the whole place,emptied every washing machine in the place,
and there was a lot of washingmachines in this place, like there are
in most self served. There wasonly a few that were tampered with.
So the obvious theory or motive isrobbery. But based on my experience,
(30:52):
I find it hard to believe thatthey led these two young I look him
as children, a thirteen year old, into a back room and shot him
execution style. I have to lookdeeper into that, and I refused to
(31:12):
just accept robbery for a few quartersin this type of a murder, I
just I got to look at otheroptions and could it be robbery? Yes,
And I'll tell you why if wehaven't discussed this. This area of
(31:33):
Lynnwood extremely high crime rate with vastlydifferent types of criminals. You have high
prostitution on Long Beach Boulevard, highnarcotics use, narcotics sales, you have.
It's saturated with street gangs both Hispanicand Black, a high vagrant population.
(31:55):
I know that's a big topic intwenty twenty two. Trust me in
nineteen ninety two because I worked thatarea when Firestone Station and Linwood Station merged
in nine Two years later, innineteen ninety four, I was at Firestone
Station and this is in Linwood,but when we merged, it became one
big station. So for the nextfew years, before I went to Homicide
Bureau, I worked this area.I know this area well and it is
(32:22):
an extreme it's even today, it'san extremely high crime area with vastly different
types of criminals. So is itpossible that somebody who was whacked out on
drugs or whatever went in there justjust to rob the place to steal a
few coins to go get a asmall amount of cocaine. It's possible,
(32:47):
but I don't think that's the likelymotive. It's a possible motive, but
I don't think it's the likely motive. Now, if you're asking me,
do I have a motive that I'mleaning that I'm leaning heavily on, the
answer is no. Um, okay, then let me let me pose a
(33:07):
couple of things. So, firstof all, you told me that the
laundromat, based on the notes,the only door, the only entrance exit
was backdoor, and that was thatwas generally what would happen. The two
employees, the victims in this casewould begin their shift at seven thirty.
(33:29):
They would lock the front door.That was regular and for obvious reasons,
is the high crime area. AndI would like to note too that this,
you know, with these photos youshowed me at the front, these
all these windows have a lot ofvery heavy bars onto them, so that
already indicates it's an area that's that'sof concern in terms of robbery and burglary.
(33:50):
So what I'm getting at is thefront door was already closed. The
backdoor was the only door open.Do you believe that? Again, and
only based on your experience and whateveryou might have seen in the notes the
shooter or shooters, did they comeinto the laundromat or were they among those
that were allowed to stay in there? And sort of were they lingering in
(34:12):
there or do you think or doyou think they came in there? I
honestly believe either as a possible responsibility. And do you think again, with
an execution style murders and the factthat there was very little money taken actually
taken in it's all in quarters plannedor spontaneous, I think there was there
(34:37):
was some planning and what I meanby that and I'll reveal a little bit
about the original investigation. There wastwo male black adults that were seen by
a witness shortly before the learning murderthat were loitering near the business. That
(34:57):
witness said they they honed in onthese two and watched them for several minutes,
and at one point they walked upto the window and they peered inside.
And is that a form of casingthe place could be? I think
I think this was done by somebodywho lived in the in the general area
(35:22):
of the laundromatt, who knew theworkings out of the business. I don't
think it would take a whole lotof casing to figure out they close at
seven thirty. There's no real supervisionthere, or generally there's there's two young
(35:42):
employees that come in and clean up, and with very little UH casing,
they would realize pretty quickly that theyallow customers that haven't finished or washed to
stay and exit to the back door. So and take much planning to figure
out that we can get inside thisplace very easily, very easily by just
(36:07):
going through the backdoor. Because I'msure some of those customers who use that
regularly they've verbalized it to their friends, and so I'm sure a lot of
the community knew that they were niceenough to leave the business open for them
to finish their laundry and exit throughthe backdoor. We're talking with Sean McCarthy.
(36:28):
He's a detective in the cold caseunit of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department's Homicide Bureau. When we comeback, more of the case of the
two murders inside the laundromatt in Lynnwood. But first, this is unsolved with
Steve Gregory on kf I AM sixforty. You're listening to kf I AM
sixty on demand kf I AM sixforty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
(37:06):
I'm Steve Gregory, and this isunsolved for inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's
Department's Homicide Bureau in Monterey Park ata conference room talking with cold case detective
(37:30):
Sean McCarthy about the murders of MiguelPerez, thirteen year old Hispanic Jose Merlos,
a nineteen year old Hispanic. Bothwere cleaning up a laundromat in the
twelve hundred block of Long Beach Boulevardin Lynnwood. The date March eighth,
nineteen ninety two, just after tenpm. Detective, I know in these
(37:52):
cold cases you deal with so manyof them, and I know in La
County you have a ton of differentcold cases, and you know you're only
so many people. I know thatyou have to maybe some criteria might have
to crop up in order for youto reopen a case. Was there something
about this case after all this timethat jumped out at you that said we
need to revisit it? Yes,what was that? I received a telephone
(38:16):
call from I won't identify this person, but it's a very credible and reliable
source that both me and my partner, rich Tomlin have a friendship with.
This person told us that they havea friend through their wife, who actually
(38:42):
grew up on inland Wood in relativelyclose proximity to the laundromat, and they
were very They were of elementary schoolage at the time of the murder.
We were directed to this witness.We interviewed, interviewed the witness and they
(39:05):
told us a story, And basicallythe story is is that they were a
young child. They were at agathering, a small gathering. They overheard
three people, actually four people talkingabout the murder it was relatively soon after
(39:28):
the murder, so it was atopic. It wasn't unusual that that topic
came up because everybody in the neighborhoodknew about the murder. But the conversation
is what takeued their interest. Andbasically, in the conversation, and I'm
not going to reveal any more thanthis, the statement was made that both
(39:51):
both victims pled for their lives priorto being executed, and that became an
important statement to me as an investigatorto indicate that that person who was in
that conversation and made that statement eitherwas a participant in the murder, or
(40:15):
had conversation with somebody who was aparticipant and made that statement to them,
or could have been just rumor couldhave been could have been you're grinning,
yes, because there's more to thisstory. And the more that I can
reveal is is the statement was madein the setting where a person, a
(40:45):
very strong person of interest was identifiedin nineteen ninety two, and I would
say he bordered on being a viablesuspect. So that person of interest who
was interviewed and identified by investigators innineteen ninety two was also the person in
(41:08):
this conversation that was overheard by thiselementary school witness. Okay, so why
was that person of interest never pursuedbeyond that he is being pursued today.
(41:31):
And what I mean by that ishe's still a person of interest. I
can't speak for the investigators in nineteenninety two, there's nothing in the case
file. The person of interest wasinterviewed. The person of interest made some
denials about being inside the business ataround the time of the murder, and
(41:57):
then recanted and admitted that he wasn'tside. But his alibi was I was
just helping a woman out that hedidn't know her last name, so apparently
they contract this woman out to verifyhis story, and that was and he
lived in the area, and hebasically said, yeah, I was in
(42:22):
there after he denied it, butI was helping this woman out with their
laundry, and I exited the backdoor like all the customer late customers did
and at that point, for whateverreason, the interest in him seemed to
stop. Now, I'm not goingto criticize the original investigators for stopping the
(42:44):
investigation on him. Maybe there wassome other things that were said that were
never documented that convinced them that hewas not to the point of being a
Bible suspect yet. But when Iinterviewed this with this thirty years later and
has told me this person of interestwas part of this conversation that they overheard,
(43:07):
he immediately jumped back to being avery strong person of interest. And
we're in the process of continuing theinvestigation with him as a focal point.
How old would this person of interestbe now in his fifties and you know
for a fact that he's still alive. I do is he in La County?
(43:30):
He is? Have you made contact? No? And there's reasons for
that because, as I said before, there's multiple people involved in this conversation
that was overheard, and we haveto be very delicate about how we approached
this. So if we interview one, he doesn't run back to the other
(43:54):
ones and say don't talk to thepolice. They're inquired about that, so
we have to show you. Soyou're basically implying that there is more than
one person involved in this crime.I feel strongly about that, and I
can't get into why. When wecome back, we'll see if we can
(44:16):
squeeze any more information out of DetectiveMcCarthy. But first, this is Unsolved
with Steve Gregory on kf I AMsix forty. You're listening to kf I
AM six forty on demand KFI AMsix forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
(44:40):
I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. To learn more about this case
and others, go to our websiteat KFI AM six forty dot com slash
unsolved. That's KFI AM six fortydot com slash unsolved. Welcome back.
(45:01):
We're inside Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department'sHomicide Bureau, the Cold Case Unit,
talking with Detective Sean McCarthy about acase going back to nineteen ninety two.
March eighth, just a little afterten pm, thirteen year old Miguel Perez
nineteen year old Josie Merlos both shotexecution style and the back of a laundromat.
They were there to clean up.That was their job, and this
(45:23):
was in the twelve thousand block ofLong Beach Boulevard and Lynnwood. Detective,
First of all, is the laundromatsstill there? Yes, it is still
there after all these years. Myknowledge, Now, this was just after
ten o'clock at night. What's aroundthat laundromt were there any witnesses? I
mean, when you hear gunfire andhow many shots were fired total? I
(45:46):
don't know that anybody heard the gunshots. I will say this, the
victims victims were shot one time each. I don't want to get any further
am So then did anyone see anybodyrun out of the building or leave the
area? I know I didn't mentionthis in the earlier segments, but both
(46:07):
victims lived in an apartment complex thatadjacent to the laundryman, so they only
had to walk a short distance towork. They lived with other family members.
One of the other family members wasinterviewed after the murder and and just
(46:29):
for information purposes, the Miguel's Ibelieve it was Miguel's father discovered the bodies.
He was the one who discovered thebodies. He walked. I believe
he tried to get ahold of oneof the victims, one of them,
(46:49):
one of them was married to theother one's sister. So both victims were
living in this apartment with other relativeswith Miguel's family, okay, Jose was
married to one of the sisters.Got it okay, So during the interview
(47:12):
with one of the family members.They said that around the time of the
murder, they heard some some noise. They they went out in the balconire,
looked out of an upper floor window, and they saw two male black
adults climbing over the wall behind thelaundromat and enter a small, dark compact
(47:36):
vehicle. Prior to entering the vehicle, one of the mails dropped a handgun
onto the pavement and frantically grabbed itand got into the vehicle. The only
other thing of interest would be isthat this witness was certain that there was
young children in that car because theycould hear crying from children as they entered
(48:00):
the car. And that's the vehicleleft southbound on Long Beach Boulevard. And
based on my review of the casefile was never found with the timeline fit.
Yes, so that the witness sawit well, presumably moments after it
happened in that ten o'clock area orthat ten o'clock timeframe. Yes, So
(48:25):
before the break we were talking abouta person of interest, possibly persons of
interest, and you said there's someoneyou're focusing in on now. Is that
person African American? Yes, Soat least you have that part to go
with let me say this, theperson of interest is African American. Other
(48:46):
people involved in the conversation that wespoke in the other segment where the statement
was made, there was there wasat least one that was of another race,
a different race other than African American. Okay, yes, not Caucasian.
Not Caucasian, okay. But becauseyou know, if the witness said
(49:07):
that she saw two African Americans leaving, presumably there might have been someone else
in the vehicle or just the children. I'm not going to dispute what a
what a witness said. Well,are have you talked to that witness lately?
(49:27):
The witness to the one that sawthe two people leave the building?
No, okay, I was justcurious if that person is still around.
Have you spoken to any of thefamily of perezer Merlos. So you're very
good at your job, Steve.But I said, there was a conversation
that was overheard and the group inthe conversation, the person of interest was
(49:51):
part of that, and there wasanother person in that conversation that was not
African American. But what I didn'tsay was if I believe that that person
was a co conspirator, because Ido not believe that that person was a
goal conspirator, and I cannot getinto it, so that would lend credibility
to the witnesses statement of the twomale blacks. It's possible that the person
(50:15):
of interest is one of those,is one of those male blacks, and
then somebody, another African American,is also involved, and we're pursuing that
avenue and we are looking at anotherperson of interest that may have been the
second person. But the person thatwas not African America involved in the conversation.
(50:37):
We don't believe he had any rolein the murder, but we believe
his role would be able to provideus information on what he knows based on
that conversation in that group. Isn'tit frustrating to have to dance around all
this without just telling us what you'rereally thinking. Yeah? Yeah, So
that said, I know you're tryingto unpack this and still preserve the integrity
(51:01):
of the investigation. I appreciate yourposition, So I'm gonna move on.
I'm going to ask you something elseabout the laundromat itself. You said that
you don't think robbery was a motive, and these poor too young. I
stand correct that I believe robbery isa possible motive, but I don't know
that. You were leaning somewhere else. Yeah, I'm leaning that. And
(51:25):
this is just my own compassionate nature. Is I've dealt with a lot of
pretty hardened criminals. And when youmarch two young kids back into a room
and execute them for apparently a handfulof quarters, that's frowned on in the
(51:45):
criminal community. You just don't dothat unless you're mentally ill, whacked down
on drugs, or there's a motivethat we don't know about, you know,
So I refused just buy robbery asa motive in this case, unless
it's somebody who was mentally ill,was really wacked on on drugs, or
(52:07):
just it was some sort of athrill kill. You just don't murder young
kids like that. And and criminals, hardened criminals, you know, they
have their limits too, And Ibelieve this based on my experience, it's
really teetering on being off limits.We're gonna talk more with Detective Sean McCarthy
(52:29):
from the ol County Sheriff's Department's HomicideBureau, but first this is unsolved with
Steve Gregory on CAMF I AM sixforty. You're listening to kf I AM
sixty on demand. O hey ifI AM six forty live everywhere on the
(52:52):
iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory andthis is unsolved. To leave us a
comment, hit pound two fifty onyour cell phone and say the keyword or
press the red microphone button on theiHeartRadio app. Welcome back. We're inside
the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department's HumicideBureau in Monterey Park in a conference room
(53:15):
talking with cold case Detective Sean McCarthyabout the tragic shooting deaths of Miguel Perez,
thirteen years old and nineteen year oldJose Merlos. They were both cleaning
up a laundromat on March eighth,nineteen ninety two, just after ten pm
in the city of Lynnwood on LongBeach Boulevard. Detective you said that the
laundromat still exists. This address istwelve zero five zero Long Beach Boulevard,
(53:38):
and we're looking at photos of itand it has a lot of bars on
it. The wrought iron bars areall over the front part of it,
the side windows. And at thebeginning of this case, you were talking
a little bit about the fact thatthe front door would have been locked at
this time because the boys were cleaningup, they were allowing customers to stay
in there. They left the backdooropen so customers could come and go as
(54:01):
they were finished for the night.And somewhere along the way, one possibly
more people came in, brought thenineteen year old and the thirteen year old
to a back room, executed them, and then took some quarters. You
said it looked like there had beensome quarters missing. You've also mentioned that
(54:22):
robbery, while a possible motive,is not where you were leaning. So
I want to ask you something.You got to unpack these cases, and
you said gang activity. Who wasan all time high down there a number
of both black and Hispanic gangs.Who was the owner of this property?
And does the owner play any rolein this? And the owner of the
(54:44):
business or the owner of the property. I'm just going to be honest with
you. We haven't touched on thatin our investigation yet. And what I
mean by that is is that we'repursuing the person of interest and and invest
trying to determine the context of thestatement that was made in and I know
(55:08):
you're you're you're focused on who pulledthe trigger. I'm focused on why.
I'm kind of going down the whysince since you said that robbery is a
possible but not likely motive, I'mwondering who owned the business? Was there
a property dispute or was there abusiness dispute? Um? Do you know
anything about who owned the business?Okay, I'm gonna fall on this sort
(55:30):
of a little bit here and giveyou. I know you're aware of this,
but your audiences aren't aware of this. You've you've aired several of these,
and you've made it clear that thecold case unit is made of what
I think. We're down to tenpeople, huh um. And we're all
part time employees. We're all retiredhomicide investigators from the Sheriff's or who are
(55:53):
back on yearly contracts. So wehave ten investigators. We have nineteen thousand
cases in our libraries and one hundredyear history of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department,
nineteen thousand homicides and of those nineteenthousands, over four thousand our coal
(56:14):
cases. So we have plenty ofwork right right, and each investigator is
investigating in the area of twenty casesand those are twenty cases that we believe
can be solved that you know,you've got a tree hash in this business.
(56:34):
That's just the reality of it.We're a very large department where we're
not a department that handles two murdersa year, and we can focus all
of our attention. So we haveto go with the cases that are most
solvable and the leads that are thatare most prevalent in that case file based
on the review of the case fileright now, and we have multiple other
(57:00):
cases that are either have been filedand are in the adjudication process or on
the verge of being filed, andwe have to dedicate as much as we
can equal time to each case.So on the surface, you might say,
well, why in this case haven'tyou talked to the to the owner
(57:22):
of the manager to see if there'sanother possible motive. We would love to
do that, Steve, but rightnow we have to focus on the leads
that we have, exhaust those leads, and then maybe at some point determine
is this case it are we outof leads and we have to move on,
or do we go into a differentarea and look for a different motive.
(57:45):
We're not there yet, So theshort answer is, after I just
gave you a long answer, isis that we haven't had the time to
look in the possibility of a differentmotive or a different reason in this case.
And I want your audience to understandthat that it's very frustrating for us
too. I wish we only hadone or two unsolved cases and we could
(58:07):
focus all of our time on that. You know, So no, I
totally understand that. I just itjust as I sit and listen to you,
because you provide, as you've donemany times. You provide these synopsis
for us to read and look atit, and I'm I'm formulating questions,
and you know it's it's I guessit's part of the investigator geek in me,
(58:28):
investigative reporter geek in me. ButI'm trying to I'm trying to figure
out things along the way. Andthat's when you told me that the robbery
was a possible motive, but nota likely motive. I kept thinking,
well, what the hell would somebodywalk in there and shoot a thirteen year
old boy and a nineteen year oldyoung man execution style in a back room?
(58:50):
To me, that seems like thatwas a could be a message too
that maybe this was some sort ofa I'm going to give you a complete
hypothetical here, and I want tomake a clear it's a hypothetical. Sure.
One of the most frustrating things aboutinvestigating homicide cases. You never get
to talk to your victim. Youknow nothing about your victims, right right
you. You gather information on yourvictims based on what other people tell you.
(59:15):
We don't know what's going on intheir lives because we can't. We
can't interview them, so we haveto We have to use other avenues to
find out about our victims. Complicatedwith where this murder happened in an extremely
high crime area with vastly different typesof criminals, prostitution, narcotics sale.
(59:37):
Is it hypothetically possible that one ofthese kids got themselves into a mess with
the drug dealer over narcotics. Wehave no evidence to indicate that, but
it's a possibility because of the differenttypes of criminal and the area that this
occurred at, and what complicates acase like this more this is your classical
(01:00:00):
like and I'll give you an example, high profile cases. Everybody wants to
help you out. People come outof the woodwork, to help you out
a case like this, nobody wantsto help you out because of fear,
because of not being I want tobe portrayed as a snitch because it's in
a quote unquote ghetto area. Noone don't. I don't want to say
(01:00:22):
nobody cares. But the willingness tohelp out an investigation is much less in
a case like this, and thencomplicate it with all the possibilities here.
I don't know how many murders thatI've handled in the past where you have
a theory, you have some evidenceto back it up, not enough to
(01:00:44):
go to the district attorney, andthen when you ultimately solve it, it's
it's completely different from the theory thatyou that you were working on. And
that's why you know, and thismay sound corny, is our job is
corny as it sound, but it'sthe truth. It's to get to the
truth, right, whether it exoneratesthe person we're looking at or whether it
(01:01:07):
focuses more more guilt on them.But the last thing I want to do
as an investigator is prosecute an innocentperson. Okay, hold that thought.
When we come back, we'll wrapup with final thoughts. It's Detective Sean
McCarthy at the La County Sheriff's DepartmentThumicide Bureau. This is unsolved with Steve
Gregory on kf I AM six forty. You're listening to kf I AM sixty
(01:01:30):
on demand kf I AM six fortylive everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm
Steve Gregory and this is unsolved.You can always contact the team on the
iHeartRadio app through the talk back feature. Just press the red microphone and record
your message, tip or show ideaWelcome back. We're wrapping up the case
(01:02:01):
of the murders of Miguel Perez,a thirteen year old Hispanic boy, and
Jose Merlos, a nineteen year oldyoung Hispanic man, both gunned down execution
style in the back of a laundromatin the twelve thousand block of Long Beach
Boulevard in Lynnwood. It happened Marcheighth, nineteen ninety two, just after
ten pm. And we're talking nowwith the cold case detective who has reopened
(01:02:23):
the case, Sean McCarthy with theLa County Sheriffs Department SUMASI Bureau, and
we're inside headquarters there in Monterey Park. Detective before the break, you're explaining
the fact that you know, thesecold cases are incredibly frustrating because you know,
you can't talk to the victim anymore, you can't find out what happened,
(01:02:44):
and you've got sometimes very limited informationto go off of inside of a
case file. In this particular case, you do have some interesting photos,
you've got the notes, you actuallygot a person of interest. You're farther
along today then investigators were back innineteen ninety two. Right, I believe
we're a little farther along. It'sbringing us back to particular people that were
(01:03:10):
persons of interest in nineteen ninety Now, let's clarify because when you were presenting
that before, a couple segments backon the person of interest. Let's see
if we can break that down andtighten it up a little bit. So
you were called recently by someone thatis a friend of you and another of
your colleagues, your partner, RichTomlin, also a cold case detective.
(01:03:32):
That person said that there was aconversation at a party, and what was
overheard is that these two young people, before they were executed, had pled
for their lives. Correct. Thatwas a statement made during that conversation.
Between those individuals, which tells youas an investigator that that individual has to
(01:03:54):
have some sort of intimate knowledge ofthis, and that can only happen one
or two ways. They were there, or they know who was there and
got firsthand information. And then there'sthe random possibility it was a rumor.
You're operating on the first two thatit's either someone who was in the room
or someone who knows someone who wasin the room right right. And the
reason I'm have a stronger feeling aboutthat is is because one of the persons
(01:04:18):
involved in the conversation was a personof interest in the original in the original
case or the original investigation. Correct. Is that unusual when you've got someone
that was a person of interest longtime ago and now they're a person of
interest again. No, And letme explain. I would say seventy five
(01:04:39):
percent of the cases re review,there's a there's a person of interest or
persons of interests or in a lotof cases, viable suspects. But they
just couldn't produce enough evidence to takeit that. This took attorney or they
did take it to the distric atorneyinto the district attorney didn't feel that there
(01:05:01):
was enough to proceed with prosecution.So that person of interest is just glaring
you right in the face when youopen the case file. And a lot
of times when you reopen a casefile, you're like, why didn't they
pursue a little bit harder and digharder. But each investigator in this room
(01:05:24):
out here, almost ninety active investigatorsthat's not the cold case detectives are handling
around ten cases a year. AndI remember when I was out there on
that floor. You have that casewhere that person of interest is staring you
in the face, but you don'thave enough to go to the district attorney,
and you hang onto that case.You don't send it back to the
(01:05:44):
cold case unit because you're gonna getback to it and you're going to solve
that case. And then all ofa sudden, fifteen years go by and
you haven't really had a chance togo back to the case, and then
it goes back to the cold caseunit. And I completely understand why you
hang onto that case, but thereality is, sometimes maybe it would have
been better to take that case tothe cold case knowing that you weren't going
(01:06:04):
to be able to get back toit because you're handling the new cases every
every two weeks or so, thatmaybe the cold case detectives who may have
had the time to work it whenit was much more fresh and solvable,
if you will. But I'm nota big believer in that old theory.
If you don't solve it in fortyeight hours, they odds go way down.
(01:06:25):
Sometimes, I believe in a lotof cases, time is your ally.
And if you want me to explainwhy times your ally, I will,
But I know you're running. That'sanother conversation for another day. But
that's certainly interesting to me considering theirTV shows called forty YEA and those shows
frustrate me because time is in manycases your ally. Well, you know,
(01:06:49):
what is the threshold now that youhave this person of interest and you
seem pretty confident that this person canlead you somewhere, just based on your
facial expression in the way talk aboutit, What threshold do you have to
meet to get something like a wiretap for this person? Well, the
threshold is that you exhaust all otherinvestigative options because it's very intrusive when you're
(01:07:18):
you're listening to somebody's phone calls.So when you go to a judge with
a wire tap after David, thereis a list of things that he's going
to ask you if you've done inyour investigation that could have mitigated an intrusive
wire tap. So the threshold isvery high to get to get a wire
(01:07:38):
tap, and that's that's why we'redoing all these things in these cases.
So if we do feel a wiretap is the next logical step, we
can go to that judge and say, and we've done all these other investigative
options, got it well, Detective, Always a pleasure. Always appreciate your
time and we're happy to help.I hope that this shakes some trees and
(01:08:02):
gets you some information and helps youput this one to bed. Thanks,
always a pleasure. Sean McCarthy,Detective, Ella County Sheriff's Departments, Thomas
Sibereau Coldcase Unit, Thank you foryour time, and that's going to do
it unsolved as a production of theKFI News Department for iHeartMedia, Los Angeles.
Robin Bertolucci Program Director Chris Little,news Director. The program is produced
by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez.Our field engineer is Tony Sorrentino. Our
(01:08:27):
technical director is David Callaway. Ourdigital producer for this episode is Michelle Cube.
Our social media producer for this episodeis Lena Chappelle. Coming up,
it's Coast to Coast, But first, this is kf I AM six forty
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.