August 6, 2023 • 65 mins
In this episode we review the cases from Season 5. We also welcomed two new agencies to the program, the Redondo Beach Police Department, and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department returns as well as the FBI. We feature an accelerant-sniffing dog in our Crime Fighter Series, and cases about a con-man who preyed on single mothers, a security guard ambushed in a grocery store, a military man gunned down in front of a relative’s home, a missing mother in Mexico, and an 89-year-old woman who may have been ‘scared to death’. Plus, we feature a case where a bag of dry bones from 20 years ago led detectives to the identity of a victim and her possible killer. Unsolved with Steve Gregory is produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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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
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cold, baffled investigators, or justneeds that one witness to speak up.
This is Solved with Steve Gregory.Welcome to our season five recap. This
was a very busy season and webrought in a few new agencies, the
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Redondo Beach Police Department and the LaCounty Fire Department, Plus we were able
to get the San Bernardino County Sheriff'sDepartment back as well as the FBI.
Now, for the next couple ofhours, we'll highlight the cases from season
five, Plus we'll tell you howyou can be a part of our next
live in person showtaping, where youmight get the chance to be a part
of our Unsolved studio audience. Solet's get started up first. The La
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County Sheriffs Department's Homicide Bureau presents episodefive h two, The Case of the
grocery store ambush. Here's Detective SeanMcCarthy. This murder occurred at a Northgate
Gonzales supermarket. It's not one ofthe bigger chains, but there's numerous Gonzales
markets in the Crego, Los Angelesarea. This one happened into being Lapointe
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on Hacienda Boulevard, and I wasa part of this case. I wasn't
the lead investigator. I happened tobe on the assist team, and we
processed the crime scene and did whateverthe lead team wanted us to do.
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But basically we got called out.Got the call about shortly after ten o'clock
in the in the evening to respond. A security guard at the location had
been murdered and it was unknown whothe suspects were. It was unknown exactly
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when the crime occurred, but asthe investigation went on and piecing it together
was surveillance video, we are ableto make determinations on suspects. At least
general information on the suspects. Atime of occurrence. Motive is a big
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question mark. There's some some peoplemight say, as as I go on
with is that the motive is obvious? I don't. I don't think it's
as obvious is many might think.But I think it's it's the most logical
motive. But basically, what occurredafter we I say we the lead two
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investigators in me and my partner,is somewhere around nine o'clock, two males
entergy supermarket. Supermarket was still open. The supermarket closed around eleven o'clock.
I believe it closed. There werestill people in the in the market,
but not a lot of people becauseit was getting later. These two males,
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initially it didn't he would have neverguessed that they were the suspect.
They just appeared, based on dress, to be patrons of the market,
and they began milling around the store. No shopping carts, just young male
Hispanics, it appears, and theystart milling around the store. A short
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time later, approximately ten ten,after nine, two additional males walk in.
And if I didn't mention it aboutthe first two males, they didn't
have specific dress that jumped out ofit but one of them was wearing red
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and the other one was wearing whatappeared to be a tan hoodie. The
second two that came in four orfive minutes later weren't all black, and
they were wearing white baseball hats.At the time, you would never know
that they were related. In fact, other than the close proximity of the
first two that came in, youwouldn't really know if they were together until
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later on. But they all startmilling around the store and at some point
they end up meeting up together.And the reason we know that is is
surveillance video inside the store that wasobtained showed them together, all four of
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them together what appeared to be thesame four people. We believe that these
there was a certain level of planningto this. They are seen in near
the back of the store. Initiallythere they made no attempts to disguise themselves,
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but they were clearly together, andthat becomes clear probably about fifteen minutes
after they're all in the store.During that time, one of the managers
of the store, there's an armedsecurity guard in there. His name was
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Frutoso Anguiano. He's a sixty yearold male, worked two jobs day job
as a machinist night job as asecurity guard in the in the market,
and he was asked by a managerto take some fish that was left out,
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to take it back to a rearcooler. Now, and this is
all just theory and speculation, butthe belief is is these guys made their
way to suspects, made the wayto the back of the market. They
then intended to conceal themselves for aperiod of time logically until the store closed
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and most of the employees were gone, or maybe conceal themselves until everyone was
gone, and then do whatever theywere going to do. The major portion
of the money was at the frontof the store, but keep in mind
when they entered the store there wasstill business as usual. So they make
the way to the rear of thestore. There's a catwalk, there's a
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storage room, there's a break roomupstairs. It's on the second floor.
And we believed the intent was toconceal themselves until there was a point where
it was more manageable to either overtakeemployees or waited out until employees were all
gone. As I said, amanager had asked the security guard to take
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some meat that was fish that wasleft out take it to a rear cooler,
and we believe in the process ofdoing that, he stumbles onto the
suspects. They overtake him, theyhandcuff him with his own handcuffs, They
take his service weapon, and thensomething happens. Whether it was intended,
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whether there was something that that sparkedit, but one of them either finds
a knife and for whatever reason stabsas the security guard who apparently was incapacitated.
He was no threat to him atthe point. Once they handcuffed him
and stabbed him fifty two times,I believe fifty two times. Autopsy determined
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it was overkilled. There's no doubtabout that he was. He was handcuffed.
As I said, he didn't appearto be a threat to anybody at
that point. You can hear theentire episode on the iHeartRadio app. Coming
up more cases from the l CountySheriff's Department. You're listening to kf I
AM sixty on demand, kf IAM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
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app. I'm Steve Gregory and thisis Unsolved. Welcome back to our season
five recap. Before we go tothe next case, I wanted to tell
you about episode five ZHO three,The Killer khn Man, presented by retired
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputy Peter Headley. It's a complicated case that would not
fit into this episode, but Iencourage you to download it from the iHeartRadio
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app. It's a fascinating cold caseand we had so much material we had
to create a bonus episode to talkabout the DNA technology that helped to identify
victims. Again, it's episode fiveZHO three, The Killer khn Man.
Now back to the La County Sheriff'sHomicide Guerrero and Detective Sergeant Mike Austin as
he presents the case of the streettakeover execution. It was a Saturday night
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into Sunday. There was a streettakeover near the intersection of Pine and Bull
in the city of Compton, anddeputies were dispatched to that location to break
up the illegal street takeover that wastaking place at that time. And actually
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a deputy had staged a couple ofblocks south of where this takeover was occurring,
and during that time there were shotsfired. The deputy waited for an
additional backup to roll in and soAs they rolled in, it was mass
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chaos. Basically, people were justdispersing and going everywhere. There's two to
three hundred people minimum at this takeover. The deputies were directed to a vehicle
that was parked in the middle ofthe street on Bullis, just south of
the Pine intersection. The vehicle wasactually facing north, but it was in
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the number one southbound lane. Becausethe cars it basically blocked the entire street.
As they approached, people were runningeverywhere. They found two individuals,
Wanna Rosco and Javier Menchaka, ina vehicle and they had been basically shot
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to death. So when you saydeputies were directed to this car, who
directed them? As they were approaching, there were witnesses saying, hey,
over there, someone's been shot,okay, So that tells you right out
of the shoot someone witnessed the shootabsolutely. So this is a case of
the street takeovers now. And thisis one of the things that I know
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law enforcement post sheriffs Department, policedepartments have been battling with on something like
this. Based on your experience,sergeant, a shooting at a street takeover
is at common or uncommon, It'sbecoming more common over the last several years.
Unfortunately, I don't know the statistics, but I do know that there
are multiple cases under investigation within ourbureau that involved or have something to do
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with being in proximity to an illegalstreet takeover. So when you get the
call and you roll up, whatwas the first thing you saw it?
And it kind of walk us throughthat and paint the picture. So as
I arrived, I was home sleeping, I get the phone call, and
so I got there some time betweenthree and three thirty in the morning,
and as I arrived, it's alreadytaped off. The intersections are taped off.
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There's deputies, you know, everywherearound, and I contact the handling
deputy who basically gives me and mypartner an overview of what they have there.
And there's basically the victim's vehicle asI described earlier. It's it's facing
north in the number one southbound laneof Bullets just south of Pine. That
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was the intersection that the racing wasgoing on. And there was an individual
who seated in the right passenger seat, Wanna Roscoe. He had been shot
multiple times in his upper body.And then the apparent driver of the vehicle
was actually laying partially out of thevehicle with a leg still inside on the
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driver's floorboard of the vehicle, andhe had been shot in the upper body
and was deceased. Okay, Sowhen you unpack this kind of thing and
you walk up to a scene likethis, first of all, what kind
of an area are we talking abouthere at the intersection of Bullos and Pine?
Pine? Is that industrial? Wasit? So residential? Bullis is
a north south street and Pine intersectswith that street and Pine basically if you
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turn east leads into a residential area. To the west side of Bullis is
a super walmart on the north westcorner, and then there was some sort
of commercial building that was not beingused to the south, to the west
and south of Pine, so onsomething like that. I assumed bystanders were
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not there anymore. There were somestill, some transients were there that were
staying in there, and a lotof people. As the night grew,
more people were showing up outside thetape and they were some of them were
friends of one of the victims thathad heard what had happened. But it's
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it's pretty secure for me at thatpoint because we have a big investigation to
do and we made a very widecrime scene to ensure that we didn't miss
anything. One of the issues wehad at this scene was about one hundred
yards away northwest of where this incidenttook place. We found additional cartridge casings
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in the roadway there, which perplexedus at that moment. Why is their
cartridge casings over here? You know? And we had cartridge casings at the
scene near the car. Yeah,So when you get to a scene like
that, Um, what the reasonI was asking about the bystanders is were
you able to interview any potential witnesseswhen you got there? Or where our
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daughter they held there for you?How does that work? At that point?
There were no witnesses that I recallbeing there because every it was mass
chaos. Everybody scattered and fled thelocation. Sure, there was a few
people that had been interviewed by deputies, and that's where that's where I was
getting at. So will deputies actuallydo some initial interviews for you and then
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hand that off? Is that howthat works? Yes? Yeah, they're
they're they're they're trying to figure out, hey, do you see anything?
Yeah? I did? You know, They'll they'll try to, you know,
hold those people there for us ifthey're willing, more curious than anything,
because I've always been I've always wonderedhow that works, because again you've
seen in the way that they doit in movies and TVs, TV shows.
But are they do the deputies digdeep at all or do they just
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get surface information at that at thatlevel as a general rule, they get
surface information and they know that we'recoming okay, and they don't want to
do anything that might disrupt our investigation, like what but well, they might
have a suspect at the scene andthen they start questioning him and they don't
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realize he's a suspect, or there'sthere should have been a miranda way,
something out of that nature should haveoccurred. But the deputies are good.
They know what to do. Whenthey know they have somebody with good information.
They'll usually detain them and or gettheir cooperation and hold them at the
scene or take them back of thestation so we can interview them. And
then you get those notes when youget on scene is and how it works.
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They yet those notes. So wearrive and generally you know, as
we're waiting for all the people thatare going to assist us, we're waiting
for the crime lab. I'm waitingfor my boss, I'm waiting for everybody.
We're chit chatting about what's going on, but we're not getting into the
nitty gri you know, because onceeverybody's there, we're going to do a
formal briefing, and then we're goingto do a formal walkthrough of the scene,
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and the deputy explains what was goingon at that time. Of course,
you can hear the entire episode onthe iHeartRadio app. Coming up,
the case of the Murdered Military Man. You're listening to kf I Am sixty
on demand, k if I Amsix forty heard everywhere live on the iHeartRadio
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app. I'm Steve Gregory and thisis Unsolved. If you're listening on the
app, you can send us atip about a case, a story idea,
or a commentent about the show.Just tap the red microphone on the
app and record your message. Welcomeback to the Unsolved Season five recap.
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Ella County Sheriff's Cold Case Detective RichTomlin is a friend of the show and
always brings us interesting cases. Thisis part two of episode five h four,
The Murdered Military Man. On Apriltwenty first, twenty twelve, about
ten minutes after midnight on a Saturday, Nathan Taylor, age thirty, was
killed in the seven hundred block ofWest Avenue, aged seven, in Lancaster.
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This area is a residential neighborhood withsingle family homes, and what we
understand about this case is that deputiesresponded to a gunshot victim call for service.
When they arrived, they saw Nathanslumped over the steering wheel of his
white nineteen ninety six Cadillac Sedan.He was parked in front of a residence.
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And what caught the deputy's attention hewas obviously suffering from gunshot moons to
his upper torso, the car wasrunning, and he had an unwrapped burrito
in his lap. At the scene, they spoke to Nathan's brother, Patrick,
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and Patrick told them the following.Patrick said his brother Nathan had called
him a few minutes earlier and saidhither he was in the neighborhood and that
he wanted to stop by and visithim, but right before he's gonna stop
by, he's gonna grab something toeat. So Patrick said he was in
the backyard just waiting for his brotherwhen suddenly he heard six or seven gunshots.
He ran outside and he saw hisbrother slumped over the wheel of the
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car, and he immediately started screamingfor neighbors to call nine one one.
Patrick also mentioned when he walked outside, he saw three young men running down
the street around the corner, andthere were hopping fences and out of his
view. So at that point deputiesarrived. They're trying to sort things out.
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They talked to a few witnesses inthe area, and someone actually identified
that one house. Seeing three individualsrun into a particular house on a street
around the corner, debutes immediately gota search warrant and entered into that residence.
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There they spoke to three young menwho told them the following. They
had been walking down the street earlierwhen a red car they believed it was
a Honda with two African American malesinside, mad dogged them, basically meaning
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that they were giving them dirty looks. The car slowed down they were looking
at them, and then they continueddriving. These three young men didn't think
too much of it, continued walkingwhen suddenly they saw that same red car
pull next to a white Cadillac thatwas parked on the street, they heard
several gunshots, believing that those gunshotscame from that red car, and the
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red car had now suddenly accelerated away, believing that that car was going to
circle around and now shoot at them. But at the opportcitts of that car,
we're going to shoot at them,they ran and they entered into the
house. So what initially was believedto be a strong case with obvious suspects
turned out to be just another witness, if you will, a clue to
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what happened during this investigation. Atthe time, the Handling homicide detectives,
who have since retired and moved outof state, said that they received the
flood of information, more so regardingwho the victim, Nathan Taylor, was
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very sad. Basically what they're tellingdetectives at the time. Nathan had moved
to the area around nineteen ninety seven. Had moved to the Lancaster Era with
his family. His family was amilitary family. His father had retired from
the Air Force after doing twenty plusyears. He had two sisters, Rachel
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and Kinsey, who had also servedtime in the military. So after graduating,
Nathan, following in his family's footsteps, joined the US Army, where
he served eight years, topping outat the rank of sergeant. He served
three tours in Iraq in Afghanistan,and upon completing his time, had recently
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left the military and was attending AntelopeValley College where he was studying computer software
engineering. He was close to graduationat the time of his murder, and
it didn't back then and still tothis day, is puzzling. Why was
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he shot, Why was he targeted? Was he targeted? And he's basically
assassinated in an area that he hadgrown up And you can hear the entire
episode on the iHeartRadio app. We'llget back to more Unsolved in just a
moment, but I want to tellyou about an opportunity for you to be
a part of the Unsolved studio audience. It's very simple. All you have
to do is email us your favoriteepisode of any season, whyn't your favorite
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episode, and we need all yourcontact information, including your cell phone and
your email, a work number ofappropriate. All you have to do is
email us Unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com. Unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com. Don't
call us, don't leave a voicemail, we need an email. Unsolved at
iHeartMedia dot com. Our next showtapingis going to be an Orange County,
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then we plan on coming back upto LA Area. We want to be
able to give you the opportunity.Now, not everyone's gonna be able to
come in because we keep the seatingpretty limited. That's so we can keep
it more intimate and make it morecomfortable for the guests and the detectives.
But we want you to get yourname in there so you can be selected
as a member of our studio audienceagain. Unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com.
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Unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com. Comingup a heartbreaking case with a transnational twist.
You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand kf I AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved.
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Welcome back to our Season five recap. In February of this year, a
woman was reported kidnapped from her homein Mexico. Her family says she has
dual citizenship and retired to Mexico fromLa years ago. One afternoon, she
was grabbed from the front yard ofher home. What exactly happened? Here's
the woman's daughter Zoey Lopez telling usabout her mother Maria. It's episode five
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oh five, The Case of theMissing Mom in Mexico, and I received
a phone call from my sister.She was crying and frantically saying, Mom,
Mom was kidnapped. I couldn't believeit. I just got up,
shot up, and I was like, what just hearing the word kidnapped,
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it's like you going to I literallyfelt like I was like inside of a
tornado and I couldn't really hear much. As a matter of fact, that's
exactly what happened. I was likein the blur and I was like,
what are you talking about? Whatdo you mean? What do you mean?
Mom was kidnapped? She said theytook her, they took her.
I hung up the phone with her, and I just remember walking through the
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hall and my ears literally plugged up. I couldn't hear anything, and I
just fell to the floor and myson came out and I just remember just
kind of looking at him seeing thekidnapped mom. Immediately was we have to
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find out is this real? Becauseit just feels like it's impossible. There's
no way. So picked up thephone and you start I started making phone
calls to whatever little family that Iknow, you know, lives in that
town, and it was just onecall of no answers basically because there is
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no reception there in the area.Is such a small town, there's no
phone connections. Everyone communicates through eitherWhatsApp or messenger. And I finally did
get someone on the phone that washappened to actually be at the house with
an officer, and they said,I said, where is is real?
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You know? Is this really happening? Talk about the town? Where where
are we talking? The town iscalled Okay, and what's the nearest so
people can understand, the nearest largercity or state would be Guadallahara. Okay,
it's two hours from Guadalajara. Gotit Tuck area, So it's deep
in the heart of Mexico. Yes, yeah, And um, your mother
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I remember from the press conference yourmother had been down there at least retired
there ten years ago, yes,okay, Um, and she moved down
there by herself, both my dadand her. Oh okay, your parents
had moved down there at the sametime. Okay. And then um,
just to put some context in that, so I'm sorry, I go back
to where you got a hold ofsomeone in the house and what happened next?
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The agent got on the phone,he you know, asked who I
was. I said, I'm herdaughter. What's going on? He said.
I remember him briefly saying, wehave state police, we have Samad,
which I believe is like the Marinesand soldiers are here. And I
was thinking, I mean, itreally quickly crossed my head, like how
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the town is so small and awayfrom the city. It just seemed very
odd to me that there was allthis soldiers and Marina and everyone already there.
It had just happened. And Iremember asking, like when did this
happen or how long ago? AndI believe there had been a span of
like maybe an hour and a halfto two hours before you got the call,
before we found out, before youfound out. Okay, so how
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did they find out? There waswitnesses? So my mom's property, that
her house is the only house thathas Wi Fi. So the around the
property, it's it's very there's kidsor just the locals or anyone who they
stand around the outside of the houseto be able to connect to their social
media. So it happens to bethat towards the back of the house.
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There was two there was two youngmen there could just connect it to their
social media and they actually witnessed thekidnapping. What were they able to provide
what kind of detail. The onestreet light that is there was broken,
so it was later in the afternoon. So what they were able to capture
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was they weren't able to give exactdetails color of the car, but they
were able to say what it was. It was a mini like a type
minivan kind. They were just unsureof the color if it was between white,
a tan color or silver because itwas later in the afternoon. But
what they said is my mom hadmy mom had been at a liquor store
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or like a store. It's likea ten minute walk from her house.
My aunt, one of my aunt'sown zat store. If she had been
there, went home because she wantedto go water her plants. My mom
always watering her plants, taking careof her house. And they said she
was watering her plants when they seena van drive in all the way into
the property. It's a pretty largelong driveway, and there was an exchange
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of words. He says when helooked up. One of the witnesses says,
when he looked up. He says, he's unsure if my mom was
pushed down to the floor or ifshe crouched down. But she was saying
back to them, I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving in Spanish and on
my way at constatas, I'm notleaving with you. And then they had
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their heads covered. They said theyhad hoods on. One other individual,
a heavy set man also with thehood came out of the van and they
they picked up my mom. Hecovered her mouth and they put her in
the van and drove away. Therewas a the description of the vand the
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only thing that was unusual is thewitness just say that the brake lights didn't
break just in one solid flash.There was something different about the way that
lights went on. But they droveaway, and that was it. When
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you said that you spoke to anagent that was at the house down there,
there were no US officials a vaultat this point, right, It
was all Mexican officials. Okay,at this point you see the witness to
say your mom was put into avan against her will, taken away.
Then the time that from the timethat she disappeared at the time she was
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taken away to the time you gotthe call you said was a little over
an hour, closer to two closerto two hours, okay, closer to
two hours. Did it give yousome reassurance that so much law enforcement presence
was there at her house so quickly, including the military. I think I
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just I didn't really think about that. But the reason I'm asking is that
it seemed like that because any ofthese kind of missing person cases or abductions
usually the first few hours are critical. So were you getting any reassurance from
the Mexican authorities that they had ahandle on this, no other than they
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had said that there was this presencethere, but there was no follow up
call. There was nothing that said, this is what we're going to do.
Streets are or the road's going tobe blocked off, and this is
why we have this presence here.Now for the FBI's take on the case,
please download this episode. It's fiveoh five on the iHeartRadio app.
Coming up, the Case of theDry Bones in DNA. You're listening to
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kf I AM sixty on demand,kf I AM six forty lie everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory. This is unsolved thank you for joining
us on this season five recount.In early July of this year, we
sat down with retired Detective John Skipperwith the Redondo Beach Police Department. He
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recounted episode five h six, TheCase of the Dry Bones in DNA SO
August twenty ninth, two thousand andone. They were construction workers. They
were doing this major remodel of aresidence on sixteen twenty four Wallacott Street in
Redondo Beach, and some plumbers wereputting down a main line and they came
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across a bag, plastic bag,and inside this plastic bag they opened it
and they discovered a partial human skeleton, did not have a skull significantly.
There was also the remnants of someother really even to this date unknown material
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in that bag, some type ofsynthetic or artificial material that the body may
have been wrapped up in. However, the plumbers at the time thought it
was not human remains and they tossedthe bag aside. Subsequent to that,
city Dando Beach building inspector came out, came across this bag and noticed it.
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He felt they were human remains.He called the police department and the
police responded. We initiated an investigation. We believed they were human remains.
Contacted the LA Coroner's office and theFBI forensics team did a significant excavation of
the entire backyard and at the endof that we were left with a partial
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human skeleton. The skull and otherrandom bones were missing. We initiated rather
intensive investigation. For a while,there was little or no clues. We
were trying to obtain the identity ofresidents, previous residents of the location.
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The house had been a rental.It was placed there in nineteen fifty four,
moved from Wilmington to the one tenFreeway was being constructed. This house
was purchased and moved intact from Wilmingtonto Nando Beach nineteen fifty four, had
a series of owners, almost allof whom rented it and did not have
(35:35):
records. The owners had either passedaway or they had no record of the
renters, so it made it difficult. We did that investigation. Just a
few weeks later, the attacks onthe World Trade Center in New York nine
to eleven happened, and law enforcementeverywhere was trying to determine what their role
(35:59):
was going to be in this terrorismand people were being pulled. I happened
to be the lieutenant in charge ofinvestigations at the time, and I got
detailed to do a project on whatthe role of law enforcement and terrorism would
be. So I got pulled away, some of the other investigators were pulled
away. That coupled with the factthat the DNA technology that we have today
(36:23):
was not in place. In therewas DNA because we were able to extract
from the bone enough DNA to puta to enter it into the code as
system for future identification, but theability to use DNA in the manner in
which it is used today did notexist. So all of those things after
(36:45):
about a month, stonewall the investigationand it went cold. So that's kind
of an overview of what happened.Yeah, I didn't even think about the
fact that you're talking about nine toeleven in how that put an end too,
but put an endo a lot ofthings for law enforcement and investigation wise,
(37:07):
because our country changed absolutely and Ican't I didn't even think about,
you know, pending cases and coldcases. I didn't even think about what
that would have done to those itdid, you know, Because sadly,
when you're a police department a smalleragency like Redondo Beach at the time,
you know, you've got ten detectivesmaybe that are working assaults, devs burglaries,
(37:32):
robberies, etc. We back thenwe conducted our own homicide investigations.
This was a cold case. Theclues were minimal, the leads were minimal,
and it was just one of thosethings that we got pulled over into
doing other things that impacted our manpowereven more so, all of that came
(37:57):
together and it just this investigation justcalled and nothing happened on it for many
years. So detective, how howthat kind of impact you when you know
that, you know, you've gotthese cases that are sitting off to the
side, and you're like, youknow what with just the reality is,
we can't focus on those anymore.We have life changing, life altering events
(38:20):
happening in front of us. Wasthat was that on your mind as well?
Or did you have to compartmentalize andsay, I really have to let
this go for now, or wasthat really weighing on you that you have
pending cases, well, certainly pendingcases. You know, it's just one
of those decisions that management makes.I was part of management at the time.
The chief police ultimately made the decisionthat, you know, we weigh
(38:45):
everything out, what is the likelihoodof solving this case with the technology that
ultimately led to the identification of thevictim. Well, it's happened, you
know, just this year, youknow, over twenty years later, so
that technology evolved, but it hadn'tevolved at that point in time, so
it was unlikely that we would havebeen able to identify the victim at all
(39:07):
at that period of time. Andjust a decision was made, a business
decision was made that current cases aregoing to take that priority. Figured out
what we're going to do about terrorismas a local law enforcement agency is going
to take a priority. And thiscase, that where we've got some partial
(39:27):
bones and the pre eminent method ofidentification at the time, you know,
dental records and things like that,was an impossibility because the entire skull was
missing. It was just a decisionthat unfortunately was made. You know,
before we go to break, Ido want to ask because you did say
bones were missing from the skull andthat at one point there were like construction
(39:50):
folks or plumbers or contractors that yousaid that they didn't even think it looked
like human remains. What condition werethose remains in? Well, they were
they were dry bones basically. ButI think, you know, it was
a matter of not having the trainingand ability to recognize individual bought dry bones
(40:13):
that weren't assemboled in the form ofa skeleton. You know, there was
just a bunch of a bag ofbones. And the idea I think in
the construction worker's head might have been, you know, what's the chances there's
human bones beard here? It's probablya dog or something. Of course,
you can hear the entire episode onthe iHeartRadio app. Coming up, we
head over to the La County Sheriff'sHomicide Bureau for the case of the cul
(40:34):
de Sac killer. You're listening tokf I AM sixty on demand k if
I AM six forty heard everywhere liveon the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory
and this is Unsolved. If you'relistening on the app, you can send
us a tip about a case,a story idea, or a comment about
(40:55):
the show. Just tap the redmicrophone on the app and record your message.
Thanks for tuning in to our seasonfive recap. Detective Steve Blagg is
a friend of the show and hasbeen with the La County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau
for many years. He reached outto us about a challenging case in el
Monty. It's episode five h six, the case of the cul de Sac
(41:16):
killer. So what approximately twelve thirtyam on April third, twenty and eighteen,
there was a vehicle that collided througha fence into a business complex on
Valley Boulevard just west of the sixoh five Freeway. When El Monty police
(41:37):
officers arrived at the scene, theyfound mister Brajas alone in the vehicle in
the driver's seat, suffering from whatthey later found to be a gunshot wound.
And he was eventually pronounced deceased.And the gunshot wound what part of
(41:59):
the body he sustained? It tohis upper torso like the right side of
his upper torso shot one time,multiple times, one time one time?
So you say, on the earlymorning hours until thirty in the morning,
a vehicle collided into a building.No, throw a wrought iron fence into
a building complex, building complex,so through the rot aff so on the
(42:22):
property. Correct, So the fenceis what stopped the vehicle. Now that
he was going at a pretty highrate of speed and actually probably landed about
a good hundred yards into the propertyof the business complex with a big chunk
of the fence attached to his car. What kind of car he at that
time? The victim was in atwo thou and twelve white Infinity G thirty
(42:45):
seven. Did corner give you mannerof death homicide? Homicide? But cause
of death gunshot? Gunshot? Whenwhat I was getting at was did he
die from the gunshot wound or diefrom the car crash? No, he
definitely died from the gunshot wound.Any evidence that the gunshot wound happened prior
to the crash, Yes, itdid so. Then if he was speeding,
(43:07):
if he's a high rate of speedgoing through this rought iyron fence,
was that a reflex they were likefoot down on the pedal thing or was
he still alive? I mean,we do have some surveillance video that kind
of shed some light on what wewhat happened and what led to the shooting
from that night. Can you enlightenus? Sure? So Fabian's vehicle.
(43:30):
There's a small little coul de sacalong the north side of Valley Boulevard near
a scrap metal yard. We knowthat shortly before twelve thirty am, we
were able to see Fabian's vehicle pullinto this cul de sac from south to
north and kind of angle to whereit was going to make a U turn
(43:51):
back facing southbound, but stopped.I was able to see one figure get
out of the right front passenger seat. Figure to appeared to be a male.
The figure appeared to be pointing whatlooked like a firearm inside the car,
and then it appeared is Fabian mayhave attempted to get away from that
(44:14):
mail when a shot was fired andcausing Fabian to now flee at a high
rate of speed southbound on the colde Sac across Valley Boulevard and through that
fence. So you saw that yousaw the shooting. Then the video wasn't
the best but best I could makeout, Yes, so if I heard
(44:37):
you right, The person got outof the car then opened fire. Person
got out of the car appeared tobe pointing a gun, possibly at Fabian,
when it appears that being afraid andtrying to get away, hits the
accelerator as the suspect fire as ashot okay, so as if so the
(44:59):
suspect got a he shot off Basicallybasically, yes, it did. It
was the car too damage. Couldyou tell if the if the round had
gone through a window or windshield orno. It looked like the door was
open when the suspect fired the shot. So there was no bullet impacts to
that vehicle at all. And sohow far from that scene in the cul
(45:19):
de Sac to the wrought iron fancthat he crashed through, that was maybe
about five hundred yards or so?Five hundred yards? Yeah, then do
you suppose it was there a hospitalnearby there? Do you think he was
trying to drive to a hospital ordo you think he knew he was even
I guess you can't really tell ifhe knew if he was shot or not.
(45:42):
It almost looked like it was simultaneous. Is Fabian's car drives onto the
cul de Sac and kind of anglesthat you turn and stops. The suspect
gets out of the right front passengersseat, and I think that's when Fabian
saw his opportunity maybe to get awayfrom this the suspect, and as he
hit the accelerator, the suspect firesa shot, and then that five hundred
(46:05):
yards across Valley Boulevard because at thatpoint Fabian was fatally shot, and he
went across valley and through that fencewhere his car came to arrest, okay.
And then any type of a descriptionon the shooter. All we can
tell is a mail There were sometransients because to the north of that cul
de sac or railroad tracks, therewere transients who were living along the railroad
(46:30):
tracks. They reported seeing a maleHispanic running eastbound on the railroad tracks after
they heard what sounded like a gunshot. But that was the only description we
could get. And that area ofLa Monte, well, first of all,
was Fabian from el Monty No,Okay? Where is he from?
(46:52):
At the time of the murder,Fabian resided with family in the city of
Pomona, Okay. What is thatarea of Almonte like? Typically it's all
industrial, all industrial, So whattook him to that spot? Do you
think? We have no idea?We know that Fabian worked at a machine
(47:13):
shop in Walnut. He worked kindof the swing shift where he started about
three or three thirty and would worktill about midnight most days and usually he
would close by himself according to theemployer. His employer as well as his
father, who also worked at thesame machine shop. So for him to
(47:37):
go from Walnut to Elmani, wehave no reason why. We have no
idea why, because he actually livedin the city of Pomona, which would
have been opposite from Elmani. Andyou can hear the entire episode on the
iHeartRadio app. Coming up, partof our crime Fighter series, we discuss
a new four legged firefighting fight out. You're listening to kf I AM sixty
(47:59):
on demand kf I AM six fortylive everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm
Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved.Thanks for making us a part of your
weekend. This is our season fiverecap. Recently, the Los Angeles County
(48:20):
Fire Department put into service an accelerantsniffing dog to detect things like gasoline,
paint, thinner and lighter fluid.We had a chance to meet the dog
and get some history from Captain CaseyFlanders. So this is Julia. She's
two years old. She just hada birthday on July seventh, and she
is a Golden Door half Golden Retrieverhalf Labrador. And they basically use this
breed for a couple of reasons.One they're great family dogs. Off duty,
(48:44):
she comes home with me. She'sgreat with the kids, great with
the family. Another reason these dogsare in that sporting group of dogs,
their hunting drive is what they're after, and that's what we like to see
them go in a room and thehunting drive gets their nose down to find
that ignitable liquid. And we'll learnmore about Julia in the next segment.
But I wanted to offer some historicalperspective, so I brought in Battalion Chief
(49:06):
Pete Finnerty the Heat of the ArsonUnit. He explains the department had inherited
an Arson K nine twenty years ago, but that program fizzled out, but
in twenty fourteen they created new policiesto get a Key nine unit up and
running, and now the chief says, the department is embracing all technologies old
and new to tackle arson investigations.So you have to have in lay in
(49:27):
many crimes, as you would is, you have to have witnesses that it
can identify people. You have tohave evidence that supports the hypothesis of what
we discover its seene, you haveto have security video of that person,
or in many cases you have tohave a confession. So while cases will
we will work cases and they willstay open until they're done. We are
(49:50):
getting cases back to back to backto back, So as a case would
come up that maybe takes more precedentbecause we have that evidence and something we're
sitting on. Hey, let's workgoing to put this in the background and
we're gonna wait and we're going tocome back to this case afterward. I
don't have an exact number of howmany of those cases are a lot of
cases don't sit open like that.But another thing that we have to deal
with is in La County. Aswe're all aware, there's a lot of
(50:13):
people experiencing homelessness. Those cases tendto be frequent for us, and there
isn't a lot there because the county'slooking at assisting people as long as there's
no criminal intent involved in that.Well, let's go back historically then.
You know, when you're talking aboutsolving these arsons and determining cause and manner
(50:34):
in origin, how many investigators doyou have in your arson unit and how
busy are they? So it's interestingwe have ten investigators of which I'm one,
and I am on the entire county, yes, sir, for the
entire county. And if you lookat the numbers, that's one hundred and
seventy seven fire stations, that's twentythree hundred square miles, that's twenty one
(50:58):
contract cities. And now we dosplit the county with the sheriffs when it
comes to the arson portion. Ifthe sheriffs have patrolled duty for an area,
they are the primary, so theydo divide that with us. An
interesting point that a lot of peopledon't consider is that we cover sra A
land for brushfires state responsibility. Sowe have that contract with cal Fire that's
(51:21):
five hundred thousand acres of land andin this time of the year, as
you know, we're getting daily startsand with that having to know what the
cause is. So yes, wehave a pretty big area to cover with
three on duty investigators, twenty fourhours of captain and two investigators. But
(51:45):
it's our mission that we have andwe work diligently to solve that. And
that's kind of goes back to whatI said, we kind of have to
prioritize what we've been given, notbecause we're not going to investigate it,
but when things come up that maybetake priority because we have that good evidence
actuate on or to act on rightaway that's going to come into play.
So chief how many fires out thereremain like still up in the air or
(52:07):
open. You know, I wouldsay any one of my investigators probably has
five cases that they're working simultaneously,something that we have concrete evidence on,
something that's going to take a littlelonger, something that takes longer because we're
waiting on security video from a companyor anything like that. I would say
that there is a pretty good proportionof cases that's probably exaggerating a little that
(52:34):
will go undetermined, and that simplyis due to the fact that you narrow
it down. And this is kindof arson, I would say, in
a nutshell, you can say this, Hey, the fire started in this
room. The room didn't have powerto it, nobody was storing any chemicals
in it. We didn't We don'thave any indication that somebody walked in and
threw a match on the ground.So of the stuff that's in this room,
(52:54):
based on the information we have,here's what it could have been,
and you can get of You cangive all the stuff that didn't cause it,
and here's the couple things that couldhave. But you just don't have
that last piece of evidence that isthe thing that points directly to one thing.
Conversely, you have evidence on scene, You're looking at all this possibilities,
(53:15):
and then all of a sudden somebodysays, hey, I have a
security footage and they bring something andyou go, oh lo and behold there's
the person running in with a gascan, dousing the room and throwing a
match, and you know exactly whatstarted that. It's no different than a
homicide investigation. It is very similarwith respect to police work. It is
very similar these guys myself to say, is word detectives who focus solely on
(53:39):
arson crime are you know, fire. But it's one of the hardest ones
to solve, right, I don'tknow how arson investigators did it thirty years
ago, because I will say whatwe get now is we do get a
lot of help from the amount ofcameras that are out in the technology I
would think too, right, absolutely, science and tech advancements. Absolutely so
(54:01):
they had a lot of stuff,but a lot of it don't. They
didn't have as much as we have, and that's changing, you know,
year over year. And Julia iskind of an example of something that's been
around a long time, but somethingthat can really bolster the case, I
do want to talk a little bitabout advancements in technology. When you talk
about, you know, decades ago, and this is the nation's largest fire
department, you know, were youas innovative with arson investigations that you know
(54:24):
back then as you were with alot of things in firefighting. You know,
it's hard for me to answer thatquestion without having the historical context of
some of the folks that I doknow that that worked in the unit as
far back as right now, wedon't have I would say a decade or
a little bit more. Is theinvestigator that has been the longest in the
(54:44):
unit. I do know that oneof the big things that I can answer
looking at historical documentation is that theunit asked to have a fire administrative study
done in ninety nine, and itoutlined all the areas that the National Fire
Administration would say, Hey, ifyou really want to change what you're doing,
(55:07):
here's the suggestions we have for howyou can upgrade or become more efficient.
And some of that was scheduling.As I said, before, they
used to be on a forty hourschedule. They would be calling in after
hours. The department saw some ofthe suggestions, they moved to a fifty
six hour three investigator type shift worksso they're on duty, ready to go
at any moment. So that typeof stuff advances in us working with the
(55:30):
lab, Sheriff's, the county labso we can get things looked at.
And that's a lot of a lotof the advancements are those things for everybody.
What it's going to come in theformat of is a better reporting or
better use of technology. You know, in the past, you would take
individual shots when you were putting togethera photo array, which is something we
(55:52):
still do to this day. Younow have technology where you can set a
camera in the center of the roomand it'll take three hundred and sixty degree
photos, which, as I've beentold by many people that are moving to
that technology, when you go tocourt to try to bring this to a
juror that doesn't understand arson when you'reable to give that hey, here's the
room we were looking at. Now, let me take you over to this
(56:14):
corner. You can see this corneris unburned, but see where all the
damage is over here. And peoplerelate to that versus single shot like they
get disoriented, they don't understand whatyou're really referencing, so I would say
things like that, drones are abig one, you know, especially like
with brush fires. You know,we used to have to bring ladders out
and climb the ladder and shoot these. You know. Now we have that
you know us program, you knowon man ail, and we can ask
(56:37):
for that assistance from our own departmentbecause we have that technology, which is
just simply more efficient. It allowsus to move on file the case and
get to work on either something elseor move on to what that next portion
of the case might be. Ofcourse, you can hear the entire episode
on the iHeartRadio app. Coming up, a horrendous case from Covina, our
(56:59):
final episode. It's the case ofthe Fast and Furious fatal house fire.
You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand, kf I AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.I'm Steve Gregory. This is Unsolved.
(57:20):
Thanks for making us a part ofyour weekend. This is the season five
recap. It's our final case ofthe season. It's in Covina, an
eighty nine year old woman who wasambushed to break it down. Here are
detectives Rich Tomlin and Sean McCarthy withthe Ella County Sheriff's Cold Case Unit.
It's the case of the fast andfurious fatal house fire April eighth, twenty
sixteen, early morning hours a residenceat two zero nine five Mezzarica Road in
(57:49):
the Conyer, Covina. And togive a better perspective, it's it's in
the general area of sandemas Bonelli parRaging Waters. I think your audience would
be familiar generally with that area.I would describe it as an upper middle
(58:10):
class community. Deputies get a callof aut house fire at that location.
It was shortly after noon. Theyrespond along with La County Fire and the
(58:30):
house is not engulfed. It's prettyisolated to the master bedroom. The victim
in this case is a Helen Lambert. She's an eighty nine year old lady
who lived at the location along withher grandson. And when when fire responds,
(58:57):
they pretty quickly put out the fireand they discover her deceased body on
the bed in the master bedroom.And I said the fire was isolated to
the master bedroom. I think Ishowed just some of the photographs. It
did a It destroyed the master bedroom, but the rest of the house was
(59:22):
other than minor smoke damage was relativelyyeah, and just touched just to bring
listeners up to speed. Yeah,you have been providing photos here and we'll
talk a little bit more later.But it is the gruesome, real photos
of this poor woman's body on herbed. But also from the outside,
you can't tell there was a fire, correct, So that's what you're talking
(59:44):
about isolated. And it's a ranchstyle home here in the twenty thousand block
of Messo Rica Road. So infact, it was a neighbor who ultimately
was determined to be her caregiver,who who had picked her grandson up from
Charter Oak High School and was bringinghim home when they approached the house and
(01:00:09):
they noticed smoke. So it wasn'tlike they drove up to the into the
driveway and the house was fully engulfed. There was there was smoke coming from
the master bedroom, but it wasn'tlike where you immediately notice that they actually
walked up to the house. Whenso where is the bedroom out in the
house. The bedroom is right whenyou enter through the front door into the
(01:00:36):
there's a quick hallway to your right. You turn right down the hallway.
The master bedroom was right off ofthe bedroom by the front door, if
you will. It was closest tothe front door. Yes, and we
have a sketch in there if youwant to take a look at some points.
Okay, So, now they've arrived, the house is not fully engulfed,
(01:00:57):
but there is smoke coming out ofthe house. What happens The Elle
County Fire arrives and pretty quickly putsout the fire, and when they go
inside they discover her charred body onthe bed in the master bedroom. She
was bound, but I'm not goingto get into details of how she was
(01:01:22):
bound. And it was later determinedthat the cause of death was not the
fire. So so, in otherwords, there was no soot in her
lungs and that would have been indicativeof somebody in the fire, and they
breathe in the smoke, and that'show the corner determines if, if if
(01:01:45):
the fire was at least a contributingfactor in her death. In this case,
based on the corner report and mydiscussions with the original iOS, there
was no soot in her lungs,so so she died before the fire was
set. So in your experience,Detective Tomlin, what does this tell you
if someone has already killed somebody thenthen ignites a fire. What is that
(01:02:07):
indicative of? Usually they're obviously tryingto cover their tracks. They do not
want to They're hoping that by settingthe fire, any type of evidence that
would lead to their identification would bedestroyed. McCarthy, this has got to
be more complicated because, based onthe photos you've shown me, you know
(01:02:31):
how, first of all, howon earth do you identify a body like
this? And secondly, you know, how does a homicide investigation begin when
you've got a very badly charred bodythat's on a bed. Based on your
experience, where do you start onsomething like that, my experience with deaths
(01:02:53):
with fire, and to be honestwith you in general, because just the
way I operate, I'm gonna I'mgonna see a crime scene like that.
And honestly, Steve, the crimescene in this case was was pretty limited
to that bedroom and the rest ofthe house. But that bedroom is certainly
(01:03:16):
an important part of the crime scene. And I'm going to bring in experts
the Coroner's office Arson explosives. Theseare guys who deal with fires every day
of their lives. They make determinationsif the fire was uh intentionally set or
not. I'm not qualified to dothat. So so immediately arson explosives was
(01:03:40):
called in this case, and detectivesfrom arson explosives came out. Right,
Now, are these detectives from yourdepartment or or arson detectives from the fire
department from our department? Your department? Okay, Now the fire department does
their own our investigation, right,So, so now you've got experts from
our department, arson explosives at thedetectives, experts from the fire department.
(01:04:01):
You've got the corner's office that becomesinvolved, and we already talked about about
they have their own investigators as well. Yes, yeah, every death,
every death scene, whether it's acrime or not, a corner investigator is
going to respond. Uh. Youdon't hear about them a lot in in
in um in uh cases in themedia, but they come to every single
(01:04:27):
uh death case, right Uh.And they came in this case too.
So so the iOS A homicide iOSare are at least initially their secondary because
what's the first thing we want todetermine as homicide investigators. Is this a
homicide or is this accidental? Right? And and and and that may not
(01:04:51):
always be determined right away. Itmay it may be hours and maybe days,
but homicide comes there because of thefact that it's it's a death of
a suspicious nature that could be accidental, but could be criminal in nature.
You can hear the entire episode onthe iHeartRadio app and that's going to do
(01:05:13):
it. Unsolved with Steve Gregory.The radio show is a production of the
KFI News Department for iHeartMedia Los Angelesand is produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob
Gonzalez. Our field engineer is TonySorrentino, and our digital producer is Nate
Ward. To hear this episode andothers from past seasons, download Unsolved with
Steve Gregory on the iHeartRadio app orwherever you listen KFI 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
(00:52):
cold, baffled investigators, or justneeds that one witness to speak up.
This is Solved with Steve Gregory.Welcome to our season five recap. This
was a very busy season and webrought in a few new agencies, the
(01:15):
Redondo Beach Police Department and the LaCounty Fire Department, Plus we were able
to get the San Bernardino County Sheriff'sDepartment back as well as the FBI.
Now, for the next couple ofhours, we'll highlight the cases from season
five, Plus we'll tell you howyou can be a part of our next
live in person showtaping, where youmight get the chance to be a part
of our Unsolved studio audience. Solet's get started up first. The La
(01:38):
County Sheriffs Department's Homicide Bureau presents episodefive h two, The Case of the
grocery store ambush. Here's Detective SeanMcCarthy. This murder occurred at a Northgate
Gonzales supermarket. It's not one ofthe bigger chains, but there's numerous Gonzales
markets in the Crego, Los Angelesarea. This one happened into being Lapointe
(02:01):
on Hacienda Boulevard, and I wasa part of this case. I wasn't
the lead investigator. I happened tobe on the assist team, and we
processed the crime scene and did whateverthe lead team wanted us to do.
(02:23):
But basically we got called out.Got the call about shortly after ten o'clock
in the in the evening to respond. A security guard at the location had
been murdered and it was unknown whothe suspects were. It was unknown exactly
(02:53):
when the crime occurred, but asthe investigation went on and piecing it together
was surveillance video, we are ableto make determinations on suspects. At least
general information on the suspects. Atime of occurrence. Motive is a big
(03:15):
question mark. There's some some peoplemight say, as as I go on
with is that the motive is obvious? I don't. I don't think it's
as obvious is many might think.But I think it's it's the most logical
motive. But basically, what occurredafter we I say we the lead two
(03:43):
investigators in me and my partner,is somewhere around nine o'clock, two males
entergy supermarket. Supermarket was still open. The supermarket closed around eleven o'clock.
I believe it closed. There werestill people in the in the market,
but not a lot of people becauseit was getting later. These two males,
(04:08):
initially it didn't he would have neverguessed that they were the suspect.
They just appeared, based on dress, to be patrons of the market,
and they began milling around the store. No shopping carts, just young male
Hispanics, it appears, and theystart milling around the store. A short
(04:32):
time later, approximately ten ten,after nine, two additional males walk in.
And if I didn't mention it aboutthe first two males, they didn't
have specific dress that jumped out ofit but one of them was wearing red
(04:56):
and the other one was wearing whatappeared to be a tan hoodie. The
second two that came in four orfive minutes later weren't all black, and
they were wearing white baseball hats.At the time, you would never know
that they were related. In fact, other than the close proximity of the
first two that came in, youwouldn't really know if they were together until
(05:19):
later on. But they all startmilling around the store and at some point
they end up meeting up together.And the reason we know that is is
surveillance video inside the store that wasobtained showed them together, all four of
(05:39):
them together what appeared to be thesame four people. We believe that these
there was a certain level of planningto this. They are seen in near
the back of the store. Initiallythere they made no attempts to disguise themselves,
(06:01):
but they were clearly together, andthat becomes clear probably about fifteen minutes
after they're all in the store.During that time, one of the managers
of the store, there's an armedsecurity guard in there. His name was
(06:23):
Frutoso Anguiano. He's a sixty yearold male, worked two jobs day job
as a machinist night job as asecurity guard in the in the market,
and he was asked by a managerto take some fish that was left out,
(06:45):
to take it back to a rearcooler. Now, and this is
all just theory and speculation, butthe belief is is these guys made their
way to suspects, made the wayto the back of the market. They
then intended to conceal themselves for aperiod of time logically until the store closed
(07:05):
and most of the employees were gone, or maybe conceal themselves until everyone was
gone, and then do whatever theywere going to do. The major portion
of the money was at the frontof the store, but keep in mind
when they entered the store there wasstill business as usual. So they make
the way to the rear of thestore. There's a catwalk, there's a
(07:28):
storage room, there's a break roomupstairs. It's on the second floor.
And we believed the intent was toconceal themselves until there was a point where
it was more manageable to either overtakeemployees or waited out until employees were all
gone. As I said, amanager had asked the security guard to take
(07:50):
some meat that was fish that wasleft out take it to a rear cooler,
and we believe in the process ofdoing that, he stumbles onto the
suspects. They overtake him, theyhandcuff him with his own handcuffs, They
take his service weapon, and thensomething happens. Whether it was intended,
(08:16):
whether there was something that that sparkedit, but one of them either finds
a knife and for whatever reason stabsas the security guard who apparently was incapacitated.
He was no threat to him atthe point. Once they handcuffed him
and stabbed him fifty two times,I believe fifty two times. Autopsy determined
(08:41):
it was overkilled. There's no doubtabout that he was. He was handcuffed.
As I said, he didn't appearto be a threat to anybody at
that point. You can hear theentire episode on the iHeartRadio app. Coming
up more cases from the l CountySheriff's Department. You're listening to kf I
AM sixty on demand, kf IAM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
(09:03):
app. I'm Steve Gregory and thisis Unsolved. Welcome back to our season
five recap. Before we go tothe next case, I wanted to tell
you about episode five ZHO three,The Killer khn Man, presented by retired
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputy Peter Headley. It's a complicated case that would not
fit into this episode, but Iencourage you to download it from the iHeartRadio
(09:26):
app. It's a fascinating cold caseand we had so much material we had
to create a bonus episode to talkabout the DNA technology that helped to identify
victims. Again, it's episode fiveZHO three, The Killer khn Man.
Now back to the La County Sheriff'sHomicide Guerrero and Detective Sergeant Mike Austin as
he presents the case of the streettakeover execution. It was a Saturday night
(09:50):
into Sunday. There was a streettakeover near the intersection of Pine and Bull
in the city of Compton, anddeputies were dispatched to that location to break
up the illegal street takeover that wastaking place at that time. And actually
(10:13):
a deputy had staged a couple ofblocks south of where this takeover was occurring,
and during that time there were shotsfired. The deputy waited for an
additional backup to roll in and soAs they rolled in, it was mass
(10:33):
chaos. Basically, people were justdispersing and going everywhere. There's two to
three hundred people minimum at this takeover. The deputies were directed to a vehicle
that was parked in the middle ofthe street on Bullis, just south of
the Pine intersection. The vehicle wasactually facing north, but it was in
(10:56):
the number one southbound lane. Becausethe cars it basically blocked the entire street.
As they approached, people were runningeverywhere. They found two individuals,
Wanna Rosco and Javier Menchaka, ina vehicle and they had been basically shot
(11:18):
to death. So when you saydeputies were directed to this car, who
directed them? As they were approaching, there were witnesses saying, hey,
over there, someone's been shot,okay, So that tells you right out
of the shoot someone witnessed the shootabsolutely. So this is a case of
the street takeovers now. And thisis one of the things that I know
(11:39):
law enforcement post sheriffs Department, policedepartments have been battling with on something like
this. Based on your experience,sergeant, a shooting at a street takeover
is at common or uncommon, It'sbecoming more common over the last several years.
Unfortunately, I don't know the statistics, but I do know that there
are multiple cases under investigation within ourbureau that involved or have something to do
(12:05):
with being in proximity to an illegalstreet takeover. So when you get the
call and you roll up, whatwas the first thing you saw it?
And it kind of walk us throughthat and paint the picture. So as
I arrived, I was home sleeping, I get the phone call, and
so I got there some time betweenthree and three thirty in the morning,
and as I arrived, it's alreadytaped off. The intersections are taped off.
(12:28):
There's deputies, you know, everywherearound, and I contact the handling
deputy who basically gives me and mypartner an overview of what they have there.
And there's basically the victim's vehicle asI described earlier. It's it's facing
north in the number one southbound laneof Bullets just south of Pine. That
(12:52):
was the intersection that the racing wasgoing on. And there was an individual
who seated in the right passenger seat, Wanna Roscoe. He had been shot
multiple times in his upper body.And then the apparent driver of the vehicle
was actually laying partially out of thevehicle with a leg still inside on the
(13:16):
driver's floorboard of the vehicle, andhe had been shot in the upper body
and was deceased. Okay, Sowhen you unpack this kind of thing and
you walk up to a scene likethis, first of all, what kind
of an area are we talking abouthere at the intersection of Bullos and Pine?
Pine? Is that industrial? Wasit? So residential? Bullis is
a north south street and Pine intersectswith that street and Pine basically if you
(13:43):
turn east leads into a residential area. To the west side of Bullis is
a super walmart on the north westcorner, and then there was some sort
of commercial building that was not beingused to the south, to the west
and south of Pine, so onsomething like that. I assumed bystanders were
(14:07):
not there anymore. There were somestill, some transients were there that were
staying in there, and a lotof people. As the night grew,
more people were showing up outside thetape and they were some of them were
friends of one of the victims thathad heard what had happened. But it's
(14:28):
it's pretty secure for me at thatpoint because we have a big investigation to
do and we made a very widecrime scene to ensure that we didn't miss
anything. One of the issues wehad at this scene was about one hundred
yards away northwest of where this incidenttook place. We found additional cartridge casings
(14:52):
in the roadway there, which perplexedus at that moment. Why is their
cartridge casings over here? You know? And we had cartridge casings at the
scene near the car. Yeah,So when you get to a scene like
that, Um, what the reasonI was asking about the bystanders is were
you able to interview any potential witnesseswhen you got there? Or where our
(15:16):
daughter they held there for you?How does that work? At that point?
There were no witnesses that I recallbeing there because every it was mass
chaos. Everybody scattered and fled thelocation. Sure, there was a few
people that had been interviewed by deputies, and that's where that's where I was
getting at. So will deputies actuallydo some initial interviews for you and then
(15:37):
hand that off? Is that howthat works? Yes? Yeah, they're
they're they're they're trying to figure out, hey, do you see anything?
Yeah? I did? You know, They'll they'll try to, you know,
hold those people there for us ifthey're willing, more curious than anything,
because I've always been I've always wonderedhow that works, because again you've
seen in the way that they doit in movies and TVs, TV shows.
But are they do the deputies digdeep at all or do they just
(16:00):
get surface information at that at thatlevel as a general rule, they get
surface information and they know that we'recoming okay, and they don't want to
do anything that might disrupt our investigation, like what but well, they might
have a suspect at the scene andthen they start questioning him and they don't
(16:22):
realize he's a suspect, or there'sthere should have been a miranda way,
something out of that nature should haveoccurred. But the deputies are good.
They know what to do. Whenthey know they have somebody with good information.
They'll usually detain them and or gettheir cooperation and hold them at the
scene or take them back of thestation so we can interview them. And
then you get those notes when youget on scene is and how it works.
(16:45):
They yet those notes. So wearrive and generally you know, as
we're waiting for all the people thatare going to assist us, we're waiting
for the crime lab. I'm waitingfor my boss, I'm waiting for everybody.
We're chit chatting about what's going on, but we're not getting into the
nitty gri you know, because onceeverybody's there, we're going to do a
formal briefing, and then we're goingto do a formal walkthrough of the scene,
(17:07):
and the deputy explains what was goingon at that time. Of course,
you can hear the entire episode onthe iHeartRadio app. Coming up,
the case of the Murdered Military Man. You're listening to kf I Am sixty
on demand, k if I Amsix forty heard everywhere live on the iHeartRadio
(17:38):
app. I'm Steve Gregory and thisis Unsolved. If you're listening on the
app, you can send us atip about a case, a story idea,
or a commentent about the show.Just tap the red microphone on the
app and record your message. Welcomeback to the Unsolved Season five recap.
(18:00):
Ella County Sheriff's Cold Case Detective RichTomlin is a friend of the show and
always brings us interesting cases. Thisis part two of episode five h four,
The Murdered Military Man. On Apriltwenty first, twenty twelve, about
ten minutes after midnight on a Saturday, Nathan Taylor, age thirty, was
killed in the seven hundred block ofWest Avenue, aged seven, in Lancaster.
(18:25):
This area is a residential neighborhood withsingle family homes, and what we
understand about this case is that deputiesresponded to a gunshot victim call for service.
When they arrived, they saw Nathanslumped over the steering wheel of his
white nineteen ninety six Cadillac Sedan.He was parked in front of a residence.
(18:49):
And what caught the deputy's attention hewas obviously suffering from gunshot moons to
his upper torso, the car wasrunning, and he had an unwrapped burrito
in his lap. At the scene, they spoke to Nathan's brother, Patrick,
(19:10):
and Patrick told them the following.Patrick said his brother Nathan had called
him a few minutes earlier and saidhither he was in the neighborhood and that
he wanted to stop by and visithim, but right before he's gonna stop
by, he's gonna grab something toeat. So Patrick said he was in
the backyard just waiting for his brotherwhen suddenly he heard six or seven gunshots.
He ran outside and he saw hisbrother slumped over the wheel of the
(19:36):
car, and he immediately started screamingfor neighbors to call nine one one.
Patrick also mentioned when he walked outside, he saw three young men running down
the street around the corner, andthere were hopping fences and out of his
view. So at that point deputiesarrived. They're trying to sort things out.
(19:57):
They talked to a few witnesses inthe area, and someone actually identified
that one house. Seeing three individualsrun into a particular house on a street
around the corner, debutes immediately gota search warrant and entered into that residence.
(20:18):
There they spoke to three young menwho told them the following. They
had been walking down the street earlierwhen a red car they believed it was
a Honda with two African American malesinside, mad dogged them, basically meaning
(20:40):
that they were giving them dirty looks. The car slowed down they were looking
at them, and then they continueddriving. These three young men didn't think
too much of it, continued walkingwhen suddenly they saw that same red car
pull next to a white Cadillac thatwas parked on the street, they heard
several gunshots, believing that those gunshotscame from that red car, and the
(21:03):
red car had now suddenly accelerated away, believing that that car was going to
circle around and now shoot at them. But at the opportcitts of that car,
we're going to shoot at them,they ran and they entered into the
house. So what initially was believedto be a strong case with obvious suspects
turned out to be just another witness, if you will, a clue to
(21:30):
what happened during this investigation. Atthe time, the Handling homicide detectives,
who have since retired and moved outof state, said that they received the
flood of information, more so regardingwho the victim, Nathan Taylor, was
(21:56):
very sad. Basically what they're tellingdetectives at the time. Nathan had moved
to the area around nineteen ninety seven. Had moved to the Lancaster Era with
his family. His family was amilitary family. His father had retired from
the Air Force after doing twenty plusyears. He had two sisters, Rachel
(22:18):
and Kinsey, who had also servedtime in the military. So after graduating,
Nathan, following in his family's footsteps, joined the US Army, where
he served eight years, topping outat the rank of sergeant. He served
three tours in Iraq in Afghanistan,and upon completing his time, had recently
(22:48):
left the military and was attending AntelopeValley College where he was studying computer software
engineering. He was close to graduationat the time of his murder, and
it didn't back then and still tothis day, is puzzling. Why was
(23:10):
he shot, Why was he targeted? Was he targeted? And he's basically
assassinated in an area that he hadgrown up And you can hear the entire
episode on the iHeartRadio app. We'llget back to more Unsolved in just a
moment, but I want to tellyou about an opportunity for you to be
a part of the Unsolved studio audience. It's very simple. All you have
to do is email us your favoriteepisode of any season, whyn't your favorite
(23:34):
episode, and we need all yourcontact information, including your cell phone and
your email, a work number ofappropriate. All you have to do is
email us Unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com. Unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com. Don't
call us, don't leave a voicemail, we need an email. Unsolved at
iHeartMedia dot com. Our next showtapingis going to be an Orange County,
(23:56):
then we plan on coming back upto LA Area. We want to be
able to give you the opportunity.Now, not everyone's gonna be able to
come in because we keep the seatingpretty limited. That's so we can keep
it more intimate and make it morecomfortable for the guests and the detectives.
But we want you to get yourname in there so you can be selected
as a member of our studio audienceagain. Unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com.
(24:18):
Unsolved at iHeartMedia dot com. Comingup a heartbreaking case with a transnational twist.
You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand kf I AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved.
(24:47):
Welcome back to our Season five recap. In February of this year, a
woman was reported kidnapped from her homein Mexico. Her family says she has
dual citizenship and retired to Mexico fromLa years ago. One afternoon, she
was grabbed from the front yard ofher home. What exactly happened? Here's
the woman's daughter Zoey Lopez telling usabout her mother Maria. It's episode five
(25:10):
oh five, The Case of theMissing Mom in Mexico, and I received
a phone call from my sister.She was crying and frantically saying, Mom,
Mom was kidnapped. I couldn't believeit. I just got up,
shot up, and I was like, what just hearing the word kidnapped,
(25:32):
it's like you going to I literallyfelt like I was like inside of a
tornado and I couldn't really hear much. As a matter of fact, that's
exactly what happened. I was likein the blur and I was like,
what are you talking about? Whatdo you mean? What do you mean?
Mom was kidnapped? She said theytook her, they took her.
I hung up the phone with her, and I just remember walking through the
(25:53):
hall and my ears literally plugged up. I couldn't hear anything, and I
just fell to the floor and myson came out and I just remember just
kind of looking at him seeing thekidnapped mom. Immediately was we have to
(26:14):
find out is this real? Becauseit just feels like it's impossible. There's
no way. So picked up thephone and you start I started making phone
calls to whatever little family that Iknow, you know, lives in that
town, and it was just onecall of no answers basically because there is
(26:36):
no reception there in the area.Is such a small town, there's no
phone connections. Everyone communicates through eitherWhatsApp or messenger. And I finally did
get someone on the phone that washappened to actually be at the house with
an officer, and they said,I said, where is is real?
(27:00):
You know? Is this really happening? Talk about the town? Where where
are we talking? The town iscalled Okay, and what's the nearest so
people can understand, the nearest largercity or state would be Guadallahara. Okay,
it's two hours from Guadalajara. Gotit Tuck area, So it's deep
in the heart of Mexico. Yes, yeah, And um, your mother
(27:23):
I remember from the press conference yourmother had been down there at least retired
there ten years ago, yes,okay, Um, and she moved down
there by herself, both my dadand her. Oh okay, your parents
had moved down there at the sametime. Okay. And then um,
just to put some context in that, so I'm sorry, I go back
to where you got a hold ofsomeone in the house and what happened next?
(27:47):
The agent got on the phone,he you know, asked who I
was. I said, I'm herdaughter. What's going on? He said.
I remember him briefly saying, wehave state police, we have Samad,
which I believe is like the Marinesand soldiers are here. And I
was thinking, I mean, itreally quickly crossed my head, like how
(28:10):
the town is so small and awayfrom the city. It just seemed very
odd to me that there was allthis soldiers and Marina and everyone already there.
It had just happened. And Iremember asking, like when did this
happen or how long ago? AndI believe there had been a span of
like maybe an hour and a halfto two hours before you got the call,
before we found out, before youfound out. Okay, so how
(28:33):
did they find out? There waswitnesses? So my mom's property, that
her house is the only house thathas Wi Fi. So the around the
property, it's it's very there's kidsor just the locals or anyone who they
stand around the outside of the houseto be able to connect to their social
media. So it happens to bethat towards the back of the house.
(28:56):
There was two there was two youngmen there could just connect it to their
social media and they actually witnessed thekidnapping. What were they able to provide
what kind of detail. The onestreet light that is there was broken,
so it was later in the afternoon. So what they were able to capture
(29:18):
was they weren't able to give exactdetails color of the car, but they
were able to say what it was. It was a mini like a type
minivan kind. They were just unsureof the color if it was between white,
a tan color or silver because itwas later in the afternoon. But
what they said is my mom hadmy mom had been at a liquor store
(29:41):
or like a store. It's likea ten minute walk from her house.
My aunt, one of my aunt'sown zat store. If she had been
there, went home because she wantedto go water her plants. My mom
always watering her plants, taking careof her house. And they said she
was watering her plants when they seena van drive in all the way into
the property. It's a pretty largelong driveway, and there was an exchange
(30:04):
of words. He says when helooked up. One of the witnesses says,
when he looked up. He says, he's unsure if my mom was
pushed down to the floor or ifshe crouched down. But she was saying
back to them, I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving in Spanish and on
my way at constatas, I'm notleaving with you. And then they had
(30:26):
their heads covered. They said theyhad hoods on. One other individual,
a heavy set man also with thehood came out of the van and they
they picked up my mom. Hecovered her mouth and they put her in
the van and drove away. Therewas a the description of the vand the
(30:52):
only thing that was unusual is thewitness just say that the brake lights didn't
break just in one solid flash.There was something different about the way that
lights went on. But they droveaway, and that was it. When
(31:14):
you said that you spoke to anagent that was at the house down there,
there were no US officials a vaultat this point, right, It
was all Mexican officials. Okay,at this point you see the witness to
say your mom was put into avan against her will, taken away.
Then the time that from the timethat she disappeared at the time she was
(31:38):
taken away to the time you gotthe call you said was a little over
an hour, closer to two closerto two hours, okay, closer to
two hours. Did it give yousome reassurance that so much law enforcement presence
was there at her house so quickly, including the military. I think I
(32:00):
just I didn't really think about that. But the reason I'm asking is that
it seemed like that because any ofthese kind of missing person cases or abductions
usually the first few hours are critical. So were you getting any reassurance from
the Mexican authorities that they had ahandle on this, no other than they
(32:21):
had said that there was this presencethere, but there was no follow up
call. There was nothing that said, this is what we're going to do.
Streets are or the road's going tobe blocked off, and this is
why we have this presence here.Now for the FBI's take on the case,
please download this episode. It's fiveoh five on the iHeartRadio app.
Coming up, the Case of theDry Bones in DNA. You're listening to
(32:44):
kf I AM sixty on demand,kf I AM six forty lie everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory. This is unsolved thank you for joining
us on this season five recount.In early July of this year, we
sat down with retired Detective John Skipperwith the Redondo Beach Police Department. He
(33:07):
recounted episode five h six, TheCase of the Dry Bones in DNA SO
August twenty ninth, two thousand andone. They were construction workers. They
were doing this major remodel of aresidence on sixteen twenty four Wallacott Street in
Redondo Beach, and some plumbers wereputting down a main line and they came
(33:32):
across a bag, plastic bag,and inside this plastic bag they opened it
and they discovered a partial human skeleton, did not have a skull significantly.
There was also the remnants of someother really even to this date unknown material
(33:57):
in that bag, some type ofsynthetic or artificial material that the body may
have been wrapped up in. However, the plumbers at the time thought it
was not human remains and they tossedthe bag aside. Subsequent to that,
city Dando Beach building inspector came out, came across this bag and noticed it.
(34:20):
He felt they were human remains.He called the police department and the
police responded. We initiated an investigation. We believed they were human remains.
Contacted the LA Coroner's office and theFBI forensics team did a significant excavation of
the entire backyard and at the endof that we were left with a partial
(34:46):
human skeleton. The skull and otherrandom bones were missing. We initiated rather
intensive investigation. For a while,there was little or no clues. We
were trying to obtain the identity ofresidents, previous residents of the location.
(35:10):
The house had been a rental.It was placed there in nineteen fifty four,
moved from Wilmington to the one tenFreeway was being constructed. This house
was purchased and moved intact from Wilmingtonto Nando Beach nineteen fifty four, had
a series of owners, almost allof whom rented it and did not have
(35:35):
records. The owners had either passedaway or they had no record of the
renters, so it made it difficult. We did that investigation. Just a
few weeks later, the attacks onthe World Trade Center in New York nine
to eleven happened, and law enforcementeverywhere was trying to determine what their role
(35:59):
was going to be in this terrorismand people were being pulled. I happened
to be the lieutenant in charge ofinvestigations at the time, and I got
detailed to do a project on whatthe role of law enforcement and terrorism would
be. So I got pulled away, some of the other investigators were pulled
away. That coupled with the factthat the DNA technology that we have today
(36:23):
was not in place. In therewas DNA because we were able to extract
from the bone enough DNA to puta to enter it into the code as
system for future identification, but theability to use DNA in the manner in
which it is used today did notexist. So all of those things after
(36:45):
about a month, stonewall the investigationand it went cold. So that's kind
of an overview of what happened.Yeah, I didn't even think about the
fact that you're talking about nine toeleven in how that put an end too,
but put an endo a lot ofthings for law enforcement and investigation wise,
(37:07):
because our country changed absolutely and Ican't I didn't even think about,
you know, pending cases and coldcases. I didn't even think about what
that would have done to those itdid, you know, Because sadly,
when you're a police department a smalleragency like Redondo Beach at the time,
you know, you've got ten detectivesmaybe that are working assaults, devs burglaries,
(37:32):
robberies, etc. We back thenwe conducted our own homicide investigations.
This was a cold case. Theclues were minimal, the leads were minimal,
and it was just one of thosethings that we got pulled over into
doing other things that impacted our manpowereven more so, all of that came
(37:57):
together and it just this investigation justcalled and nothing happened on it for many
years. So detective, how howthat kind of impact you when you know
that, you know, you've gotthese cases that are sitting off to the
side, and you're like, youknow what with just the reality is,
we can't focus on those anymore.We have life changing, life altering events
(38:20):
happening in front of us. Wasthat was that on your mind as well?
Or did you have to compartmentalize andsay, I really have to let
this go for now, or wasthat really weighing on you that you have
pending cases, well, certainly pendingcases. You know, it's just one
of those decisions that management makes.I was part of management at the time.
The chief police ultimately made the decisionthat, you know, we weigh
(38:45):
everything out, what is the likelihoodof solving this case with the technology that
ultimately led to the identification of thevictim. Well, it's happened, you
know, just this year, youknow, over twenty years later, so
that technology evolved, but it hadn'tevolved at that point in time, so
it was unlikely that we would havebeen able to identify the victim at all
(39:07):
at that period of time. Andjust a decision was made, a business
decision was made that current cases aregoing to take that priority. Figured out
what we're going to do about terrorismas a local law enforcement agency is going
to take a priority. And thiscase, that where we've got some partial
(39:27):
bones and the pre eminent method ofidentification at the time, you know,
dental records and things like that,was an impossibility because the entire skull was
missing. It was just a decisionthat unfortunately was made. You know,
before we go to break, Ido want to ask because you did say
bones were missing from the skull andthat at one point there were like construction
(39:50):
folks or plumbers or contractors that yousaid that they didn't even think it looked
like human remains. What condition werethose remains in? Well, they were
they were dry bones basically. ButI think, you know, it was
a matter of not having the trainingand ability to recognize individual bought dry bones
(40:13):
that weren't assemboled in the form ofa skeleton. You know, there was
just a bunch of a bag ofbones. And the idea I think in
the construction worker's head might have been, you know, what's the chances there's
human bones beard here? It's probablya dog or something. Of course,
you can hear the entire episode onthe iHeartRadio app. Coming up, we
head over to the La County Sheriff'sHomicide Bureau for the case of the cul
(40:34):
de Sac killer. You're listening tokf I AM sixty on demand k if
I AM six forty heard everywhere liveon the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory
and this is Unsolved. If you'relistening on the app, you can send
us a tip about a case,a story idea, or a comment about
(40:55):
the show. Just tap the redmicrophone on the app and record your message.
Thanks for tuning in to our seasonfive recap. Detective Steve Blagg is
a friend of the show and hasbeen with the La County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau
for many years. He reached outto us about a challenging case in el
Monty. It's episode five h six, the case of the cul de Sac
(41:16):
killer. So what approximately twelve thirtyam on April third, twenty and eighteen,
there was a vehicle that collided througha fence into a business complex on
Valley Boulevard just west of the sixoh five Freeway. When El Monty police
(41:37):
officers arrived at the scene, theyfound mister Brajas alone in the vehicle in
the driver's seat, suffering from whatthey later found to be a gunshot wound.
And he was eventually pronounced deceased.And the gunshot wound what part of
(41:59):
the body he sustained? It tohis upper torso like the right side of
his upper torso shot one time,multiple times, one time one time?
So you say, on the earlymorning hours until thirty in the morning,
a vehicle collided into a building.No, throw a wrought iron fence into
a building complex, building complex,so through the rot aff so on the
(42:22):
property. Correct, So the fenceis what stopped the vehicle. Now that
he was going at a pretty highrate of speed and actually probably landed about
a good hundred yards into the propertyof the business complex with a big chunk
of the fence attached to his car. What kind of car he at that
time? The victim was in atwo thou and twelve white Infinity G thirty
(42:45):
seven. Did corner give you mannerof death homicide? Homicide? But cause
of death gunshot? Gunshot? Whenwhat I was getting at was did he
die from the gunshot wound or diefrom the car crash? No, he
definitely died from the gunshot wound.Any evidence that the gunshot wound happened prior
to the crash, Yes, itdid so. Then if he was speeding,
(43:07):
if he's a high rate of speedgoing through this rought iyron fence,
was that a reflex they were likefoot down on the pedal thing or was
he still alive? I mean,we do have some surveillance video that kind
of shed some light on what wewhat happened and what led to the shooting
from that night. Can you enlightenus? Sure? So Fabian's vehicle.
(43:30):
There's a small little coul de sacalong the north side of Valley Boulevard near
a scrap metal yard. We knowthat shortly before twelve thirty am, we
were able to see Fabian's vehicle pullinto this cul de sac from south to
north and kind of angle to whereit was going to make a U turn
(43:51):
back facing southbound, but stopped.I was able to see one figure get
out of the right front passenger seat. Figure to appeared to be a male.
The figure appeared to be pointing whatlooked like a firearm inside the car,
and then it appeared is Fabian mayhave attempted to get away from that
(44:14):
mail when a shot was fired andcausing Fabian to now flee at a high
rate of speed southbound on the colde Sac across Valley Boulevard and through that
fence. So you saw that yousaw the shooting. Then the video wasn't
the best but best I could makeout, Yes, so if I heard
(44:37):
you right, The person got outof the car then opened fire. Person
got out of the car appeared tobe pointing a gun, possibly at Fabian,
when it appears that being afraid andtrying to get away, hits the
accelerator as the suspect fire as ashot okay, so as if so the
(44:59):
suspect got a he shot off Basicallybasically, yes, it did. It
was the car too damage. Couldyou tell if the if the round had
gone through a window or windshield orno. It looked like the door was
open when the suspect fired the shot. So there was no bullet impacts to
that vehicle at all. And sohow far from that scene in the cul
(45:19):
de Sac to the wrought iron fancthat he crashed through, that was maybe
about five hundred yards or so?Five hundred yards? Yeah, then do
you suppose it was there a hospitalnearby there? Do you think he was
trying to drive to a hospital ordo you think he knew he was even
I guess you can't really tell ifhe knew if he was shot or not.
(45:42):
It almost looked like it was simultaneous. Is Fabian's car drives onto the
cul de Sac and kind of anglesthat you turn and stops. The suspect
gets out of the right front passengersseat, and I think that's when Fabian
saw his opportunity maybe to get awayfrom this the suspect, and as he
hit the accelerator, the suspect firesa shot, and then that five hundred
(46:05):
yards across Valley Boulevard because at thatpoint Fabian was fatally shot, and he
went across valley and through that fencewhere his car came to arrest, okay.
And then any type of a descriptionon the shooter. All we can
tell is a mail There were sometransients because to the north of that cul
de sac or railroad tracks, therewere transients who were living along the railroad
(46:30):
tracks. They reported seeing a maleHispanic running eastbound on the railroad tracks after
they heard what sounded like a gunshot. But that was the only description we
could get. And that area ofLa Monte, well, first of all,
was Fabian from el Monty No,Okay? Where is he from?
(46:52):
At the time of the murder,Fabian resided with family in the city of
Pomona, Okay. What is thatarea of Almonte like? Typically it's all
industrial, all industrial, So whattook him to that spot? Do you
think? We have no idea?We know that Fabian worked at a machine
(47:13):
shop in Walnut. He worked kindof the swing shift where he started about
three or three thirty and would worktill about midnight most days and usually he
would close by himself according to theemployer. His employer as well as his
father, who also worked at thesame machine shop. So for him to
(47:37):
go from Walnut to Elmani, wehave no reason why. We have no
idea why, because he actually livedin the city of Pomona, which would
have been opposite from Elmani. Andyou can hear the entire episode on the
iHeartRadio app. Coming up, partof our crime Fighter series, we discuss
a new four legged firefighting fight out. You're listening to kf I AM sixty
(47:59):
on demand kf I AM six fortylive everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm
Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved.Thanks for making us a part of your
weekend. This is our season fiverecap. Recently, the Los Angeles County
(48:20):
Fire Department put into service an accelerantsniffing dog to detect things like gasoline,
paint, thinner and lighter fluid.We had a chance to meet the dog
and get some history from Captain CaseyFlanders. So this is Julia. She's
two years old. She just hada birthday on July seventh, and she
is a Golden Door half Golden Retrieverhalf Labrador. And they basically use this
breed for a couple of reasons.One they're great family dogs. Off duty,
(48:44):
she comes home with me. She'sgreat with the kids, great with
the family. Another reason these dogsare in that sporting group of dogs,
their hunting drive is what they're after, and that's what we like to see
them go in a room and thehunting drive gets their nose down to find
that ignitable liquid. And we'll learnmore about Julia in the next segment.
But I wanted to offer some historicalperspective, so I brought in Battalion Chief
(49:06):
Pete Finnerty the Heat of the ArsonUnit. He explains the department had inherited
an Arson K nine twenty years ago, but that program fizzled out, but
in twenty fourteen they created new policiesto get a Key nine unit up and
running, and now the chief says, the department is embracing all technologies old
and new to tackle arson investigations.So you have to have in lay in
(49:27):
many crimes, as you would is, you have to have witnesses that it
can identify people. You have tohave evidence that supports the hypothesis of what
we discover its seene, you haveto have security video of that person,
or in many cases you have tohave a confession. So while cases will
we will work cases and they willstay open until they're done. We are
(49:50):
getting cases back to back to backto back, So as a case would
come up that maybe takes more precedentbecause we have that evidence and something we're
sitting on. Hey, let's workgoing to put this in the background and
we're gonna wait and we're going tocome back to this case afterward. I
don't have an exact number of howmany of those cases are a lot of
cases don't sit open like that.But another thing that we have to deal
with is in La County. Aswe're all aware, there's a lot of
(50:13):
people experiencing homelessness. Those cases tendto be frequent for us, and there
isn't a lot there because the county'slooking at assisting people as long as there's
no criminal intent involved in that.Well, let's go back historically then.
You know, when you're talking aboutsolving these arsons and determining cause and manner
(50:34):
in origin, how many investigators doyou have in your arson unit and how
busy are they? So it's interestingwe have ten investigators of which I'm one,
and I am on the entire county, yes, sir, for the
entire county. And if you lookat the numbers, that's one hundred and
seventy seven fire stations, that's twentythree hundred square miles, that's twenty one
(50:58):
contract cities. And now we dosplit the county with the sheriffs when it
comes to the arson portion. Ifthe sheriffs have patrolled duty for an area,
they are the primary, so theydo divide that with us. An
interesting point that a lot of peopledon't consider is that we cover sra A
land for brushfires state responsibility. Sowe have that contract with cal Fire that's
(51:21):
five hundred thousand acres of land andin this time of the year, as
you know, we're getting daily startsand with that having to know what the
cause is. So yes, wehave a pretty big area to cover with
three on duty investigators, twenty fourhours of captain and two investigators. But
(51:45):
it's our mission that we have andwe work diligently to solve that. And
that's kind of goes back to whatI said, we kind of have to
prioritize what we've been given, notbecause we're not going to investigate it,
but when things come up that maybetake priority because we have that good evidence
actuate on or to act on rightaway that's going to come into play.
So chief how many fires out thereremain like still up in the air or
(52:07):
open. You know, I wouldsay any one of my investigators probably has
five cases that they're working simultaneously,something that we have concrete evidence on,
something that's going to take a littlelonger, something that takes longer because we're
waiting on security video from a companyor anything like that. I would say
that there is a pretty good proportionof cases that's probably exaggerating a little that
(52:34):
will go undetermined, and that simplyis due to the fact that you narrow
it down. And this is kindof arson, I would say, in
a nutshell, you can say this, Hey, the fire started in this
room. The room didn't have powerto it, nobody was storing any chemicals
in it. We didn't We don'thave any indication that somebody walked in and
threw a match on the ground.So of the stuff that's in this room,
(52:54):
based on the information we have,here's what it could have been,
and you can get of You cangive all the stuff that didn't cause it,
and here's the couple things that couldhave. But you just don't have
that last piece of evidence that isthe thing that points directly to one thing.
Conversely, you have evidence on scene, You're looking at all this possibilities,
(53:15):
and then all of a sudden somebodysays, hey, I have a
security footage and they bring something andyou go, oh lo and behold there's
the person running in with a gascan, dousing the room and throwing a
match, and you know exactly whatstarted that. It's no different than a
homicide investigation. It is very similarwith respect to police work. It is
very similar these guys myself to say, is word detectives who focus solely on
(53:39):
arson crime are you know, fire. But it's one of the hardest ones
to solve, right, I don'tknow how arson investigators did it thirty years
ago, because I will say whatwe get now is we do get a
lot of help from the amount ofcameras that are out in the technology I
would think too, right, absolutely, science and tech advancements. Absolutely so
(54:01):
they had a lot of stuff,but a lot of it don't. They
didn't have as much as we have, and that's changing, you know,
year over year. And Julia iskind of an example of something that's been
around a long time, but somethingthat can really bolster the case, I
do want to talk a little bitabout advancements in technology. When you talk
about, you know, decades ago, and this is the nation's largest fire
department, you know, were youas innovative with arson investigations that you know
(54:24):
back then as you were with alot of things in firefighting. You know,
it's hard for me to answer thatquestion without having the historical context of
some of the folks that I doknow that that worked in the unit as
far back as right now, wedon't have I would say a decade or
a little bit more. Is theinvestigator that has been the longest in the
(54:44):
unit. I do know that oneof the big things that I can answer
looking at historical documentation is that theunit asked to have a fire administrative study
done in ninety nine, and itoutlined all the areas that the National Fire
Administration would say, Hey, ifyou really want to change what you're doing,
(55:07):
here's the suggestions we have for howyou can upgrade or become more efficient.
And some of that was scheduling.As I said, before, they
used to be on a forty hourschedule. They would be calling in after
hours. The department saw some ofthe suggestions, they moved to a fifty
six hour three investigator type shift worksso they're on duty, ready to go
at any moment. So that typeof stuff advances in us working with the
(55:30):
lab, Sheriff's, the county labso we can get things looked at.
And that's a lot of a lotof the advancements are those things for everybody.
What it's going to come in theformat of is a better reporting or
better use of technology. You know, in the past, you would take
individual shots when you were putting togethera photo array, which is something we
(55:52):
still do to this day. Younow have technology where you can set a
camera in the center of the roomand it'll take three hundred and sixty degree
photos, which, as I've beentold by many people that are moving to
that technology, when you go tocourt to try to bring this to a
juror that doesn't understand arson when you'reable to give that hey, here's the
room we were looking at. Now, let me take you over to this
(56:14):
corner. You can see this corneris unburned, but see where all the
damage is over here. And peoplerelate to that versus single shot like they
get disoriented, they don't understand whatyou're really referencing, so I would say
things like that, drones are abig one, you know, especially like
with brush fires. You know,we used to have to bring ladders out
and climb the ladder and shoot these. You know. Now we have that
you know us program, you knowon man ail, and we can ask
(56:37):
for that assistance from our own departmentbecause we have that technology, which is
just simply more efficient. It allowsus to move on file the case and
get to work on either something elseor move on to what that next portion
of the case might be. Ofcourse, you can hear the entire episode
on the iHeartRadio app. Coming up, a horrendous case from Covina, our
(56:59):
final episode. It's the case ofthe Fast and Furious fatal house fire.
You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand, kf I AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.I'm Steve Gregory. This is Unsolved.
(57:20):
Thanks for making us a part ofyour weekend. This is the season five
recap. It's our final case ofthe season. It's in Covina, an
eighty nine year old woman who wasambushed to break it down. Here are
detectives Rich Tomlin and Sean McCarthy withthe Ella County Sheriff's Cold Case Unit.
It's the case of the fast andfurious fatal house fire April eighth, twenty
sixteen, early morning hours a residenceat two zero nine five Mezzarica Road in
(57:49):
the Conyer, Covina. And togive a better perspective, it's it's in
the general area of sandemas Bonelli parRaging Waters. I think your audience would
be familiar generally with that area.I would describe it as an upper middle
(58:10):
class community. Deputies get a callof aut house fire at that location.
It was shortly after noon. Theyrespond along with La County Fire and the
(58:30):
house is not engulfed. It's prettyisolated to the master bedroom. The victim
in this case is a Helen Lambert. She's an eighty nine year old lady
who lived at the location along withher grandson. And when when fire responds,
(58:57):
they pretty quickly put out the fireand they discover her deceased body on
the bed in the master bedroom.And I said the fire was isolated to
the master bedroom. I think Ishowed just some of the photographs. It
did a It destroyed the master bedroom, but the rest of the house was
(59:22):
other than minor smoke damage was relativelyyeah, and just touched just to bring
listeners up to speed. Yeah,you have been providing photos here and we'll
talk a little bit more later.But it is the gruesome, real photos
of this poor woman's body on herbed. But also from the outside,
you can't tell there was a fire, correct, So that's what you're talking
(59:44):
about isolated. And it's a ranchstyle home here in the twenty thousand block
of Messo Rica Road. So infact, it was a neighbor who ultimately
was determined to be her caregiver,who who had picked her grandson up from
Charter Oak High School and was bringinghim home when they approached the house and
(01:00:09):
they noticed smoke. So it wasn'tlike they drove up to the into the
driveway and the house was fully engulfed. There was there was smoke coming from
the master bedroom, but it wasn'tlike where you immediately notice that they actually
walked up to the house. Whenso where is the bedroom out in the
house. The bedroom is right whenyou enter through the front door into the
(01:00:36):
there's a quick hallway to your right. You turn right down the hallway.
The master bedroom was right off ofthe bedroom by the front door, if
you will. It was closest tothe front door. Yes, and we
have a sketch in there if youwant to take a look at some points.
Okay, So, now they've arrived, the house is not fully engulfed,
(01:00:57):
but there is smoke coming out ofthe house. What happens The Elle
County Fire arrives and pretty quickly putsout the fire, and when they go
inside they discover her charred body onthe bed in the master bedroom. She
was bound, but I'm not goingto get into details of how she was
(01:01:22):
bound. And it was later determinedthat the cause of death was not the
fire. So so, in otherwords, there was no soot in her
lungs and that would have been indicativeof somebody in the fire, and they
breathe in the smoke, and that'show the corner determines if, if if
(01:01:45):
the fire was at least a contributingfactor in her death. In this case,
based on the corner report and mydiscussions with the original iOS, there
was no soot in her lungs,so so she died before the fire was
set. So in your experience,Detective Tomlin, what does this tell you
if someone has already killed somebody thenthen ignites a fire. What is that
(01:02:07):
indicative of? Usually they're obviously tryingto cover their tracks. They do not
want to They're hoping that by settingthe fire, any type of evidence that
would lead to their identification would bedestroyed. McCarthy, this has got to
be more complicated because, based onthe photos you've shown me, you know
(01:02:31):
how, first of all, howon earth do you identify a body like
this? And secondly, you know, how does a homicide investigation begin when
you've got a very badly charred bodythat's on a bed. Based on your
experience, where do you start onsomething like that, my experience with deaths
(01:02:53):
with fire, and to be honestwith you in general, because just the
way I operate, I'm gonna I'mgonna see a crime scene like that.
And honestly, Steve, the crimescene in this case was was pretty limited
to that bedroom and the rest ofthe house. But that bedroom is certainly
(01:03:16):
an important part of the crime scene. And I'm going to bring in experts
the Coroner's office Arson explosives. Theseare guys who deal with fires every day
of their lives. They make determinationsif the fire was uh intentionally set or
not. I'm not qualified to dothat. So so immediately arson explosives was
(01:03:40):
called in this case, and detectivesfrom arson explosives came out. Right,
Now, are these detectives from yourdepartment or or arson detectives from the fire
department from our department? Your department? Okay, Now the fire department does
their own our investigation, right,So, so now you've got experts from
our department, arson explosives at thedetectives, experts from the fire department.
(01:04:01):
You've got the corner's office that becomesinvolved, and we already talked about about
they have their own investigators as well. Yes, yeah, every death,
every death scene, whether it's acrime or not, a corner investigator is
going to respond. Uh. Youdon't hear about them a lot in in
in um in uh cases in themedia, but they come to every single
(01:04:27):
uh death case, right Uh.And they came in this case too.
So so the iOS A homicide iOSare are at least initially their secondary because
what's the first thing we want todetermine as homicide investigators. Is this a
homicide or is this accidental? Right? And and and and that may not
(01:04:51):
always be determined right away. Itmay it may be hours and maybe days,
but homicide comes there because of thefact that it's it's a death of
a suspicious nature that could be accidental, but could be criminal in nature.
You can hear the entire episode onthe iHeartRadio app and that's going to do
(01:05:13):
it. Unsolved with Steve Gregory.The radio show is a production of the
KFI News Department for iHeartMedia Los Angelesand is produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob
Gonzalez. Our field engineer is TonySorrentino, and our digital producer is Nate
Ward. To hear this episode andothers from past seasons, download Unsolved with
Steve Gregory on the iHeartRadio app orwherever you listen KFI Am sixty on demand
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