I. IN SUPPORT OF MY ACCOUNT
What follows is a description of my activities during the period surrounding my mother's murder. I elaborated most of this account to Van Nuys detective Andrew R. Monsue (No. 20927) during his March 10, 1983 interrogation of me [715]. Facts which Monsue never inquired about on March 10 are also discussed.
(My account is in boldface.
Supporting discussion is in normal type.)
March 10, 1983 -- The Day of the Murder:
At approximately 8:00 A.M. I awoke, ate, and dressed in my nicest clothing in preparation for my job hunt that day . . .
I'd been given ten dollars in gas money by my dad the previous evening to pay for this planned job hunt [520].
. . . I began looking for businesses in Panorama City, stopping to obtain job applicant forms from Tower Records, Marc C. Bloome, a uniform supply store, a stationery store, and the International House of Pancakes (IHOP). I'd gotten forms from three of these stores . . .
Despite Monsue's implication that I'd misrepresented the number of forms I'd obtained (Cf. IV (5)], the three forms were found in my car [195 , 237, 238] in accord with what I'd told him in my interrogation and when he visited me at Sylmar Juvenile Hall on April Fools Day, 1983 [236, 709].
Two of the three forms police found did have my handwriting at the tops, indicating the stores from which the forms had originated [240] and enabling me to return them once they were filled out.
. . . I continued my hunt until a persistent banging noise in the rear of my car alerted me to a problem with one of the new rear shock absorbers I'd installed only days before . . .
That evening, my dad told Monsue of the help my mom had given me when I'd installed the new shocks in the days preceding her attack [700]; she'd loaned me the use of her bumper jack so I could perform the work in our driveway.
And contrary to Monsue's statement [Cf. 5 IV (2) (t)], I readily told him that my need to repair the broken shock absorber had been my reason for coming to our house in the first place [193].
. . . en route to the house I stopped at my apartment, and changed from my good clothes into my old work clothes . . .
The worn clothing which I wore when police arrived at our house [200] featured "numerous dark, textured, non-blood stains" [201] -- these stains were the automotive grease deposited on the various articles of clothing when I'd worn them for previous repairs, including on the occasion of my having installed the shock absorbers earlier in the week [700].
. . . after changing clothes, I stopped at Builder's Emporium [204] and purchased one package each of nuts and washers which I needed to effect the repair (by re-securing the shock's upper bolt to the car's ‘unibody’ frame) . . .
I told Monsue about the purchase during my interrogation [198]. Police confirmed finding the nuts and washers exactly where I'd told Monsue I'd left them, on my car's center console between the two front seats [199].
I'd also brought along the tools to install the new nuts and washers on the shock bolt -- tools which Monsue observed in the rear seat [202].
. . . upon arriving at the house, I backed my car into the driveway to afford myself easier access of the rear shock absorber from the garage work bench area . . .
Police found my car backed into our driveway [196].
. . . and to the bumper jack, which was still in the trunk of my mom's car . . .
Her car was found parked inside our garage [197, 519]. And the bumper jack was always kept in the trunk of that car.
. . . I opened the nut and washer packages in preparation for the repair, and set the hardware on the console between the front seats.
After doing so, my mom still failed to appear on the front porch, as had become her custom.
I left my car and went to the front door, where I could hear the dog barking at me from inside, indicating that my mom was in fact at home . . .
As I told Monsue during my interrogation, the dog's presence in our house always signified that at least one of my parents was at home.
My dad confirmed this fact in his own declaration [524].
. . . looking into the frosted windows beside the door, and knocking and ringing the bell, I soon heard what I thought sounded like a deep 'thump' sound from inside the house . . .
I told Monsue about this odd sound during my March 10 interrogation [706], yet he appears not to have responded in any appreciable way to having received the information.
. . . starting to worry, I made my way around the west side of the house to get a look in the windows. I reached the rear, living room window, held my hand up to shield the awning's glare, and looked inside . . .
Similarly, LAPD photographer Michael Wilson testified that he, too, could see inside if he just held his hand up to block the light reflecting off of the white awning top [5].
My dad and attorney Robert Johnson were also able to see into the window on March 11 when they recreated my March 10 views [2, 3, 4].
It was precisely because there was some difficulty seeing into this window that I relayed to Monsue at my interrogation that I thought, but was not sure, I'd seen my mother's feet on the floor of the entry hall.
. . . shocked and confused by the possible sighting of my mom's feet, I immediately ran to the dining room window to clarify this bizarre, hopefully mistaken sight . . .
This is what I told Monsue at my interrogation.
. . . and there I saw for certain, and quite clearly, the top of my mom's head laying on the entry hall floor, extending several inches east of the short stone planter . . .
This is what I told Monsue at my interrogation [30].
And that's exactly where her head remained by the time I'd entered the house. It is also where Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) paramedic Jay Lovato observed her head when he arrived shortly thereafter [16, 29].
This same small patch of floor is also what Monsue's partner, detective Howard Landgren, saw when he looked into the window [28].
. . . panicked, I ran to the metal pool supplies Cabinet and grabbed the magnetic Hide-A-Key case which contained a spare house key. I opened it as I ran west, en route to the front door.
But discovering the case was empty, I cursed and threw it down . . .
This is exactly what I told Monsue I'd done with it when he interrogated me on March 10 [296].
And although the detective failed to mention this corroborative piece of evidence in any police report or detectives' note [297], and made the false claim that held personally found it in our backyard [299], attorney Robert F. Johnson actually found the case laying in the pea gravel abutting the planter in front of the living room window, on March 11 [300].
My dad was present on March 11, and witnessed Johnson's discovery [301].
. . . I spun and ran to the only other point I knew to get inside, the kitchen window . . .
Once again, this is what I told Monsue [138].
Though the detective chose to distort the frequency and reason for my having entered the window after missing curfew when I lived at home [Cf. IV (2) (f)], my dad's account clearly corroborated my own [137].
. . . but several small brads holding the window screen in its frame required that I get the red-handled pliers from my car to get inside. Frustrated and frantic, I ran north to the front yard, west to my car, got the pliers and returned the same way I'd come . . .
Just as I told Monsue at my interrogation.
Despite Monsue's apparent lies to distort my two-way footprints in a dirt patch along the route, I had in fact run both ways, and police photographs of the dirt area likely revealed this [Cf. VIII (1)].
And Monsue outright lied about weather conditions and the moisture of the dirt, in his obsession to implicate me [Cf. VIII (2)].
. . . I removed the brads and set them down on the concrete walkway, then set the window screen atop the brads. I withdrew three glass panes from the louver mechanism and set them atop the window screen and climbed in . . .
My fingerprints were recovered from the window pane/s and sill at this location [279], in support of my account.
However, no blood was found [298], contradicting Monsue's -- and his snitch's -- claim that the kitchen window was somehow a set up I'd perpetrated after supposedly committing the murder, to substantiate my hastily-concocted false alibi.
. . . once inside, I quickly reached the spare bathroom doorway opening onto the entry hall, and saw her.
She lay partially atop our large oriental area rug, on her left side, face down. Her head extended just east of the eastern edge of the short stone entry hall planter. Her feet pointed generally west . . .
LAFD paramedic Jay Lovato also observed her in this location when he arrived minutes later [16, 29].
. . . I saw that her head and face were bloody, and two kitchen steak knives jutted upwards, deeply embedded in her back. She breathed in grotesque, wet-sounding heaves, and the room smelled like a butcher shop. I felt sick . . .
I told Monsue about the wet, obstructed "slurping" noises she made as she breathed [119] when he interrogated me.
My mom had sustained serious, bleeding airway injuries, including fractured sinus cavities [117] and a deep stab wound which pierced her left lung [118]. As a result, over one and a half liters of liquid and clotted blood was recovered from her chest at her March 11 autopsy [118]. This blood in her airway caused the wet, obstructed breathing noises I'd heard.
Her breathing through the obviously injured airway is also the likely cause of the eight blood droplets found on my clothing [70], through a process well known to forensic bloodstain analysts as 'expiratory blood' [116].
In expiratory blood situations, blood from an injured airway is disrupted into droplets and carried out of the body on the exhaled breath. An object placed in the path of the exhaled breath will have these expiratory blood droplets deposited on it, including rescuers and articles of their clothing. Such expiratory bloodstains are frequently mistaken for spatter patterns caused by blunt force events, and great care must be taken by the analyst to avoid being tricked by these often misleading expiratory bloodstains [116].
. . . her arms were bent at the elbows, her hands curled up to her face . . .
I described this to Monsue at my interrogation [120], and it is also the position in which LAFD paramedic Jay Lovato observed her minutes later [119].
And in such a position, her hands and forearms were directly in the path of her own exhaled breaths -- and her expiratory blood droplets.
. . . I fell to my knees on the oriental rug, roughly adjacent to her head. A short distance remained between us . . .
This distance is echoed both in my verbal statement to Monsue [175 ] as well as the pencil drawing I made for him under interrogation [173, 174].
The distance is also consistent with the absence of heavy soaked-in bloodstains on my pant knees which Monsue falsely claimed, by distorting my statements to him, contradicted my reported actions [Cf. III (2) (b)].
. . . I told my mom everything would be all right; just hold on. I wasn't sure if she could hear me or not, but she continued breathing.
I was terrified the knives in her back would be wrenched around in the wounds if she rolled over in her heaving breaths, and I asked her if I could take them out; get them away from her. After getting no response I went ahead and did so, pinching the ends carefully and pulling them, one at a time, from her back. I set both of them on the hardwood floor southeast of her head . . .
This was where the paramedics observed the knives when they arrived a short time later [713].
. . . I was screaming things like 'Oh, my God! Oh, my God!' over and over. I kept asking if she could hear me. I was hysterical . . .
Police characterized me as hysterical when they arrived [224], and I remained tearful and distraught for some time.
. . . I quickly retrieved and drew the den telephone, on its extra-long cord, into the entry hall with my mom and I, and called the Fire Department’s paramedic emergency number . . .
Police verified my call was placed from our house at exactly 11:26 A.M. [454].
And they reported the phone had a blood smear on one side [210], in apparent agreement with my moments earlier having touched the ends of the knives with my fingertips to remove them from my mother's back.
Perhaps this consistency was the reason police failed to properly photograph the phone [211], or even confirm through chemical analysis that the substance comprising the smear was in fact blood [212]. Neither did they book the phone into evidence, where it could be properly evaluated [213].
. . . I opened the front door so that the paramedics could reach us . . .
The front door remained opened when police and paramedics arrived minutes later [713].
. . . as I opened the door, two cars drove past, several people inside each. I raised and waved my hands, running to the end of the porch, but they'd driven past without stopping. I became extremely paranoid that the attackers could still be in the house and, since we owned no guns, I quickly armed myself with two large, menacing knives from our kitchen in order to protect my mother and myself . . .
A red stain was observed on a corkscrew in the kitchen drawer from which the search knives had come [716], consistent with my having reached into that drawer with the same hand I'd moments earlier used to remove the knives from my mother's back, bloodying my fingertips.
The fact that the stain corroborates this portion of my account may be why police failed to perform a chemical test to confirm the presence of blood, or to otherwise examine the corkscrew forensically.
. . . I searched most of the rooms with my knives, fearing what would happen if the killer/s was still around knowing his victim remained alive. My mind raced. During the search, I saw a broken, bloody trophy laying near a bloodstain in the master bedroom hallway, more blood spots in and around the master bathroom, and my mom's blue shoes on the hallway floor . . .
I told Monsue I'd searched the house [717], and seen the trophy [718]. It was at that time I also saw the blood spots and her shoes.
And despite the detectives' obvious lies to generate suspicion concerning the knives, they support my account [Cf. IV (10)].
. . . in the living room hallway, I saw her dark leather purse sitting on the western arm of the love seat with its top completely opened. She always kept her purses zipped closed, and the thought 'She's been robbed!' flashed through my head as I leaned forward to look inside.Placing both knives in one hand, I extended a finger into the purse to look for the wallet, but immediately saw it atop the rest of the contents, opened and with an obviously empty cash section. I could see the side edge of the plastic credit card section, and the colors gave me the impression of its being full . . .
Police confirmed that money was missing from the purse [467], money which was not found [468].
At my interrogation I told Monsue I’d seen the cash section empty and her credit cards still present. Yet true to form, the detective twisted my statement into a lie to falsely implicate me [Cf. IV (2) (1)].
. . . back in the entry hall, finished searching, I set the search knives outside the open door on the front porch. I was about to put the phone outside as well, so it would not be in paramedics' way, when I thought to call my dad. In fact I desperately needed to hear his voice and to have some sanity injected into the morning's madness. I called my dad's office and got his secretary, and a moment later, my dad . . .
My call appears on our April 2, 1983 home telephone bill, placed at exactly 11:29 A.M. It lasted one minute (the minimum billing increment, so the actual call might have been shorter), and incurred a toll charge of 6 cents.
. . . I tearfully told him what I'd walked into, pleading that he get home quickly; mom's been stabbed.I hung up the phone and set it outside by the knives. As I passed the garage door opener Velcroled to the upper front door frame, I pressed it with my closest hand, the left. I hadn't searched in there yet, and I wondered if they'd stolen her car, as well. As the garage door lifted open, the phone rang in my hand. It was the Fire Department operator, telling me to get some clean cloths and apply direct pressure to the bleeding injuries.
I ran into our kitchen and got two clean dish towels from the rags cabinet beneath the microwave oven. I returned to my mom, who continued her loud, heaving breaths.
I placed one rag beneath her head and the other against the stab wounds on her back using my left hand, unsure of how much pressure I should exert, fearful of hurting her . . .
These old, bloodied towels remained in the entry hall and were observed by authorities when they arrived
. . . squatting beside her, just north of the planter, I reached over with my right hand and grasped her wrist, raising her right arm, trying to take her pulse . . .
I told Monsue that her arms had been curled up in front of her face [120], and that I'd lifted her arm [72] to try to take her pulse [127A].
He further observed that I wore my outer shirt's sleeve cuffs unbuttoned and hanging open that day [121].
And bloodstain analysts know that expiratory blood may be generated in situations when a victim with injured and bleeding airways -- just like my mom's [118, 117] -- continues to breathe [116].
Why then, did Monsue and the prosecuting attorney claim that the eight tiny droplets on my clothing proved that I was the killer? In light of the airway injuries and the proximity of my clothing to her exhaled breath, these droplets corroborate my account rather than implicate me.
. . . I could detect no pulse, so I was probably doing it wrong. What was apparent, however, was that her arm was completely broken. In shock, I dropped it back to the floor, crying and praying that everything might return to normal, and that this horrid tableau would somehow go away . . .
The State's bloodstain expert, Ronald R. Linhart, testified that the fractured right arm falling into a bloodstain on the floor was consistent with all of the blood droplets found on my shirt sleeve [74] and tennis shoes [73]. He further testified that this would not have required a great deal of force [76].
Police said our entry hall floor had bloodstains on it [592, 593]. And my mom's hands, especially her badly slashed left hand [645], also had blood on them, so her hand/s itself may have been the blood source.
. . . I noticed a small spot of yellow between my mother's neck and her red sweater. It looked to be narrow, braided rope.
I gripped it with my fingertips and pulled, and a three-foot length of bright yellow cord, gory and disgusting, appeared from around her throat.
I flipped it away, onto the stone planter beside us . . .
This yellow cord was found by police and booked into evidence [719].
My mother bore several pronounced ligature marks visually consistent with this piece of rope [609], suggesting that her killer/s’ hands would also feature matching marks. Yet I bore no injury whatsoever to any part of my body, including my hands [373].
. . . I could hardly recognize my own mother beneath her devastating injuries.
I lifted her head, gently cupped in my left hand, trying to comfort her, but I felt a disturbing softness to it, and I realized that her skull was shattered . . .
In fact, her skull was fractured in several places, including at its most-protected location beneath the base of the brain [647].
. . . I released her head involuntarily, in a state of mounting terror . . .
Linhart testified that my releasing her head like that could also have caused the sleeve cuff droplets [79] and, again, that it would not have required a great deal of force to have done so [76].
. . . I needed the paramedics there instantly. So where the hell were they?
I raised up from my mom's side and ran out the front door. As I reached the porch steps and jumped down onto the driveway, a large eastbound ambulance pulled up in front of our house. I screamed, 'Thank God! Oh, thank God!’ and hurried towards them.
A police car pulled in behind the ambulance, across the driveway, and then both vehicles' occupants exited and made for the house. I continued on, shouting excitedly, 'Please help! My mom's inside! She's been stabbed!' . . .
Police confirmed that upon arrival they observed me walking hurriedly towards them, yelling loudly [270]. And though Monsue tried to lie about this event to make my actions appear suspect [Cf. IV (2) (a)], the officers' testimony is quite clear.
. . . the officers told me to remain outside on the driveway as they searched the house, and I obeyed their order . . .
Police officer George Prado testified that I fully obeyed the orders he and his partner, G.M. Derousseau, gave me to remain outside [312] while they spent two to three minutes searching our house [311].
In fact, after police arrived I never once re-crossed the threshold of the front door, or stepped up onto our ten-foot long porch [313], and I never pushed or bothered Prado or his partner to get around him and make for the front door [314].
Though police later sought to bolster their false case by portraying me as wild and unruly, the facts plainly prove otherwise [Cf. IV (15)].
. . . I paced back and forth, more nervous and agitated than ever before, while still trying my best to answer their questions.
I complained that not enough was being done, and that they should hurry and get my mom to the hospital. And I said I wanted to go back in and try to help her myself -- though I made absolutely no motion to do so. . . .
Officer Prado testified I'd said I wanted to go back inside [129].
. . . almost immediately, I was choke-holded by an unseen officer's right arm, placed around my throat from behind. I was swiftly taken to the ground and handcuffed behind my back. I protested and struggled, but the two officers had me completely contained . . .
Police confirmed the takedown and handcuffing [285].
And this takedown might also have caused the tears on my outer, plaid shirt, if in fact these tears, which Monsue claimed to have observed, were fresh ones. But it's just as likely, however, that the tears predated March 10, as the shirt had for some time been relegated to the status of work shirt because of its old, worn condition [Cf. IV (4) (k)].
. . . they briefly seated me on the asphalt driveway, against my car's right, front wheel, and then moved me to the locked, rear seat of Prado's patrol car, guarded by a newly-arrived officer, Douglas Johnson . . .
Prado, as the officer first on scene, actually instructed Johnson to stand watch over and question me in the patrol car at the curb.
. . . Johnson stood on the grass atop the curb, adjacent the opened window directly beside me. He looked down into the car at me, and began asking me the same questions as Prado and Derousseau . . .
Johnson testified as to my demeanor and the responses I gave in answer to is questions [172].
Contrary to Monsue's false claim of numerous, obvious blood stains on my person which clearly implicated me in the crime, Johnson saw no blood whatsoever [Cf.. IV (11) (a)].
Monsue also falsely claimed that I'd made suspicious statements to Johnson, but Johnson testified that I never did [Cf. IV (3) (b)].
. . . after a seeming eternity, I watched through blurry eyes as the paramedics wheeled my mom out of our house on a gurney, swarmed around her and working. They quickly boarded the ambulance and drove away to the west, towards Encino Hospital.
I never saw my mother again . . .
At 12:15 P.M. detective Landgren went to Rancho Encino hospital, where my mom had been taken [Cf. IV (11) (c)].
. . . my dad arrived in his car minutes later, and immediately asked Johnson if he could take me with him to the hospital to be with my mom. Johnson shook his head ‘no’ . . .
The fact that my dad made this request, and Johnson refused it, was confirmed in trial testimony [262].
. . . my dad was given permission for us to speak to each other, and after I gave him a basic description of my arrival and discovery, he tried to calm me, worry lines etched on his face.
He told me to continue speaking with the officer, and that he would return from the hospital as soon as possible. He got into his car and drove off in the same direction as had the ambulance.
Moments later, an unmarked police car drove up and two suits stepped out. They crossed the street to our house, speaking for a moment with one of the officers before entering . . .
The police chronological log records Monsue's and detective Pida's arrival at exactly 12:15 P.M. [293].
Monsue confirmed that when he arrived, he went directly towards the house, never proceeding to the car in which I sat until after held surveyed the property [Cf. IV (11) (a)].
. . . one of the suits, a person I later learned was detective Monsue, emerged from our house and summoned Johnson. The officer returned a moment later and said that "the detective" wanted to speak with me.
Johnson took me over to the unmarked police car and told me to get into the backseat. Monsue got in beside me, and I asked him if he would remove the handcuffs, or at least loosen them as they were too tight, but he told me, flat out, "no."
Johnson drove towards the east . . .
Police confirmed I'd been kept handcuffed behind my back in the locked and guarded police car [261], and that the cuffs were left on for the drive, until they had me in the secure, underground parking structure of Van Nuys police station [264].
. . . I asked him if we could go to the hospital (which was in the opposite direction) so that I could be with my mom and dad, but he denied my request. Nevertheless, I asked several times, and Monsue seemed to become increasingly irritated with me . . .
Monsue admitted I'd asked him several times if I could go to the hospital to be with my mom, and that held refused these requests [265].
. . . from his position on my left, he flashed me sidelong glances, looking me up and down. I got the clear impression that these were antagonistic, even accusatory looks . . .
His dark looks [659] worried me, yet I was already under total police control and could do nothing about it. My minutes-earlier takedown and handcuffing, as well as Monsue's refusal to drive me to the hospital, left little doubt in my mind as to their dominion over me at that moment.
Monsue testified that I'd been his sole suspect [164] well before our drive began, while I yet remained at the scene [260].
He also admitted I'd not been free to leave the crime scene, either, an obvious fact which he for quite some time denied [263].
. . . yet by the time we arrived at Van Nuys ;tation, Nonsue had begun acting almost friendly towards me. I didn't have a clue what to think.
I was led inside and, in the elevator, my handcuffs were finally removed.
A short time later we were seated face to face in a small room and Monsue began the interrogation, introducing himself as 'Andy’. I recounted all that I'd seen and done that morning; how I'd arrived to fix my car, knocked, got no answer, looked in windows, and finally found my mom. I cried uncontrollably, doing the best I could to hold it together, but this was in vain.
After flashing me more accusatory looks, Monsue finally shifted the tone of the encounter and told me he thought I'd attacked my mom.
I was blown away. I couldn't believe this was happening. I was as overwhelmed by the accusation as I was powerless to do anything about it.
Nevertheless, I protested, and tried to lead the detective through things step by step in the futile hope that held see his error, apologize and rush me to the hospital to be with my family.
But this never happened, and I was arrested . . .
Following the interrogation, I was indeed arrested.
. . . I was taken to a tiny holding cell at the northwest end of the homicide office, and told to strip naked and surrender my clothing. I did so, with several police personnel, including Monsue himself, watching me . . .
At this de facto strip search, police discovered that I bore no injury whatsoever to my body; not a single scrape, scratch, cut or bruise [373].
And other than the blood I'd gotten on my hands trying to lend first Aid to my mom [187], I had no large drops or otherwise obvious bloodstains on my clothing or person [54, 55, 66].
Yet certain locations in our house were virtually peppered with spatter [51] and other bloodstain patterns [632, 636, 637, 640, 641, 643, 644, 648, 649], silent witness to the fearsome brutality of the protracted attack. Anyone present in that environment at the time of the crime would likely have exhibited the same magnitude of bloodstains on his clothing and person.
My total lack of injury or large bloodstains stands in stark contrast with the brutal, five-weapon overkill perpetrated on my mother minutes earlier.
Consider:
§ She had been beaten severely on the head, at least ten times [571], with a hand-held [574] marble-based Little League baseball trophy, using enough force to cause extensive bleeding to her scalp [573];
§ A large, bat-like exercise bar was slammed with devastating force into her right, upper forehead, severely fracturing her facial bones and sinus cavities [117] and virtually shattering her skull [647];
§ The same exercise bar was smashed into her right upper arm, completely fracturing the humerus [584];
§ She was thrust and swung at with a pair of sharp steak knives, inflicting several deep, gaping defensive slash wounds to her left hand [576];
§ These same knives were plunged deeply into her back, piercing her left lung and causing more than a liter and a half of blood to be found in her left chest cavity [118];
§ And a length of braided yellow cord was placed around her throat and drawn tight or pulled with sufficient force to inflict several very visible ligature marks and abrasions on the back of her neck [609].
And when my clothing was analyzed by State bloodstain expert Ronald Linhart, he contradicted the Van Nuys police claim of finding twenty-seven blood droplets; Linhart found only eight [Cf. III (2)]. He also directly contradicted Monsue's testimony that there was blood on my yellow shirt, blood spatter on my pants, and large blood drops on my shoes [Cf. III (1) (a) (b) (c)].
. . . My 'mug shot' was taken, and my fingernails clipped and collected . . .
Monsue confirmed that my nail clippings were collected [582].
On forensic examination, these clippings contained no skin scrapings consistent with my having minutes earlier participated in such a violent, hand-to-hand overkill [582A].
. . . I was given clownishly oversized blue pants and a blue shirt, no underwear or shoes, and was locked in a plexiglass-walled holding cell downstairs. After a couple of hours there, I was led back upstairs into the interrogation room, where my dad was brought in to see me.
I searched my dad's face for news of mom's condition, and before Monsue had even closed the door behind us, blurted out, "How is she?"
"Son, Mom's dead.' My dad spoke the words in a somber, hollow tone I'd never heard him use before. I collapsed into him and sobbed, disbelieving, terrified, empty. I told him how this idiot Monsue thought I'd attacked mom. He already knew I'd been arrested.
Finally, Monsue came in and said my dad had to leave. We both asked the detective if I could go home, but Monsue said no, that I would be taken to Sylmar Juvenile Hall, and I could be visited there.
Once again I asked Monsue to let me wash my mother's blood from my hands, and this time, he complied . . .
Monsue testified that prior to then held denied my requests that I be allowed to wash the blood from my hands [267].
. . . in the early morning hours of March 11, I was driven to Sylmar Juvenile Hall, at the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley. I was placed on medication and assigned a 24-hour a day guard, who sat in a chair in the always-opened doorway of my room. I couldn't close the door, even to use the bathroom. All of the staff were brusque, and gave me looks like Monsue had in the car; looks of disdain, or disgust. I was left alone to grieve the death of my mom alone, and as a suspect.
My dad visited me there that weekend, on the next available visiting day. Right away I iterated that I didn't do it, I didn't kill mom. Yes, of course we'd had our family problems, but murder? Not a chance.
He said he knew, and that the more he thought about it, nothing about the police theory made any sense. For example, held learned from police that all the money in mom's purse (about $150.00) had been stolen in the attack, and he knew I wouldn't have done that . . .
Police confirmed $150.00 was stolen, and never recovered [545].
My dad had personally given me ten dollars the evening of March 9 [520], just over a dozen hours before my mother's theft and murder. And I'd received similar amounts every day or two since moving out in May, 1982, and I nearly always went to my dad, the sole bread winner, and not my mom for money.
. . . my dad and I quickly realized that a former roommate of mine, Tohn "Mike' Ryan, Jr., was the likely killer.
I immediately wrote a letter to Monsue, who responded by coming to Sylmar and interviewing me on April Fools Day, 1983. He then flew to Gulfport, Mississippi to interview the suspect Ryan . . .
In my letter to him, I provided Monsue a number of promising leads about Ryan which my dad and I developed in our conversations [460A]. Monsue, however, would later admit that the only reason held traveled to Gulfport at all was to "clear" Ryan of any involvement in the murder [165].
Yet the reasons to suspect Ryan numbered in the dozens:
About Mike Ryan, Generally
An incredibly violent, lifelong menace to society [Cf. VII (13)] who lied to police about his drug use [Cf. VII (17)] As well as about his perennial fascination with knives [Cf. VII (29)], Ryan had come to regard our house as a source of cash, whether legally obtained or otherwise [Cf. VII (22)].
Ryan was intimately familiar with the interior layout of our house [Cf. VII (14) (23)], and possessed firsthand knowledge of problems within our household, such that any attack against my mom would make me the initial focus of the investigation; his perfect scapegoat [Cf. VII (15)].
The cord handles of the tote bag in which Ryan kept his belongings during the Los Angeles trip visually matched the yellow cord I found wrapped around my mother's neck [Cf. VII (20)].
Preceding the Murder
After living for months on a couch in my Van Nuys apartment, I finally had to kick him out for not paying his rent. Ryan left Los Angeles a few months before my mother's murder, and stayed in Mississippi. Days before the murder, he placed several telephone calls to the northern San Fernando Valley, the area surrounding our house [Cf. VII (7)].
At the outset of his suspicious L.A. trip (Cf. VII (18) (19)], Ryan boarded a bus, and arrived in Los Angeles just four days before the murder (Cf. VII (1)]. He chose a sleeping lair poised quite near our house, and later gave an obviously false excuse for this (Cf. VII (24)].
Two days before the murder, I intercepted him on Orion Avenue, one block from our house and walking towards it; yet he claimed held been headed elsewhere [Cf. VII (21)].
He couldn't account for his whereabouts the night before the murder [Cf. VII (10)], and suspiciously forgot the canyon in which he claimed held slept [Cf. VII (11)].
And Ryan was inside our house the day before my mom was robbed and murdered, asking her for money (Cf. VII (2)].
At the Time of the Murder
Though Ryan tried unsuccessfully to claim that held been far from our house at the time of the murder [Cf. VII (5)], in fact a telephone call had been placed very near that time from our home telephone to a number which differed from Ryan's mother's number by only its final digit [Cf. VII (3)].
Following the Murder
Ryan fled the area of our home the very day of the murder, and the State of California the day after that [Cf. VII (1)].
Ryan used an alias ("Mark Smith") to check into a motel room shortly after the murder [Cf. VII (6)] and his excuse for having used the alias was a two-fold obvious lie [Cf. VII (31)]. The motel expenditure – his first lodging expense during the trip -- came suspiciously on the heels of the crime [Cf. VII (12)].
Ryan claimed an alibi which would have conveniently explained blood a witness might have seen on him [Cf. VII (8)], yet he seriously confused that story, something unlikely if it were true [Cf. VII (9)].
Ryan lied about the bus ticket he purchased to flee Los Angeles following the murder [Cf. VII (27)].
When Monsue interviewed him, Ryan seemed to know more about the murder than an innocent person would [Cf. VII (28)], and made the dubious claim of having already put the murder completely out of his mind [Cf. VII (26)]. And when his father questioned him about the crime, Ryan may have displayed a very curious reaction to that inquiry [Cf. VII (30)].
Ryan's Money Situation
The amount of cash Ryan claimed to have had at the outset of his trip can not cover his self-admitted, itemized expenses, and he would have needed the stolen money just to make it (Cf. VII (4)]. And he seems not to have been budgeting his money as he later claimed (Cf. VII (25)].
Following this sham of an interview, Monsue ordered the likely killer released. Monsue then lied to a Sylmar Juvenile Court probation officer, claiming held been able to "convincingly clear" Ryan of any involvement [163].
Monsue later admitted held never pursued anyone but me as a suspect in the murder [164].
. . . on April 4, I attended a detention hearing in the Sylmar Juvenile Court. Had the judge at that hearing realized the truth, I could have gone home that day.
But Monsue's exaggerations and sheer inventions about blood spatters on my clothes, and his other irresponsible claims about evidence, sealed my fate. I was ordered held in custody . . .
(Note: While many of the following references are quoted from the Follow-Up report, Monsue duplicated the claims, in the exact order below, in his testimony. Transcript page references precede each point.)
Consider the many questionable statements to which Monsue testified:
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