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Overview
With an Updated Epilogue by the Author
"A compelling portrait of seasoned homicide cops at work. This is L.A.'s darkest side: ironic, heart-breaking, stunningly violent, unfailingly human. Riveting."
-Jonathan Kellerman
The mandate for Los Angeles' unique police unit Homicide Special is to take on the toughest, most controversial, and highest-profile cases. In this "literate, unfailingly interesting work of true crime" (Kirkus Reviews), acclaimed writer Miles Corwin uses unprecedented access to narrate six of the unit's cases-and capture its newest generation at work.
When a call girl from Kiev dies in the line of duty, detectives Chuck Knolls and Brian McCartin seek her killer among a circle of Russian women who have been sold into white slavery. When a gangster's daughter takes a bullet, veterans Jerry Stephens and Paul Coulter trace clues scattered across the country to a Manhattan real-estate magnate. A cold case is reopened; a mother-daughter drowning and a baffling rape/murder are solved. And, finally, Corwin re-creates the investigation surrounding the late Bonny Lee Blakley, allegedly murdered by her actor-husband, Robert Blake.
With a revised epilogue updating each of these fascinating cases, Homicide Special offers a riveting, behind-the-scenes look at one of the preeminent units of homicide detectives in the country.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781627799188 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Holt, Henry & Company, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 10/20/2015 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 416 |
| Sales rank: | 599,961 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Miles Corwin a former staff reporter at the Los Angeles Times, is the author of The Killing Season and And Still We Rise. He lives in Los Angeles.
Read an Excerpt
Homicide Special
A Year with the LAPD's Elite Detective Unit
By Miles Corwin
Henry Holt and Company
Copyright © 2003 Miles CorwinAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-62779-918-8
CHAPTER 1
Chuck Knolls and Rich Haro arrive at the North Hollywood Division station in midafternoon. Although they are visitors, they stride through the room with authority.
A female detective in Sex Crimes nods at Knolls, whom she has worked with before.
"This one's more interesting than the usual," she says.
"How so?" Knolls asks.
"I'll let the homicide guys fill you in."
The station, with its bureaucratic brown carpeting and honeycomb of cubicles, has the subdued ambiance of a suburban sheriff's outpost. Despite its name, the San Fernando Valley community of North Hollywood has little in common with its glitzy neighbor, Hollywood, twelve miles south.
Knolls and Haro sit on the edge of a desk as two North Hollywood detectives and their supervisor update them.
"I see the condoms and the neighbor says she hears a lot of bed squeaking," says Detective Martin Pinner. "I figure she's a prostitute. So at ten this morning I try to put a tap on the phone to find out who her customers are. The phone company says, 'You can't have a tap. Someone else already has one.'"
Pinner adds that the phone company refused to reveal who ordered the tap, even after he threatened to subpoena the records. They told him the subscriber would contact him.
"A few minutes later," he says, rapping his knuckles on the phone for effect, "the FBI calls me."
Knolls sighs. FBI involvement means the case is beyond a dead hooker. Russian organized crime could be involved. The cast of characters and suspects could be scattered across the country — even the world.
"Was she clothed?" Knolls asks.
"Just panties — not torn," says Mike Coffey, the detective supervisor. "And a babydoll robe. Open."
"How many shots?" Haro asks.
"Single gunshot two inches above left nipple," Coffey says. "Pierced her lung. Blew apart her heart." He lifts his thumb, aims his index finger, and adds, "Almost a straight shot. More than two feet away. She was beaten savagely around the face. Multiple blunt force."
"He just kicked her ass," Pinner says.
"There were some unusual marks on her," Coffey says, "three long, thin, parallel marks." He slashes the air with three fingers. "I thought she was pistol-whipped, but those marks don't really match up with a pistol."
"You get the bullet?" Knolls asks.
"At the autopsy," Coffey says. "Lodged in the spine. A monster .45 round. Full metal copper jacket. Mushroomed in front a bit. Otherwise, it's in beautiful shape."
"Casing?" Knolls asks.
"Ejected fifteen feet to the side of the bed," Coffey says. "We picked up three condoms from the trash can and a black pubic hair — not hers — in her IUD. So we'll have good DNA. We got eight messages off her answering machine — all in Russian."
The victim's name is Lyudmyla Petushenko, Coffey says. Her friends call her Luda, but since she has not been identified by a family member and her documents have not been authenticated she is officially known as Jane Doe No. 45.
Coffey adds that they have caught a break: a video camera outside the apartment's front door. Patrol officers at the scene on Thursday — the day of the murder — collected the tape.
Knolls nods appreciatively. "Was she raped?"
"No trauma to the vagina," Coffey says.
"Who found the body?" Knolls asks.
"Leyla — a friend. She calls a guy named Mher, who also goes by Mike. He rents the apartment for the victim. We hear he's pimping for her. Anyway, he freaks out, calls 911, and then shows up. The paramedics are already there. We interviewed him at the station. And here's something interesting. A Russian girl, an ex-hooker, was found cut up in a sewer in Marina Del Rey a few months ago. You know who her pimp is? Mher."
Haro and Knolls exchange uneasy glances: they might be tracking a serial murderer, which would significantly compound the variables. Another detective interrupts to inform Coffey that the FBI agent is in the lobby.
Minutes later, Knolls, Haro, and the North Hollywood detectives join the FBI agent and a few other investigators from organized crime and rape units in a conference room. The territorial undercurrents are strong. Since investigations by the FBI and the LAPD have intersected, the two agencies must establish jurisdictional guidelines. Meetings between local law enforcement and the FBI are always dicey, poker games between detectives and federal agents battling for turf. Agents will bluff and pretend to know more — or less — about a case than they really do, whatever stance will elicit more information from their counterpart. Detectives sometimes stonewall, reluctant to share any scrap unless they are certain they will receive equal value in return.
The FBI agent bears little resemblance to the stuffy, dark-suited stiff portrayed in the stock cop shows. Jennifer Amo, who works in the FBI's Russian organized crime squad, is in her late twenties, slight, a few inches over five feet, with blond shoulder-length hair. She is soft-spoken and, surrounded by stone-faced LAPD detectives, clearly ill at ease, like a graduate student defending her thesis before a faculty committee.
Coffey brusquely gives Agent Amo a quick synopsis, informing her that since the Russian mafia might complicate the case and the FBI's involved, detectives from the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division will take over from North Hollywood.
"The victim is a pretty blond prostitute brought here from the Ukraine by Mher and his wife," Amo begins, marking her territory. "The victim's phone is in his name. Mher and his wife set up girls in apartments and they run ads in some of the weekly papers. Johns call a central number and they send the guys to the call girls."
"Any indication our victim was doing some business on the sly and pissed off Mher?" Knolls asks.
"No," Amo says. "The girls are afraid. They know these people can get to their families in Kiev."
"Any dope involved?" Knolls asks.
"Well, they are prostitutes — but nothing big," says Amo. She pulls out two photos of Mher and his wife, enlarged California driver's license pictures. Mher is swarthy, with a heavy beard and sleepy black eyes; his wife is fair and fleshy, with a vacant stare.
"What can you tell us about the phone tap that will help us?" Haro asks impatiently.
Amo is courteous but reserved. She explains that because of "legal issues and confidentiality," she is prohibited from discussing the telephone conversations. She will only reveal that monitoring of the victim's phone began six days before her death.
Haro presses Amo, who reiterates her position. Coffey, attempting to ease the tension, gives Amo more background on the murder, including the fact that Luda was shot with a .45-caliber handgun. Haro abruptly rises and storms out of the room, motioning for the North Hollywood detectives to follow him. This may be his last day on the case, but he is furious. He did not want the caliber of the bullet released to the FBI.
"This is bullshit," he says through clenched teeth, in the hallway. "They want everything we have without giving anything in return. I've been through this before with them."
"Yeah," Coffey says, "I've been though it, too."
"I don't want her getting all of our information," Haro says. "They're interested in solving their smuggling and white slavery case. They could care less about our murder."
Haro tells the detectives about an old Armenian-Russian organized crime murder he once handled that is still unsolved. "The FBI had an informant feeding them information," Haro says. "In the beginning, we gave them what we had. They wouldn't give us anything. Eventually, I wouldn't even talk to the FBI. If they wanted to reach us, they had to call my partner. I still don't trust 'em."
Coffey, another LAPD veteran, nods in agreement.
Knolls joins the group in the hallway and angrily addresses Haro. "Let's just conclude this meeting. I don't want to keep that FBI agent just sitting in the conference room, twiddling her thumbs. We can't afford to piss her off right now." Haro can settle past scores; he will be off the case tomorrow. But Knolls will need Amo later on. He quickly ushers Haro and the others back into the conference room.
"I've been doing this a long time, and I've had problems with the FBI in the past," Coffey announces. "They haven't shared information with us on cases. They'd come in, ask if they could look at our murder books and crime scene photos. Then they'd leave, say thanks, and not give us anything."
"I've heard that before," Amo says warily.
Knolls fumes as he calculates how he and his new partner will have to slink over to the FBI building and make amends with Amo. After an uncomfortable silence, an LAPD detective from the rape unit says she does not think Luda was sexually assaulted. "She had real long fingernails. None were broken. She was beaten badly on the face and the head. I don't think it was a trick. It was personal. Sex wasn't the motive. Robbery wasn't the motive. Anger was the motive. She was the motive."
Ten minutes later, after the detectives and Amo realize they are at an impasse, the meeting breaks up. Amo leaves and the LAPD investigators linger in the room. A female detective in the organized crime unit tells Knolls and Haro that she has worked with Amo before. "She withholds some stuff, but she has given us things. She's better than the previous agents I've worked with."
"The thing is, it's our case, not theirs," Haro says.
"What else did you find in the apartment?" Knolls asks Coffey, eager to change the subject.
"About twenty-two hundred in cash hidden in purses and envelopes around the bedroom," Coffey says. "But her leather organizer was missing. People we've talked to said it was there and now it's gone."
He adds that North Hollywood detectives have already interviewed about half a dozen people. Mher and his wife claim they rented the Studio City apartment because they were going to lease their house to a group of musicians. The deal fell apart and they were stuck, but then they met Luda at a coffee shop and arranged a sublet.
"Total bullshit," Coffey tells Haro and Knolls.
Mher admitted he visited Luda the night before the murder, which Coffey does believe. The next day, after calling 911, Mher arrived at the apartment with two other men. At the station, the detectives examined their hands for gunshot residue. The tests were negative.
The detectives also interviewed a Russian named Serge, whose telephone number they found at Luda's apartment. He claims to be in the car auction business, but detectives in the organized crime unit suspect he is involved with the Russian mafia. Serge also says he met Luda at a coffee shop. She should be in the hookers' hall of fame, he told the detectives. She was a nympho who loved her job, and the sex was so great, he says, she even stopped charging him.
Next, Coffey mentions an eighteen-year-old Russian community college student who called Luda's apartment repeatedly on Thursday afternoon after the body was discovered. At the station, the student, who claimed not to have known that Luda was dead, said he planned to take her to an amusement park that day. He explained that he met her at the shoe store where he worked part-time. The previous Saturday he had attended her birthday party at a Russian nightclub in Studio City.
"He's an odd duck," Coffey says. "He claims he did not know she was a prostitute. Says they were just friends."
"You believe him?" Knolls asks.
"I don't know," Coffey says. "He called a lot."
"Sounds obsessed," Haro interrupts.
"We also talked to her sugar daddy," Coffey says. "A guy named Mischa. He didn't have a lot to say."
"Any idea what those slash marks are?" Knolls asks.
"They're a real mystery," Coffey says.
"Any leather or B-and-D equipment around?"
Coffey shakes his head.
"She have any family here?" Haro asks.
"No," Coffey says. "Another witness said she had a little girl in Russia. Said she wanted to save money, go to computer school, and bring her daughter to the U.S."
"Since she was trying to get her daughter out here, maybe she was skimming and that pissed off the pimp," Coffey says.
"Yeah," Knolls says. "She did have twenty-two hundred stashed in the apartment."
At about five o'clock, Knolls thanks the North Hollywood team for their help. The detectives drive back downtown in their own cars. As Knolls inches south on the Hollywood Freeway, he contemplates the case. He knows he could spend months investigating the murder — maybe years, if Russian organized crime is involved. He speculates about how the killer exited the apartment, and wonders whether the crime scene was chaotic, with kicked-in doors and broken mirrors, or if the victim was quickly bludgeoned and shot — brutal questions he never would have faced had he stayed in the grocery business. Fourteen years ago, Knolls was promoted to manager at a chain supermarket. The money was excellent, with lucrative bonuses. He had a wife, two kids, and a house in the Valley. His life was set, he figured.
In August, he prepared for Christmas. After New Year's, he ordered supplies for Valentine's Day. On Valentine's Day, he ordered Easter merchandise. After Easter, he stocked pallets of charcoal and picnic supplies for the summer. Then in August he did it all over again, year after year.
But one morning, shortly after he turned thirty, he decided he simply could not put in the next thirty years at the supermarket. His father had worked at Sears for forty years, running a warehouse and later selling tires, but Knolls wanted a different kind of life. He always had an interest in law enforcement because the job seemed stimulating and adventurous. For ten years he had considered quitting and applying to the LAPD or Sheriff's Department. Knolls finally realized that if he was going to sign up, he could not put if off any longer. He quit his job, took a $20,000 pay cut, and entered the LAPD academy as a thirty-year-old "boot."
Knolls, about a decade older than most of the young recruits, could not afford to languish in a patrol car. Because of his maturity, drive, and aptitude, he advanced quickly: in less than seven years, he was promoted to detective, quickly developing a reputation as a dogged investigator and skilled interviewer. He was a natural candidate for Homicide Special. He transferred to the unit in 1999, during the post- O. J. Simpson housecleaning.
Knolls has an intimate knowledge of how fragile life is, how important it is not to put off goals indefinitely. At the age of five, he was diagnosed with cancer of the parotid gland. He had extensive radiation treatment beneath his left ear, where a surgeon removed a section of his jawbone, leaving thick scar tissue and a deep cavity. Knolls has a ruggedly handsome right profile. The remnants of the cancer surgery are visible only from the left side.
If he could survive cancer, Knolls believed, he could accomplish anything. As a result, he has never suffered from a lack of confidence.
Knolls and his new partner, Brian McCartin, meet the next day at the North Hollywood station. They worked in the same squad room in South-Central and, more recently, at Homicide Special, but they greet each other without the bonhomie that many detectives in the unit share. Because of their disparate backgrounds and bearing, they have been merely acquaintances, not friends. Knolls has lived his entire life in the suburban San Fernando Valley. Despite the occasional cantankerous outburst, he has a casual, low-key demeanor. McCartin, slender with a ruddy complexion, is a blunt New Yorker with an abundance of restless energy who moved to Los Angeles and joined the LAPD after working as a fireman in Harlem for a year. Although Knolls is a veteran detective, he is a relative newcomer to the unit. McCartin, who is forty, has been assigned to Homicide Special for four and a half years, and is more integrated into RHD — Robbery-Homicide Division — more comfortable with its rituals.
Although it is the weekend, both detectives wear conservative dark suits and ties. Knolls briefs McCartin on the murder, the phone tap, the possible suspects, and how Haro and Coffey probably alienated Agent Amo.
"And she's got an informant," Knolls says.
"Oh, man," McCartin says. "We're going to have to nurture her. These old guys still think Hoover's in charge of the FBI. But it's changing." During the mid-1990s, McCartin was selected to join a new LAPD-FBI task force investigating unsolved murders in South- Central L.A. As a result, he has had more exposure to the FBI than most police detectives, and enjoys a better relationship with the agents.
In the North Hollywood conference room, McCartin and Knolls examine stacks of the victim's documents, paperwork, and photographs. A striking woman with platinum hair and green eyes, Luda defies the hard-looking, dissipated hooker stereotype. In one of the photos found at her apartment she is at a nightclub with a pudgy, gray-haired man who the detectives believe may be Mischa, the sugar daddy. Other pictures show her posing with an unidentified man in Las Vegas and basking beside a hotel swimming pool in a green bikini.
The crime scene photos offer a stark contrast. Luda is bloody and battered, lying on her back, her white silk robe open, the sash still loosely tied around her waist. A pair of high heels flank her head. Blood streams from her mouth. Purplish bruises cover her face. Her lips are pursed, turned down in a slight grimace, as if she is cringing or anticipating another blow. A ghastly collage of red, purple, and pink bruises mottles her face, and both eyes are deeply blackened.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Homicide Special by Miles Corwin. Copyright © 2003 Miles Corwin. Excerpted by permission of Henry Holt and Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Prologue,
Part I: The Valley,
Part II: The Harbor,
Part III: West L. A.,
Part IV: The Canyon,
Part V: Los Feliz,
Part VI: The Valley,
Epilogue,
Source Notes,
Author's Note,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR,
ALSO BY MILES CORWIN,
Praise for the work of Miles Corwin,
Copyright,