1 00:00:05,505 --> 00:00:10,010 [ominous music playing] 2 00:00:10,093 --> 00:00:11,886 [helicopter blades whirring] 3 00:00:31,573 --> 00:00:32,782 [reporter] Two young paper boys 4 00:00:32,866 --> 00:00:36,244 discovered the latest victim on a hillside in northeast Los Angeles. 5 00:00:36,828 --> 00:00:38,997 The body had been dumped 15 feet down an embankment 6 00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:40,582 in a residential neighborhood. 7 00:00:41,416 --> 00:00:43,752 The victim was a woman, about 20 years old, 8 00:00:43,835 --> 00:00:45,587 and the body was nude. 9 00:00:45,670 --> 00:00:47,380 [tense music playing] 10 00:00:48,882 --> 00:00:50,050 [phone ringing] 11 00:00:50,133 --> 00:00:52,385 [Frank] I got a call at home from the desk, 12 00:00:53,053 --> 00:00:55,722 and they say it's a possible overdose. 13 00:00:58,933 --> 00:01:00,685 We uncovered the body. 14 00:01:00,769 --> 00:01:04,022 You could see ligature marks on her wrists, 15 00:01:04,105 --> 00:01:06,816 you could see ligature marks on her ankles, 16 00:01:06,900 --> 00:01:09,027 and you could see a mark around her neck. 17 00:01:09,110 --> 00:01:10,320 It stood out right away. 18 00:01:10,403 --> 00:01:12,739 This wasn't an overdose, this was a murder. 19 00:01:19,496 --> 00:01:22,624 [reporter] Ten young women raped, bound, and strangled, 20 00:01:22,707 --> 00:01:24,876 their bodies found scattered in hilly areas… 21 00:01:24,959 --> 00:01:28,338 [reporter 2] Early Saturday, the body of 18-year-old Paula Gwen Ward 22 00:01:28,421 --> 00:01:30,632 was found in a secluded lover's lane… 23 00:01:30,715 --> 00:01:33,551 The body of 21-year-old Carolyn Williams was found. 24 00:01:33,635 --> 00:01:37,764 These have been attributed to a killer called the Hillside Strangler. 25 00:01:37,847 --> 00:01:40,850 The Hillside Strangler was a huge story in Los Angeles. 26 00:01:41,726 --> 00:01:44,479 Eleven bodies. Eleven women, all of them… 27 00:01:45,230 --> 00:01:49,526 dumped on hillsides, where they would be easy to spot. 28 00:01:50,151 --> 00:01:51,319 [Zoey] They were nude. 29 00:01:51,986 --> 00:01:53,947 Uh, they were posed. 30 00:01:54,030 --> 00:01:56,074 Now, one of our theories 31 00:01:56,157 --> 00:01:58,993 was we could be dealing with either cops… 32 00:01:59,744 --> 00:02:01,287 or pretend cops… 33 00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:06,042 because there was no sign of a struggle ever with any of the victims. 34 00:02:06,126 --> 00:02:09,712 When they were taken off the street, they went willingly. 35 00:02:11,047 --> 00:02:14,551 [reporter] But a palm print was found on the car of the 13th victim, 36 00:02:14,634 --> 00:02:16,970 20-year-old Cindy Hudspeth. 37 00:02:17,053 --> 00:02:20,765 In California, a former security guard has been sentenced to life in prison 38 00:02:20,849 --> 00:02:22,851 for some of the Hillside Strangler killings. 39 00:02:24,018 --> 00:02:26,563 Kenneth Bianchi admitted to a Los Angeles Court 40 00:02:26,646 --> 00:02:30,066 that he committed five of the so-called Hillside stranglings. 41 00:02:30,150 --> 00:02:32,235 He agreed to plead guilty to the killings 42 00:02:32,318 --> 00:02:35,071 and to testify against his cousin, Angelo Buono. 43 00:02:35,655 --> 00:02:39,409 The oddity of it was, there were two killers who were cousins. 44 00:02:40,201 --> 00:02:41,286 Figuring that out 45 00:02:41,870 --> 00:02:43,371 was one hell of a job. 46 00:02:43,454 --> 00:02:47,250 There were a lot of other men and women who were working on this case, 47 00:02:47,333 --> 00:02:49,586 but Frank was the guy who put it all together. 48 00:02:50,253 --> 00:02:52,297 [Paul] And when Frank Salerno did that, 49 00:02:53,131 --> 00:02:55,091 you just sorta said, "Whoa!" 50 00:02:56,134 --> 00:02:58,011 That was very difficult to do. 51 00:03:03,725 --> 00:03:05,727 [Frank] I remember telling Gil, 52 00:03:05,810 --> 00:03:08,563 "Those are, like, once-in-a-lifetime cases." 53 00:03:11,441 --> 00:03:12,775 All of a sudden… 54 00:03:14,444 --> 00:03:16,070 "Oh, shit, here we go again." 55 00:03:16,154 --> 00:03:21,534 [ominous music swells] 56 00:03:30,460 --> 00:03:33,630 [siren wailing in distance] 57 00:03:33,713 --> 00:03:36,841 [reporter] 105 for afternoon high tomorrow, 108 in high desert, 58 00:03:36,925 --> 00:03:40,303 117 in Palm Springs. We'll break a record again tomorrow. 59 00:03:40,386 --> 00:03:43,014 It'll be sunny and hot for the next few days. 60 00:03:43,097 --> 00:03:45,558 [reporter continuing indistinctly] 61 00:03:45,642 --> 00:03:48,102 [Frank] In effect, you're hunting a man. 62 00:03:48,186 --> 00:03:51,231 [powerful music playing] 63 00:03:51,314 --> 00:03:53,316 [Gil] I've never been a hunter. I'm a city slicker. 64 00:03:53,399 --> 00:03:55,485 I looked at it playing the game of Clue. 65 00:03:56,444 --> 00:03:59,739 You know, Colonel Mustard did it with a gun in the kitchen. 66 00:04:00,323 --> 00:04:03,034 [Frank] You're trying to think like an individual 67 00:04:03,117 --> 00:04:05,286 that is not thinking logically. 68 00:04:06,079 --> 00:04:09,540 We had a serial killer responsible for child abductions as well. 69 00:04:10,667 --> 00:04:12,794 And killing by various means. 70 00:04:12,877 --> 00:04:13,920 Guns, 71 00:04:14,420 --> 00:04:15,630 knives, 72 00:04:15,713 --> 00:04:17,173 ligature strangulation, 73 00:04:17,257 --> 00:04:18,549 manual strangulation, 74 00:04:18,633 --> 00:04:20,260 blunt force trauma. 75 00:04:20,343 --> 00:04:25,390 The only thing that was similar was his dissimilarity. 76 00:04:25,473 --> 00:04:28,935 He went after old people, he went after young people. 77 00:04:29,018 --> 00:04:31,145 He went after men, he went after women. 78 00:04:31,229 --> 00:04:35,191 How was he selecting victims? How was he selecting the homes? 79 00:04:36,442 --> 00:04:37,944 There was no pattern. 80 00:04:39,654 --> 00:04:43,283 The monster was among us and hunting us… 81 00:04:44,242 --> 00:04:46,995 and anyone, anyone can be a victim. 82 00:04:52,125 --> 00:04:55,962 [clock ticking] 83 00:04:59,632 --> 00:05:01,801 [woman] John was asleep in the back bedroom, 84 00:05:01,884 --> 00:05:05,596 and I had ended up asleep on the sofa in the living room. 85 00:05:07,974 --> 00:05:09,392 [window creaking] 86 00:05:09,475 --> 00:05:12,353 I woke up to a very loud noise, 87 00:05:13,146 --> 00:05:16,274 to which I responded, very annoyed, 88 00:05:16,357 --> 00:05:17,358 "John!" 89 00:05:17,442 --> 00:05:19,944 You know, because I-- He's gonna wake up the kids. 90 00:05:20,611 --> 00:05:21,571 And, uh… 91 00:05:23,406 --> 00:05:24,365 immediately… 92 00:05:25,199 --> 00:05:26,617 I knew it wasn't John. 93 00:05:30,038 --> 00:05:32,332 There was no answer, it was just still. 94 00:05:33,708 --> 00:05:36,669 [TV static buzzing] 95 00:05:36,753 --> 00:05:37,628 [Lorraine] Just… 96 00:05:38,296 --> 00:05:39,172 fear. 97 00:05:40,173 --> 00:05:42,592 [ominous music playing] 98 00:05:42,675 --> 00:05:44,010 [Lorraine] Terrible fear. 99 00:05:47,722 --> 00:05:50,516 I didn't know if the something was in the house, 100 00:05:51,142 --> 00:05:54,312 or the something was half in or out of the house. 101 00:05:55,563 --> 00:05:57,398 But something was there. 102 00:05:59,942 --> 00:06:02,111 -And I was terrified to move. -[fly buzzing] 103 00:06:02,195 --> 00:06:04,530 [clock ticks echoing] 104 00:06:05,823 --> 00:06:07,367 Typical husband, I'm like, 105 00:06:07,450 --> 00:06:11,245 "Don't bother me. I gotta get up in a couple hours and go to work. 106 00:06:13,664 --> 00:06:15,541 It's just a noise. Don't worry." 107 00:06:16,918 --> 00:06:19,629 She was insistent. She says, "No, I heard the window." 108 00:06:19,712 --> 00:06:23,132 So, I went and got my gun and I walked around the house. 109 00:06:27,845 --> 00:06:31,224 [Lorraine] I walked behind our dining room table 110 00:06:31,307 --> 00:06:33,768 and, as I walked around the table, 111 00:06:34,685 --> 00:06:38,147 a window that we had not opened, ever, 112 00:06:38,231 --> 00:06:40,983 because it was painted shut, 113 00:06:41,651 --> 00:06:43,236 was all the way up. 114 00:06:45,488 --> 00:06:47,156 [John] Jammed all the way up. 115 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:49,492 -Solid. -We gotta call the police! 116 00:06:49,575 --> 00:06:53,454 [laughs] He's like, "I am the police." I said, "I know, but we gotta call." 117 00:06:53,538 --> 00:06:55,248 [John] So, I go get my flashlight, 118 00:06:55,331 --> 00:06:57,750 and I start shining it out the window. 119 00:06:57,834 --> 00:07:01,963 And that's when I see footprints down in the flower bed, in the mud. 120 00:07:02,046 --> 00:07:06,342 We had watered so much the night before, the ground was… 121 00:07:07,135 --> 00:07:09,762 just perfectly saturated. 122 00:07:09,846 --> 00:07:13,099 And when he pushed down with his feet 123 00:07:13,182 --> 00:07:14,600 to shove that window up, 124 00:07:15,351 --> 00:07:17,186 it just left a perfect print. 125 00:07:20,648 --> 00:07:22,066 [John] They sent out a unit, 126 00:07:22,859 --> 00:07:25,194 and I show him the footprints. 127 00:07:26,112 --> 00:07:28,781 And he looks at them hard, a long time, 128 00:07:28,865 --> 00:07:31,284 and he says, "I think it's the same guy." 129 00:07:31,909 --> 00:07:33,411 Then, Gil 130 00:07:33,494 --> 00:07:36,831 and a bunch of other crime lab people start coming to the house. 131 00:07:36,914 --> 00:07:39,792 [Gil] I happened to be working graveyards, 132 00:07:39,876 --> 00:07:42,628 and got a phone call at 4:30 in the morning, 133 00:07:42,712 --> 00:07:45,673 and there's been an attempted break-in out at Pico. 134 00:07:45,756 --> 00:07:50,052 So, I go out to John Rodriguez's house, and-- 135 00:07:50,136 --> 00:07:53,556 Where I'm met by some young, good deputy. 136 00:07:53,639 --> 00:07:56,726 He found a box and covered up the footprint, 137 00:07:56,809 --> 00:08:00,897 in case the wind blew or anything. He wanted nobody to touch that thing. 138 00:08:01,564 --> 00:08:03,608 [John] As soon as Gil got there, 139 00:08:03,691 --> 00:08:06,486 I realized how serious the whole thing was. 140 00:08:06,569 --> 00:08:08,279 He says, "I don't wanna scare you, 141 00:08:08,362 --> 00:08:13,159 but you are very lucky that this guy didn't come in your house." 142 00:08:13,242 --> 00:08:15,411 I says, "What do you mean?" 143 00:08:15,495 --> 00:08:17,747 He says, "No, no, this guy is bad. 144 00:08:18,331 --> 00:08:22,084 He is evil. He's done some things that you don't want to know about." 145 00:08:22,168 --> 00:08:26,005 It was Gil Carrillo who told me the print matches. 146 00:08:29,926 --> 00:08:32,470 How lucky we were to have lived. 147 00:08:34,722 --> 00:08:35,973 Very fortunate. 148 00:08:38,518 --> 00:08:39,519 All of us. 149 00:08:44,732 --> 00:08:47,318 [Gil] And so, we've got a shoe print. 150 00:08:47,401 --> 00:08:50,154 Didn't know what print it was, just knew it was a shoe print. 151 00:08:50,947 --> 00:08:53,533 Once we found the sole pattern, 152 00:08:53,616 --> 00:08:57,286 we told two of our investigators, "Go find the shoe that matches it." 153 00:08:58,079 --> 00:09:00,790 So, they started going to random shoe stores… 154 00:09:02,208 --> 00:09:03,042 and found it. 155 00:09:03,125 --> 00:09:05,419 This is a footprint from an Avia shoe. 156 00:09:08,839 --> 00:09:11,300 That Avia was a very uncommon shoe. 157 00:09:11,384 --> 00:09:14,720 It wasn't like, at the time, an Adidas or Puma, 158 00:09:14,804 --> 00:09:16,472 or Nike even, back then. 159 00:09:16,556 --> 00:09:19,308 It had just started manufacture. 160 00:09:22,436 --> 00:09:26,065 [Gerry] I was assigned to trace evidence section in the laboratory. 161 00:09:26,649 --> 00:09:29,318 I needed to know everything I could about that shoe. 162 00:09:31,779 --> 00:09:35,116 I went up to Portland, Oregon, to speak with Jerry Stubblefield, 163 00:09:35,199 --> 00:09:37,326 who is the inventor of the Avia shoe. 164 00:09:39,036 --> 00:09:42,832 He provided me with shoe soles that I could use in comparison 165 00:09:42,915 --> 00:09:45,376 to full impressions or partial impressions. 166 00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:52,633 I was able to determine that these shoe prints had been caused by 167 00:09:52,717 --> 00:09:55,595 an aerobics shoe, as opposed to a coach's or basketball shoe. 168 00:09:58,139 --> 00:10:01,350 And it was definitely a size 11 and a half. 169 00:10:04,687 --> 00:10:09,817 He also provided me with spreadsheets of sales data that I brought back. 170 00:10:10,443 --> 00:10:13,571 What we learned was that on January 9th, 1985, 171 00:10:13,654 --> 00:10:18,409 1,356 pairs of Model 440 Avias entered the United States from Taiwan 172 00:10:18,492 --> 00:10:20,244 for distribution throughout the US. 173 00:10:20,828 --> 00:10:23,539 [Frank] We told them we felt it was a black shoe, 174 00:10:23,623 --> 00:10:26,876 just based on what surviving victims had told us. 175 00:10:29,128 --> 00:10:34,592 There was only six black 11 and a half's manufactured. 176 00:10:35,343 --> 00:10:38,054 Five of those went to Arizona. 177 00:10:40,848 --> 00:10:43,100 And only one came to Los Angeles. 178 00:10:46,812 --> 00:10:47,855 I mean… 179 00:10:48,939 --> 00:10:51,859 he could've left us a signed signature. 180 00:10:52,735 --> 00:10:55,863 But we were never able to track it any further 181 00:10:55,946 --> 00:10:57,990 than it had been shipped to L.A. 182 00:10:58,908 --> 00:11:01,202 But it's still an extremely important clue, 183 00:11:01,285 --> 00:11:02,578 because that shoe print… 184 00:11:03,621 --> 00:11:07,083 linked him to several other cases, including some of the kiddie cases. 185 00:11:09,251 --> 00:11:12,380 [Frank] So… if we capture this suspect, 186 00:11:12,463 --> 00:11:16,550 he's got the Avia shoes on, then we have caught the killer. 187 00:11:18,844 --> 00:11:20,888 That's what you're doing. 188 00:11:20,971 --> 00:11:23,766 You're connecting, by various pieces of evidence. 189 00:11:23,849 --> 00:11:25,434 We actually made a chart. 190 00:11:26,102 --> 00:11:28,312 Certain firearms were used, 191 00:11:28,396 --> 00:11:31,107 we've got eyewitnesses that survived, 192 00:11:31,190 --> 00:11:32,650 and you could draw lines 193 00:11:33,234 --> 00:11:36,320 between all these and see how they all connect up. 194 00:11:36,404 --> 00:11:40,199 So, you start trying to piece all this puzzle together. 195 00:11:41,701 --> 00:11:44,954 We looked at every unsolved murder in Los Angeles County. 196 00:11:45,538 --> 00:11:49,083 There must have been 25 or 30 cases we were looking at, 197 00:11:49,166 --> 00:11:50,960 to see if they may be connected. 198 00:11:52,044 --> 00:11:57,383 And one of the cases that came up was Mabel Bell and Florence Lang. 199 00:11:58,342 --> 00:12:03,139 [eerie music playing] 200 00:12:55,399 --> 00:12:56,817 [reporter] Two sisters in their 80s 201 00:12:56,901 --> 00:12:59,862 were attacked and beaten in their Hillside home in Monrovia. 202 00:12:59,945 --> 00:13:02,656 A gardener found them in their bedrooms two days later. 203 00:13:03,532 --> 00:13:05,659 Their home had been ransacked. 204 00:13:05,743 --> 00:13:08,496 One of the sisters, Mabel Bell, died yesterday. 205 00:13:08,579 --> 00:13:11,540 The other, Florence Lang, is hospitalized in critical condition. 206 00:13:13,375 --> 00:13:16,003 [Frank] The suspect had entered through a rear door. 207 00:13:19,465 --> 00:13:21,759 [Gil] Mabel Bell lost her life. 208 00:13:21,842 --> 00:13:25,095 [Frank] She was taped with electrical tape… 209 00:13:28,015 --> 00:13:31,060 spread-eagle, to a four-poster bed… 210 00:13:32,853 --> 00:13:35,940 sexually assaulted and beaten to death with a hammer. 211 00:13:41,362 --> 00:13:45,241 [Gil] Her sister Florence Lang was barely alive. 212 00:13:49,829 --> 00:13:52,998 [Frank] There was an alarm clock that was found on the floor, 213 00:13:53,082 --> 00:13:56,627 and there appeared to be a partial shoe print. 214 00:13:57,378 --> 00:14:01,298 [Gil] He had put his foot on the clock and yanked on the electrical cord, 215 00:14:01,382 --> 00:14:04,134 because part of the binding of the legs 216 00:14:04,218 --> 00:14:07,012 and the hands, an electrical cord was used. 217 00:14:07,763 --> 00:14:13,394 [Frank] And our lab was able to match that partial print 218 00:14:13,477 --> 00:14:15,062 to the Avia shoe print. 219 00:14:18,524 --> 00:14:22,653 The interesting thing is how comfortable he got after killing somebody. 220 00:14:23,445 --> 00:14:25,865 Take the time to, you know, have a snack. 221 00:14:34,206 --> 00:14:36,292 That's a pretty sick individual. 222 00:14:37,835 --> 00:14:42,423 [Gil] That's the first time that we saw a pentagram that was written in lipstick. 223 00:14:42,506 --> 00:14:46,010 It was on one of the victim's legs and he had it on a wall. 224 00:14:54,768 --> 00:14:56,645 [Frank] We knew what a pentagram was, 225 00:14:56,729 --> 00:15:00,691 but we didn't know what that meant as far as the killer. 226 00:15:01,817 --> 00:15:04,153 Was he trying to leave us a message? 227 00:15:04,862 --> 00:15:07,156 Was he into Satanism? 228 00:15:07,239 --> 00:15:09,116 Was it something he believed in? 229 00:15:09,199 --> 00:15:11,160 Was it something he practiced? 230 00:15:11,952 --> 00:15:14,413 Was he maybe copycatting… 231 00:15:15,289 --> 00:15:16,206 Manson? 232 00:15:28,427 --> 00:15:29,303 [groaning] 233 00:15:32,222 --> 00:15:33,390 [man echoing] 234 00:15:38,979 --> 00:15:39,980 [gunshot] 235 00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:11,637 [Frank] As we're researching old cases, we become aware of another case. 236 00:16:11,720 --> 00:16:15,641 And it's an attempt kidnapping of a young female off the street 237 00:16:15,724 --> 00:16:18,268 in the northeast division of LAPD. 238 00:16:19,770 --> 00:16:24,358 The victim fights the suspect off and escapes. 239 00:16:25,359 --> 00:16:27,653 The suspect leaves in a Toyota. 240 00:16:30,823 --> 00:16:34,410 And then our guy, he was driving away from the location… 241 00:16:34,493 --> 00:16:36,412 And he committed a traffic violation. 242 00:16:36,495 --> 00:16:39,248 LAPD motor officer saw the violation 243 00:16:39,331 --> 00:16:41,709 and pulled him over. 244 00:16:41,792 --> 00:16:44,837 -[siren wailing] -He did not have a driver's license. 245 00:16:44,920 --> 00:16:49,591 He got him out of the car and made him put his hands on the hood of his car 246 00:16:49,675 --> 00:16:51,969 as he patted him down for weapons. 247 00:16:52,052 --> 00:16:54,930 [Frank] So, the motor officer says, "Stay here." 248 00:16:55,014 --> 00:16:58,475 [Gil] Went back to his motorcycle to get out a citation book. 249 00:16:59,643 --> 00:17:01,270 [tense music playing] 250 00:17:01,353 --> 00:17:05,441 Our suspect hears on the motor officer's radio 251 00:17:05,524 --> 00:17:10,279 a broadcast of his attempt to kidnap that young girl. 252 00:17:11,363 --> 00:17:13,907 [Gil] A description of the car he was driving. 253 00:17:14,575 --> 00:17:17,661 So, he basically says, "Feet, don't fail me now," 254 00:17:17,745 --> 00:17:21,331 draws a pentagram on the hood of the car, and he escapes. 255 00:17:21,915 --> 00:17:23,667 [Gil] Just took off running. 256 00:17:23,751 --> 00:17:27,254 As it turns out, the car was stolen. 257 00:17:31,633 --> 00:17:34,636 [Frank] So, we go up to northeast division. 258 00:17:35,637 --> 00:17:40,059 We specifically say we'd like to print that car or process it. 259 00:17:41,727 --> 00:17:44,480 [Gil] LAPD took it to an impound lot… 260 00:17:44,563 --> 00:17:48,275 [Frank] And they say, "Okay, don't worry about it, we'll do it." 261 00:17:48,942 --> 00:17:51,153 We basically get stonewalled. 262 00:17:52,654 --> 00:17:54,823 We lost an opportunity… 263 00:17:55,532 --> 00:18:00,996 to possibly come up with some evidence that would lead us… 264 00:18:02,039 --> 00:18:02,956 to the killer. 265 00:18:07,544 --> 00:18:11,173 [Zoey] Here in Los Angeles County, you have the sheriff's department, 266 00:18:11,256 --> 00:18:13,050 you have the LAPD, 267 00:18:13,133 --> 00:18:16,178 and you have dozens of other smaller jurisdictions. 268 00:18:17,179 --> 00:18:22,643 [Frank] It's a county that is spread over a large, vast area. 269 00:18:22,726 --> 00:18:25,145 You could commit a crime in LA 270 00:18:25,229 --> 00:18:28,232 and be across three different jurisdictions in five minutes. 271 00:18:29,817 --> 00:18:33,862 And within each of these jurisdictions, you have homicide detectives, 272 00:18:33,946 --> 00:18:36,156 and these detectives are going to the scene, 273 00:18:36,240 --> 00:18:38,117 working their cases in their cities. 274 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:41,161 There's a natural competitiveness. 275 00:18:41,245 --> 00:18:43,413 Who gets the most publicity, who doesn't, 276 00:18:43,497 --> 00:18:45,541 all that stuff plays into it. 277 00:18:46,125 --> 00:18:49,419 So, when you have a multi-jurisdictional situation, 278 00:18:49,503 --> 00:18:53,841 it becomes a pissing match amongst a bunch of type-A personality, macho dudes 279 00:18:53,924 --> 00:18:55,175 that want to solve stuff. 280 00:18:57,302 --> 00:18:58,971 People are protecting their turf, 281 00:18:59,054 --> 00:19:03,183 and by protecting their turf, they're not sharing information. 282 00:19:03,767 --> 00:19:05,853 And that is a very big problem. 283 00:19:10,482 --> 00:19:13,485 [tense music playing] 284 00:19:19,158 --> 00:19:20,742 [Frank] There were no days off. 285 00:19:22,035 --> 00:19:25,372 It was physically and mentally exhausting. 286 00:19:28,500 --> 00:19:30,419 Having been through it before 287 00:19:31,003 --> 00:19:31,837 helped… 288 00:19:33,172 --> 00:19:34,047 a lot. 289 00:19:34,715 --> 00:19:37,384 Knowing how these things play out eventually. 290 00:19:39,595 --> 00:19:41,430 You're in it for the long run. 291 00:19:42,556 --> 00:19:46,560 You got to stay down the middle. I mentioned this to Gil a number of times. 292 00:19:48,687 --> 00:19:51,481 [Gil] Frank said, "We need each other to ride through the highs 293 00:19:51,565 --> 00:19:53,483 and pick ourselves up in the lows." 294 00:19:57,821 --> 00:19:59,531 That's what partners are for. 295 00:20:08,540 --> 00:20:11,335 Every ounce that I had to give, I gave. 296 00:20:16,256 --> 00:20:19,051 [clock ticking] 297 00:20:26,433 --> 00:20:27,684 [Gil] I'm at home asleep, 298 00:20:28,268 --> 00:20:30,395 my family is not at the house, 299 00:20:30,479 --> 00:20:33,607 and all of a sudden, I wake up at 3:30 in the morning. 300 00:20:34,191 --> 00:20:35,317 I'm sweating. 301 00:20:37,027 --> 00:20:38,362 I'm scared. 302 00:20:38,445 --> 00:20:39,321 [clicking] 303 00:20:40,030 --> 00:20:41,406 [Gil] Killer's in my house. 304 00:20:47,537 --> 00:20:50,082 I pick up my gun and I walk out my bedroom. 305 00:20:51,875 --> 00:20:54,002 I'm using point shoulder position, 306 00:20:54,086 --> 00:20:55,128 turning on lights, 307 00:20:55,212 --> 00:20:58,340 making sure I've always got my back up against a wall. 308 00:20:59,549 --> 00:21:01,301 Turning quickly, scanning. 309 00:21:02,094 --> 00:21:03,720 My breathing was erratic. 310 00:21:04,596 --> 00:21:06,807 If I call the cops and there's nobody there, 311 00:21:06,890 --> 00:21:08,225 they're gonna think I'm nuts. 312 00:21:08,308 --> 00:21:11,144 [tense, ominous music playing] 313 00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:18,402 And I cleared the whole house like that. 314 00:21:21,238 --> 00:21:22,072 Power down… 315 00:21:23,031 --> 00:21:25,284 put my gun back, turn on the TV. 316 00:21:25,367 --> 00:21:27,661 [sweeping instrumental music playing on TV] 317 00:21:27,744 --> 00:21:29,579 [Gil] John Wayne movie was on… 318 00:21:31,623 --> 00:21:32,541 [crickets chirrup] 319 00:21:32,624 --> 00:21:34,960 [Gil] …and it's quiet, and just watch a movie. 320 00:21:35,043 --> 00:21:37,045 [chirruping continues] 321 00:21:41,675 --> 00:21:42,759 [phone rings] 322 00:21:44,136 --> 00:21:47,055 All of a sudden, the phone rings. Scared the bejesus out of me. 323 00:21:48,056 --> 00:21:50,892 They tell me to call up my friend Linda Arthur. 324 00:21:54,146 --> 00:21:55,314 I call her up, 325 00:21:55,814 --> 00:21:58,233 and she says, "Gil, you ought to come over here, 326 00:21:58,942 --> 00:22:01,945 because the lady across the street from me just got raped 327 00:22:02,029 --> 00:22:04,448 and I think it's related to what you're working on." 328 00:22:06,533 --> 00:22:08,493 [Linda] I told Gil what happened. 329 00:22:09,161 --> 00:22:13,415 I had friends over, so we went out to the hot tub during the night, 330 00:22:13,498 --> 00:22:18,128 and it was sometime about three o'clock in the morning we got out of the hot tub 331 00:22:18,628 --> 00:22:19,963 and went in and… 332 00:22:21,048 --> 00:22:24,843 they went to bed in the guest room and I went to bed. 333 00:22:24,926 --> 00:22:28,889 Five or ten minutes later, my girlfriend gets up and she says, 334 00:22:28,972 --> 00:22:32,225 "Linda, someone's calling you. Someone's calling you." 335 00:22:32,309 --> 00:22:35,645 I said, "No, I have the phone right here. I didn't hear the phone." 336 00:22:35,729 --> 00:22:38,648 She said, "No, someone's calling you from outside." 337 00:22:42,027 --> 00:22:44,237 Now I hear my neighbor, 338 00:22:44,321 --> 00:22:45,238 Sophie Dickman… 339 00:22:46,615 --> 00:22:49,451 calling, "Mrs. Arthur! Mrs. Arthur!" 340 00:22:50,118 --> 00:22:52,454 So, I ran out in the backyard 341 00:22:52,537 --> 00:22:54,289 and I climbed up on a little wall 342 00:22:54,373 --> 00:22:56,792 and I could see through the top brick, 343 00:22:57,667 --> 00:22:59,669 and I could see her bedroom window. 344 00:23:02,005 --> 00:23:04,633 And I said, "Are you okay, what happened?" 345 00:23:04,716 --> 00:23:08,762 She says, "I've been robbed and raped and I'm handcuffed to my bed." 346 00:23:13,642 --> 00:23:17,104 [Gil] The suspect had lifted out the cat door, pulled it right on out, 347 00:23:17,187 --> 00:23:19,147 and gained entry into the residence. 348 00:23:22,442 --> 00:23:24,736 And sexually assaulted her. 349 00:23:27,656 --> 00:23:31,326 [Linda] And she pulled the bed over to the window so she could call me. 350 00:23:33,412 --> 00:23:35,997 [reporter] In her words, "He put a glove in my mouth 351 00:23:36,081 --> 00:23:37,582 and a pillow over my head. 352 00:23:37,666 --> 00:23:39,960 The attacker said, 'Don't look at me.'" 353 00:23:42,587 --> 00:23:44,131 Knowing that 354 00:23:44,214 --> 00:23:46,466 I'm just on the other side of this wall 355 00:23:46,550 --> 00:23:49,678 and he's committing these crimes… 356 00:23:50,929 --> 00:23:52,389 was really frightening, 357 00:23:52,472 --> 00:23:54,683 because he's in the area… 358 00:23:57,018 --> 00:23:59,146 and anybody could be a victim. 359 00:24:05,527 --> 00:24:07,028 [Pearl] Scary, scary. 360 00:24:08,822 --> 00:24:10,866 A lot of nights it was hard to sleep. 361 00:24:12,868 --> 00:24:16,580 [Gil] After talking to Sophie Dickman, it was seven o'clock in the morning, 362 00:24:16,663 --> 00:24:18,248 and I called my wife. 363 00:24:18,331 --> 00:24:21,835 I said, "Hey, why don't you wake the kids up? 364 00:24:21,918 --> 00:24:24,129 I'll meet you, we'll go have some breakfast." 365 00:24:24,212 --> 00:24:26,923 I think he got through that breakfast 366 00:24:27,007 --> 00:24:30,093 without getting a call, if I'm not mistaken. 367 00:24:30,677 --> 00:24:32,721 I came back to my in-laws' house 368 00:24:32,804 --> 00:24:36,016 and I sat there and I was tired, and I told my wife, 369 00:24:36,099 --> 00:24:39,519 "Let me sleep for an hour. I gotta meet Frank at work at twelve o'clock." 370 00:24:39,603 --> 00:24:42,814 She says, "You're gonna kill yourself. You can't keep going like this." 371 00:24:42,898 --> 00:24:46,985 And he was short with me when I told him that. 372 00:24:47,068 --> 00:24:48,528 I know what I'm doing. 373 00:24:48,612 --> 00:24:51,990 She has no idea what I'm doing. She has no idea as to the danger, 374 00:24:52,073 --> 00:24:53,992 when I'm coming home, what's going on. 375 00:24:54,075 --> 00:24:55,076 He said… 376 00:24:56,244 --> 00:24:58,705 "If you're not gonna wake me, I'll call the office 377 00:24:58,788 --> 00:25:00,665 and tell them to wake me in an hour." 378 00:25:01,333 --> 00:25:05,712 And I remember he lifted up one leg and… 379 00:25:06,630 --> 00:25:08,089 started taking off his shoe, 380 00:25:08,173 --> 00:25:09,925 and his pager went off, 381 00:25:10,008 --> 00:25:13,178 and they called him out to another case. 382 00:25:19,726 --> 00:25:22,938 [uneasy music playing] 383 00:25:39,371 --> 00:25:45,293 -[siren wailing] -[indistinct chatter on police radio] 384 00:25:50,048 --> 00:25:51,132 [reporter] July 7th, 385 00:25:51,216 --> 00:25:53,218 a 60-year-old grandmother, Joyce Nelson, 386 00:25:53,301 --> 00:25:55,804 is killed during the night in Monterey Park. 387 00:26:00,225 --> 00:26:04,312 [woman] Hearing my grandmother's name mentioned on television, 388 00:26:04,396 --> 00:26:06,106 it was always "Joyce Nelson, 389 00:26:06,189 --> 00:26:08,650 a 60-year-old grandmother from Monterey Park." 390 00:26:10,443 --> 00:26:13,113 I would think she was so much more than that. 391 00:26:15,824 --> 00:26:19,744 I remember I started appreciating-- just the clothes that she wore. 392 00:26:19,828 --> 00:26:22,747 I always thought she looked so cute. She was kinda petite. 393 00:26:22,831 --> 00:26:24,749 She was probably only about 5'2", 394 00:26:24,833 --> 00:26:27,377 maybe weighed a little bit over 100 pounds, 395 00:26:27,460 --> 00:26:29,713 but I always called her spunky. 396 00:26:29,796 --> 00:26:32,048 She just had this, like, spirit in her, 397 00:26:32,132 --> 00:26:33,800 like, just a fight that-- 398 00:26:33,883 --> 00:26:35,635 I think that's what kept her going 399 00:26:35,719 --> 00:26:37,679 as a single mother for many, many years, 400 00:26:37,762 --> 00:26:39,139 and kept her so strong. 401 00:26:42,309 --> 00:26:47,105 [man] She had a house that she bought on her own and it was her treasure. 402 00:26:50,650 --> 00:26:55,447 And she was a lady who would go out into the front yard and do cartwheels. 403 00:26:56,031 --> 00:26:58,116 Pair of black slacks, white blouse, 404 00:26:58,658 --> 00:27:00,910 some kind of saddle shoe or something, 405 00:27:00,994 --> 00:27:03,330 doing cartwheels all over the place out front. 406 00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:08,543 [Colleen] And she always wore a necklace. She wore it all the time, 407 00:27:08,627 --> 00:27:11,379 and she promised me that when she passed away, 408 00:27:11,463 --> 00:27:15,842 she wanted me to have the necklace, since I was her firstborn granddaughter. 409 00:27:15,925 --> 00:27:19,346 I remember telling her that I never wanted to have her necklace, 410 00:27:19,429 --> 00:27:21,640 because I never wanted to be without my grandma. 411 00:27:21,723 --> 00:27:24,059 I wanted her, not her necklace. 412 00:27:26,686 --> 00:27:29,022 I would often spend the night at her house, 413 00:27:29,105 --> 00:27:30,815 spend the weekend with her, 414 00:27:30,899 --> 00:27:32,984 and a lot of times I'd bring my roller skates, 415 00:27:33,068 --> 00:27:35,487 and I'd be roller skating up and down the street. 416 00:27:39,574 --> 00:27:41,076 [Don] Nice, safe neighborhood. 417 00:27:42,452 --> 00:27:44,037 And it is until it isn't. 418 00:27:47,832 --> 00:27:49,793 July 7th, 1985. 419 00:27:50,627 --> 00:27:54,339 [Patty ]Colleen was having her 14th birthday party 420 00:27:54,422 --> 00:27:56,716 that same day in the afternoon, 421 00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:58,885 so we were rushing to get home. 422 00:27:59,844 --> 00:28:02,681 When we got there, Don's on the driveway, 423 00:28:02,764 --> 00:28:05,266 and I thought he was having a heart attack. 424 00:28:05,350 --> 00:28:08,228 He was white as a sheet. 425 00:28:10,438 --> 00:28:12,857 [Don] I was in a state of shock, I think. 426 00:28:12,941 --> 00:28:17,612 [Patty] And I said, "Don, Don, what happened? What's wrong?" 427 00:28:17,696 --> 00:28:20,448 [Colleen] He looked at me and said, "Your grandmother was murdered. 428 00:28:22,325 --> 00:28:24,619 Someone broke into her house… 429 00:28:25,537 --> 00:28:26,705 and killed her." 430 00:28:28,456 --> 00:28:29,541 And it just… 431 00:28:31,543 --> 00:28:33,670 I think I felt, even in that moment, 432 00:28:34,587 --> 00:28:37,841 everything was going to be different. Everything had changed. 433 00:28:41,219 --> 00:28:42,804 [Don] My heart was dying. 434 00:28:44,931 --> 00:28:47,767 All the unanswered questions and the whys. 435 00:28:51,521 --> 00:28:54,065 There was blood on the bed in there, 436 00:28:54,649 --> 00:28:58,194 and there was a large quantity of blood on the floor. 437 00:28:59,988 --> 00:29:02,073 The last thing I got to see of my mom… 438 00:29:03,116 --> 00:29:04,159 was that blood. 439 00:29:08,621 --> 00:29:10,665 My mom was always afraid of being raped. 440 00:29:10,749 --> 00:29:12,625 She… she had this… 441 00:29:12,709 --> 00:29:15,336 predestination concept in her head 442 00:29:15,420 --> 00:29:18,173 that eventually she would be a rape victim. 443 00:29:20,633 --> 00:29:22,469 [Colleen] And she fought him. 444 00:29:23,344 --> 00:29:24,971 And she wasn't raped. 445 00:29:26,347 --> 00:29:29,100 He was very angry when he beat her. 446 00:29:31,311 --> 00:29:36,483 He literally stomped the side of her head and left a footprint on it. 447 00:29:36,566 --> 00:29:37,776 Avia footprint. 448 00:29:40,945 --> 00:29:43,782 But I like knowing that she fought. You know? 449 00:29:43,865 --> 00:29:47,911 Because that was just her. She wouldn't go down without a fight. 450 00:29:54,959 --> 00:29:57,378 [Gil] Joyce Nelson was murdered 451 00:29:58,046 --> 00:30:01,049 in the early morning hours of July 7th. 452 00:30:01,132 --> 00:30:03,718 He killed her, but didn't satisfy his need for sex. 453 00:30:04,302 --> 00:30:06,596 He then went less than a mile away, 454 00:30:06,679 --> 00:30:09,891 where he entered the residence of Sophie Dickman. 455 00:30:10,934 --> 00:30:13,770 There, he sexually assaulted her. 456 00:30:15,563 --> 00:30:17,273 [Frank] So, we now have a killer 457 00:30:17,357 --> 00:30:20,193 that's committing two crimes the same night. 458 00:30:21,444 --> 00:30:25,490 And we found a shoe print on concrete, 459 00:30:25,573 --> 00:30:27,951 near the entrance way at the Nelson house… 460 00:30:29,077 --> 00:30:32,121 and it matched all the shoe prints we had. 461 00:30:35,500 --> 00:30:38,002 So, now in a… 462 00:30:39,712 --> 00:30:40,547 ten-day period, 463 00:30:41,464 --> 00:30:42,423 we had Higgins, 464 00:30:42,507 --> 00:30:43,550 Cannon, 465 00:30:43,633 --> 00:30:44,551 Bennett, 466 00:30:44,634 --> 00:30:45,802 Dickman, 467 00:30:45,885 --> 00:30:46,970 and Nelson. 468 00:30:48,805 --> 00:30:51,558 You got five cases in ten days. 469 00:30:51,641 --> 00:30:54,269 It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. 470 00:30:55,270 --> 00:30:59,065 [reporter] 61-year-old Joyce Nelson lived alone in her Monterey Park home. 471 00:30:59,148 --> 00:31:01,317 Yesterday, police found her beaten to death. 472 00:31:01,401 --> 00:31:05,029 They feel her killer may be the same man involved in a mid-May break-in, 473 00:31:05,113 --> 00:31:09,033 where an elderly woman was beaten and raped, her husband shot to death. 474 00:31:09,117 --> 00:31:12,328 But is the same suspect involved in five other attacks 475 00:31:12,412 --> 00:31:15,832 in the nearby communities of Arcadia, Monrovia, and Sierra Madre? 476 00:31:15,915 --> 00:31:17,667 Detectives say maybe. 477 00:31:17,750 --> 00:31:20,253 The media really got involved 478 00:31:20,336 --> 00:31:22,297 after the Nelson case. 479 00:31:22,380 --> 00:31:24,382 By this time, the news media, 480 00:31:24,465 --> 00:31:27,010 who had gone to the murder of Patty Elaine Higgins, 481 00:31:27,093 --> 00:31:29,429 saw us four days later at Mary Cannon's house, 482 00:31:29,512 --> 00:31:32,849 which is also in Arcadia. They said, "What are you doing out here?" 483 00:31:32,932 --> 00:31:36,936 "We happened to be in the area working  the other one and we said we'll take it." 484 00:31:37,645 --> 00:31:41,608 Then, they see Frank and Gil in Monterey Park 485 00:31:41,691 --> 00:31:43,359 at Joyce Nelson's house, 486 00:31:43,443 --> 00:31:46,779 and they're saying, "Oh, no, there's something going on here." 487 00:31:46,863 --> 00:31:49,240 There was something afoot. 488 00:31:49,824 --> 00:31:51,910 You start thinking, "What's going on?" 489 00:31:51,993 --> 00:31:54,495 They went on a news frenzy. 490 00:31:56,039 --> 00:31:59,125 -[Paul] Story's running at every newscast. -[anchorman] Latest update… 491 00:31:59,208 --> 00:32:00,418 This is big stuff. 492 00:32:00,501 --> 00:32:03,671 And it's not only our station, it's every station. 493 00:32:03,755 --> 00:32:07,967 There was no way to keep it from the kids. It was on every channel, all day. 494 00:32:08,051 --> 00:32:10,303 Not being able to escape it. 495 00:32:10,386 --> 00:32:14,599 It was something then that just everybody was talking about. 496 00:32:14,682 --> 00:32:18,144 -[overlapping chatter] -[Colleen] They were looking at this, 497 00:32:18,227 --> 00:32:20,229 and it's your grandmother, 498 00:32:20,313 --> 00:32:22,899 it's somebody you love and never going to see again. 499 00:32:22,982 --> 00:32:24,108 [static buzzes] 500 00:32:24,817 --> 00:32:27,946 A killer who walked into the home. 501 00:32:28,446 --> 00:32:30,281 No apparent reason. 502 00:32:30,823 --> 00:32:33,368 Sometimes robbed them, sometimes didn't. 503 00:32:33,451 --> 00:32:35,870 Sometimes raped, sometimes didn't. 504 00:32:36,704 --> 00:32:39,332 No one particular race of victim, 505 00:32:39,916 --> 00:32:41,084 type of victim. 506 00:32:41,167 --> 00:32:45,505 We had not seen anything like that in Southern California before, 507 00:32:45,588 --> 00:32:48,675 and the more you thought about it, the more you said, 508 00:32:49,425 --> 00:32:50,760 "Could I be next?" 509 00:32:53,930 --> 00:32:55,682 At the Hall of Justice downtown, 510 00:32:55,765 --> 00:32:58,476 investigators assembled the largest force of detectives 511 00:32:58,559 --> 00:33:00,103 since the Hillside Strangler case. 512 00:33:00,186 --> 00:33:03,815 From our department alone, there was over 200 police officers working it. 513 00:33:04,524 --> 00:33:06,776 Now we're a full-fledged task force. 514 00:33:06,859 --> 00:33:10,989 Somebody follow up on the shoe print, the handcuffs and thumb cuffs follow up. 515 00:33:11,072 --> 00:33:15,159 The tire tool. Ask the manufacturer what kind of cars they were put in, 516 00:33:15,243 --> 00:33:18,705 so we could get an idea of what kind of car he was using all the time. 517 00:33:18,788 --> 00:33:21,624 We're looking for every possible piece of evidence, 518 00:33:21,708 --> 00:33:23,876 and you have to be very meticulous. 519 00:33:24,460 --> 00:33:27,755 So, we set up specific tasks for different teams 520 00:33:27,839 --> 00:33:31,259 to try to control that amount of information 521 00:33:31,342 --> 00:33:35,763 and not overlook the clue that was going to come in. 522 00:33:35,847 --> 00:33:36,806 No doubt about it. 523 00:33:36,889 --> 00:33:40,393 And you want to be able to recognize it as soon as you can, 524 00:33:40,476 --> 00:33:41,936 so that you can react to it. 525 00:33:44,522 --> 00:33:46,441 Sheriff's department, Martinez, help you? 526 00:33:47,150 --> 00:33:48,735 [officer] Comprende español? 527 00:33:48,818 --> 00:33:50,903 [Gil] Over 1,000 calls came in. 528 00:33:52,613 --> 00:33:55,033 [reporter] It's here, at the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau, 529 00:33:55,116 --> 00:33:58,453 open 24 hours a day, that every call is checked out. 530 00:33:58,536 --> 00:34:00,329 People were calling in left and right. 531 00:34:01,205 --> 00:34:02,457 What did this man look like? 532 00:34:02,540 --> 00:34:04,667 [Gil] And we followed up on every clue. 533 00:34:04,751 --> 00:34:08,004 A lot of them lead you nowhere, a lot of them mean nothing. 534 00:34:08,087 --> 00:34:11,049 Former wives calling in that their ex-husbands did it. 535 00:34:11,841 --> 00:34:14,469 I remember a cop by the name of Willie Wilson. 536 00:34:14,552 --> 00:34:19,015 This guy looked like he was a DI in the Marine Corps, tough as nails, 537 00:34:19,098 --> 00:34:23,311 and one day, he slammed his hand down on the table and started cussing. 538 00:34:23,394 --> 00:34:26,272 I look at him and I laughed and said, "What's up, Willie?" 539 00:34:26,939 --> 00:34:30,151 He says, "I've been working homicide for over 20 years. 540 00:34:30,234 --> 00:34:35,823 I get sucked into this case and I become a fucking clue clown." 541 00:34:35,907 --> 00:34:39,410 He said, "Listen to this one. Looks just like the guy. 542 00:34:39,494 --> 00:34:42,497 Looks just like the picture you're showing." 543 00:34:42,580 --> 00:34:45,249 He says, "The only problem is the guy's a midget." 544 00:34:45,833 --> 00:34:49,045 But that's what we did. We followed up on every clue. 545 00:34:55,176 --> 00:34:56,969 [distant phone ringing] 546 00:34:57,053 --> 00:34:59,931 [clock ticking] 547 00:35:01,432 --> 00:35:06,395 By this time, the phones are going nuts and somebody puts a call through. 548 00:35:07,230 --> 00:35:08,648 I'm sitting at my desk. 549 00:35:09,232 --> 00:35:10,441 "Homicide, Salerno." 550 00:35:11,192 --> 00:35:13,236 "Frank? It's Laurel Erickson." 551 00:35:13,319 --> 00:35:16,364 Laurel Erickson, Channel 4 News, Los Angeles. 552 00:35:18,407 --> 00:35:22,912 I said, "Frank, what about this shoe print I understand you've got?" 553 00:35:24,330 --> 00:35:25,998 I said, "What shoe?" 554 00:35:26,082 --> 00:35:28,126 She says, "The Avia." 555 00:35:29,377 --> 00:35:30,461 I said, "Here we go." 556 00:35:33,422 --> 00:35:37,885 This was a very vital piece of information to the investigators. 557 00:35:38,886 --> 00:35:41,639 If the killer, whose name they didn't yet know, 558 00:35:42,223 --> 00:35:43,391 changed his shoes, 559 00:35:44,016 --> 00:35:49,689 they wouldn't be able to identify the signature crimes as his. 560 00:35:50,356 --> 00:35:51,941 I said, "Okay, now what?" 561 00:35:52,024 --> 00:35:54,861 Said, "I'm gonna do a story on it." I said, "You can't, Laurel. 562 00:35:54,944 --> 00:35:58,030 You will blow it for us. You cannot put it out." 563 00:35:58,114 --> 00:35:59,240 "I'm gonna do it." 564 00:35:59,323 --> 00:36:02,451 -I said, "Hold on." -He referred her to the captain. 565 00:36:02,535 --> 00:36:03,786 I said, "We got a problem. 566 00:36:05,454 --> 00:36:07,456 I got Laurel Erickson from NBC, 567 00:36:07,540 --> 00:36:10,168 she's on the phone, she knows about the Avia." 568 00:36:10,793 --> 00:36:12,253 Said, "Put her through." 569 00:36:12,336 --> 00:36:17,133 The captain said, "You guys, literally, it's like you're under house arrest. 570 00:36:17,216 --> 00:36:19,969 You guys stay inside the office, you cannot get out." 571 00:36:20,052 --> 00:36:21,679 "When I tell you to, 572 00:36:21,762 --> 00:36:28,644 you're gonna walk out of here, walk into the parking lot via the Grand entrance, 573 00:36:28,728 --> 00:36:31,772 and Laurel Erickson's gonna be there with a crew." 574 00:36:32,648 --> 00:36:33,482 "What?" 575 00:36:34,525 --> 00:36:38,571 There is a back-and-forth between investigators and reporters. 576 00:36:38,654 --> 00:36:40,656 I was angry. 577 00:36:40,740 --> 00:36:43,618 I'm worried about a case. She was worried about a news story. 578 00:36:43,701 --> 00:36:47,330 Well, if you've got something they want not broadcast, 579 00:36:47,413 --> 00:36:50,625 and they can make something else available to you, 580 00:36:50,708 --> 00:36:54,462 you get something and you don't blow their investigation. 581 00:36:54,545 --> 00:37:00,092 "She's gonna get an exclusive interview with you two about this investigation, 582 00:37:00,176 --> 00:37:04,138 but without any details as to what connects it." 583 00:37:04,222 --> 00:37:07,433 She brokered a deal that she would hold onto the shoe information 584 00:37:07,516 --> 00:37:10,478 so long as she got a chance to interview us. So, she did. 585 00:37:12,271 --> 00:37:14,523 [Laurel] 46-year-old Sergeant Frank Salerno 586 00:37:14,607 --> 00:37:17,652 won't say anything that might tip his killer. 587 00:37:17,735 --> 00:37:22,323 He and his partner, 35-year-old Gil Carrillo, have too much at stake. 588 00:37:22,907 --> 00:37:24,992 Last time, it was the Hillside Strangler. 589 00:37:25,785 --> 00:37:27,245 Salerno says that case 590 00:37:27,328 --> 00:37:30,748 is going to be a great advantage in cracking this one. 591 00:37:31,374 --> 00:37:34,001 Serial killers have one thing in common. 592 00:37:34,627 --> 00:37:36,712 Generally, in a serial murder, 593 00:37:36,796 --> 00:37:40,216 what occurs is they might relocate, but they don't stop killing 594 00:37:40,299 --> 00:37:42,635 until they're caught or imprisoned or killed. 595 00:37:43,844 --> 00:37:45,680 I wanted to hook her up for extortion. 596 00:37:45,763 --> 00:37:48,849 [interviewer] How do you think Laurel got the Avia shoe print? 597 00:37:49,976 --> 00:37:51,686 Some detective told her. 598 00:37:52,812 --> 00:37:56,023 I'd like to know who. I'd like to personally thank him. 599 00:37:56,107 --> 00:37:58,901 Laurel Erickson, Channel 4 News, Los Angeles. 600 00:38:05,950 --> 00:38:08,286 [Gil] The pressure was on to find him, 601 00:38:08,369 --> 00:38:11,914 by the public, by the sheriff, Sherman Block, 602 00:38:11,998 --> 00:38:15,501 and the peer pressure from your colleagues, 603 00:38:16,043 --> 00:38:18,546 and the pressure that you put on yourself. 604 00:38:23,134 --> 00:38:26,512 It could mean saving family members, 605 00:38:26,595 --> 00:38:29,056 my mom's life, my kids, my wife. 606 00:38:30,141 --> 00:38:32,226 We had to stop the madman doing all this. 607 00:38:36,439 --> 00:38:38,691 Frank dealt with it better than I did. 608 00:38:40,026 --> 00:38:44,155 [Frank] I don't know if it ever gets completely turned off. I just tried to… 609 00:38:45,031 --> 00:38:46,032 not think about it. 610 00:38:46,115 --> 00:38:48,242 I pull in my driveway, I just shut it down. 611 00:38:48,951 --> 00:38:51,454 I never discussed the case with my family. 612 00:38:51,537 --> 00:38:54,790 My kids were older at that time. 613 00:38:54,874 --> 00:38:57,460 It wasn't like we sat down at the dinner table and-- 614 00:38:57,543 --> 00:38:59,003 "Dad, what did you do today?" 615 00:39:00,254 --> 00:39:04,759 My kids at that time were about seven, ten, and thirteen years of age. 616 00:39:05,926 --> 00:39:10,514 I mean, he was working… 17, 18 hours a day. 617 00:39:11,098 --> 00:39:16,645 He would just come home, shower, maybe get a couple of hours sleep. 618 00:39:17,146 --> 00:39:22,401 So, you know, and I had to deal with the three kids by myself. 619 00:39:23,361 --> 00:39:25,821 We had to go through everyday life 620 00:39:25,905 --> 00:39:29,033 mostly not having him there with us. 621 00:39:30,034 --> 00:39:31,202 It wasn't easy. 622 00:39:34,038 --> 00:39:37,500 I was starting to get short-tempered, which was not like me at all. 623 00:39:38,084 --> 00:39:39,543 But I was angry, 624 00:39:39,627 --> 00:39:41,921 because she didn't understand 625 00:39:42,004 --> 00:39:44,715 the magnitude of the pressure that I was under. 626 00:39:45,633 --> 00:39:47,635 Everybody deals with it differently. 627 00:39:48,594 --> 00:39:50,888 Unfortunately, some guys crawl into a bottle. 628 00:39:51,472 --> 00:39:53,933 If you do, you don't wanna crawl too deep. [chuckles] 629 00:39:54,016 --> 00:39:57,061 [atmospheric music playing] 630 00:40:04,443 --> 00:40:05,945 [Frank] There were many nights 631 00:40:06,529 --> 00:40:08,280 we'd end work… 632 00:40:09,740 --> 00:40:11,450 and we'd go have a drink or two. 633 00:40:12,201 --> 00:40:15,371 There were a couple bars in Chinatown, 634 00:40:15,955 --> 00:40:18,082 where we would debrief. 635 00:40:21,627 --> 00:40:23,629 One was a place called Flora's, 636 00:40:24,338 --> 00:40:28,467 and you'd have to knock on the door and wait, and pretty soon… 637 00:40:29,802 --> 00:40:33,806 somebody on the inside would open up a little bit, look out at you. 638 00:40:33,889 --> 00:40:36,183 If she recognized you, 639 00:40:36,267 --> 00:40:38,227 she unlocked the door and let you in. 640 00:40:39,353 --> 00:40:40,271 If she didn't, 641 00:40:40,354 --> 00:40:44,442 then she just closed it and that was it. You weren't going in. 642 00:40:49,029 --> 00:40:51,615 You could talk shop there, 643 00:40:51,699 --> 00:40:55,578 because just about everybody there was involved in law enforcement. 644 00:40:56,162 --> 00:40:59,874 The only time you'd get peace and quiet between Frank and myself 645 00:41:00,749 --> 00:41:03,461 was when we could both go and get a drink. 646 00:41:06,964 --> 00:41:09,758 [Pearl] I was worried about his health. 647 00:41:09,842 --> 00:41:12,803 I was worried because him being so tired, 648 00:41:12,887 --> 00:41:16,891 and with a couple of drinks under your belt driving home, 649 00:41:16,974 --> 00:41:20,352 I was so afraid he was going to fall asleep at the wheel. 650 00:41:20,436 --> 00:41:23,230 Go home, the wife says, "Working late?" I say, "Yeah." 651 00:41:23,314 --> 00:41:25,024 Get in bed and she says… [sniffing] 652 00:41:25,107 --> 00:41:27,234 …"You've been drinking, haven't you?" Well, 653 00:41:27,318 --> 00:41:31,197 it didn't make for a good relationship. 654 00:41:31,780 --> 00:41:34,992 You have to have a lot of patience to be a police officer's wife. 655 00:41:55,137 --> 00:41:57,056 [Frank] When we first learned of the case 656 00:41:57,139 --> 00:42:00,226 where the suspect had been stopped in a stolen car 657 00:42:00,309 --> 00:42:03,354 and written a pentagram on it and ran away, 658 00:42:04,146 --> 00:42:09,652 we had been told that that car would be processed and printed by LAPD. 659 00:42:09,735 --> 00:42:10,986 We're inquiring about it. 660 00:42:11,070 --> 00:42:14,698 We're not getting any feedback what's being done. 661 00:42:14,782 --> 00:42:17,701 We hit Captain Grimm about it. He makes a call. 662 00:42:17,785 --> 00:42:19,787 He doesn't get anywhere with it. 663 00:42:19,870 --> 00:42:22,998 Eventually, he puts some pressure on 664 00:42:23,082 --> 00:42:25,709 and they say, "Okay, you can have access to the car." 665 00:42:25,793 --> 00:42:27,878 It's still being stored or impounded, 666 00:42:27,962 --> 00:42:30,130 and it never had been printed. 667 00:42:30,214 --> 00:42:36,720 At that point, we discovered that the car had been stored outside in the sun. 668 00:42:37,555 --> 00:42:39,723 [Gil] By the time anybody gets to the car, 669 00:42:40,558 --> 00:42:44,228 skin, everything's been burnt up. 670 00:42:44,311 --> 00:42:46,814 It's gone. There's nothing there. 671 00:42:46,897 --> 00:42:50,901 No value in that car as far as prints go. 672 00:42:53,112 --> 00:42:55,239 [Gil] But, left inside the car… 673 00:42:56,115 --> 00:42:59,243 was a little, cheap plastic case… 674 00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:03,622 and there was a business card in it to a dental office. 675 00:43:05,249 --> 00:43:09,753 [Frank] It was a dentist up in Chinatown. 676 00:43:11,046 --> 00:43:14,842 Gil and I go up and we interview the dentist 677 00:43:14,925 --> 00:43:18,429 and we find out that our suspect, whoever he was, 678 00:43:18,512 --> 00:43:22,641 was just in July 3rd. Now, this is about July 8th or 9th. 679 00:43:23,684 --> 00:43:25,561 We just missed him by five days, 680 00:43:25,644 --> 00:43:27,938 because we just found out about that card. 681 00:43:31,567 --> 00:43:33,944 And all we could think of is, 682 00:43:34,028 --> 00:43:37,239 "What if we'd known about this business card… 683 00:43:38,657 --> 00:43:39,742 back then?" 684 00:43:42,786 --> 00:43:44,747 We could have the suspect in custody. 685 00:43:47,249 --> 00:43:50,919 [Gil] The card was written under the name of Richard Mena. 686 00:43:52,671 --> 00:43:55,299 [Frank] He gave some bad address. 687 00:43:55,382 --> 00:43:58,093 I think it was on Branik Street in East L.A. 688 00:44:01,889 --> 00:44:06,060 [Gil] I was able to obtain x-rays from that doctor, 689 00:44:07,394 --> 00:44:12,191 and I took them to a very close personal friend of mine, who is a dentist. 690 00:44:12,274 --> 00:44:13,567 And I said, 691 00:44:13,651 --> 00:44:15,778 "What can you tell me about these x-rays?" 692 00:44:15,861 --> 00:44:18,322 He says, "I can tell he's going to be back. 693 00:44:18,405 --> 00:44:19,823 He's got an impacted tooth. 694 00:44:19,907 --> 00:44:22,451 It's gonna be killing him soon, if it's not already. 695 00:44:23,035 --> 00:44:23,869 He'll be back." 696 00:44:25,454 --> 00:44:27,915 We've got two of our own Asian officers. 697 00:44:27,998 --> 00:44:29,458 A two-man surveillance. 698 00:44:29,541 --> 00:44:33,671 We stuck them in there waiting for Richard to come back for a dental appointment. 699 00:44:33,754 --> 00:44:36,715 -[Frank] In the office. -[Gil] They were there every day, 700 00:44:36,799 --> 00:44:39,802 and we know if he comes back, they're going to get him. 701 00:44:39,885 --> 00:44:43,931 -["Our Darkness" by Anne Clark plays] -♪ Harder now, it rains even harder now ♪ 702 00:44:44,014 --> 00:44:45,891 ♪ Harder, harder now ♪ 703 00:44:45,974 --> 00:44:48,060 ♪ Harder ♪ 704 00:44:48,686 --> 00:44:51,271 ♪ Through these city nightmares You'd walk with me ♪ 705 00:44:52,231 --> 00:44:55,401 ♪ And we'd talk of it With idealistic assurance ♪ 706 00:44:55,484 --> 00:44:57,569 ♪ That it wouldn't tear us apart ♪ 707 00:44:59,113 --> 00:45:01,657 ♪ We'd keep our heads above The blackened water ♪ 708 00:45:02,741 --> 00:45:05,869 ♪ But there's no room for ideals In this mechanical place ♪ 709 00:45:06,537 --> 00:45:08,247 ♪ And you're gone now ♪ 710 00:45:08,330 --> 00:45:09,373 ♪ Gone now ♪ 711 00:45:12,209 --> 00:45:15,713 ♪ Doubting all the time Fearing all the time ♪ 712 00:45:15,796 --> 00:45:19,133 ♪ Doubting all the time  Fearing all the time ♪ 713 00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,010 ♪ That like these urban nightmares ♪ 714 00:45:22,094 --> 00:45:24,263 ♪ We'd blacken each other's skies ♪ 715 00:45:24,346 --> 00:45:26,348 ♪ Skies, skies, skies, skies ♪