2 posts from November 2007

Los Angeles Times

July 28, 1994, Thursday, Home Edition

BYLINE: By JIM NEWTON, TIMES STAFF WRITER

SECTION: Part A; Page 1; Column 3; Metro Desk

Encouraged by the promise of a huge reward or the chance to contribute to a historic investigation, 250,000 callers have flooded a newly created defense hot line with tips about the O.J. Simpson murder case, while similarly besieged po-lice have designated a full-time "clue chaser" to run down the leads coming to them.
"It's beyond belief," Simpson attorney Robert L. Shapiro said Wednesday of the hot-line deluge. Shapiro, who disclosed the number of calls in an interview with The Times, said they have become so overwhelming that the operators have had to install a special backup recording system to keep up with the crush.
Tipsters have included private investigators with clues based largely on news reports, amateur detectives with theories implicating other possible suspects, and people claiming to have witnessed the events involving the grisly slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman.
Although some of the tips are seemingly credible, many appear to be the prod-ucts of overactive imaginations. One Maryland woman has called repeatedly to tell of dreams in which she sees another killer. To her frustration, Simpson's camp has not gotten back to her.
"We're hearing from every psycho and every crazy person," said Bill Pavelic, an investigative consultant working with the Simpson team. "But if I get one call in a hundred that's a good lead, it's worth it."
Rising to that thin promise, investigators on both sides of the case are painstakingly chasing down each lead, reluctant to pass up any information that could prove important.
The onslaught of tips has convinced some Police Department officials that Simpson's camp may be fueling the fires in part to occupy detectives who might otherwise be building a case against Simpson.
Any tip that is not checked out could be used against the prosecution at trial. Simpson's camp already has made clear its intention to attack the thor-oughness and competence of the investigation into their high-profile client.
"There's people that are giving us theories, there's psychics, that kind of thing," said Detective Dennis Payne of the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division. "And then there's people who have information. We're checking it all out."
Some officers say they're braced for Simpson's team to show up someday with a basketful of leads, wondering whether all of them have been thoroughly investi-gated.
"They're absolutely right to be concerned," said Pavelic, a retired LAPD de-tective now at odds with his former colleagues. "We're getting calls from people who are saying they're being kissed off by the Police Department. If they don't interview these people, they've got a problem. We're going to ask: 'Why not?' "
With the stakes so high for both sides, police detectives and Simpson inves-tigators are simultaneously pounding the pavement. In fact, Simpson's crew and LAPD detectives have occasionally run into one another at the crime scene and other locations.
According to sources in both camps, the most recent wave of tips has featured several from eager private investigators trying to uncover clues in the case.
Paul Katz of Los Angeles-based Katz Investigations hooked up with a pair of Colorado private eyes last week to take a crack at the case. They scoured the area near Nicole Simpson's condominium and found red spots resembling blood in an alley close to the crime scene. They photographed the spots, as well as some intriguing tire tracks, and forwarded the pictures to police, who are investi-gating.
Katz said he has rejected tabloid offers of money for the story and added that neither he nor his colleagues are interested in the reward. They are just trying to solve a mystery that has preoccupied much of the country, he said, and hope to get credit for their efforts.
"This is something that was missed by O.J.'s team and by the LAPD," said Robert S. Hatch Jr., one of the Colorado investigators who flew to Los Angeles at the behest of some Colorado businessmen interested in the Simpson case. "It's potentially important evidence, and we found it."
Hatch said he and his colleagues also turned up a witness who purportedly saw Nicole Simpson arguing with someone -- he's not sure who -- on the morning of the killings. Having uncovered those tidbits, Hatch and Salvador C. Torres, an-other Colorado investigator, headed home this week, leaving Katz to continue hunting for clues.
"We didn't really expect to come up with too much," Hatch said. "When we turned up what we turned up, we were amazed."
They are not alone. Private investigators from throughout the region and some from beyond have descended upon the crime scene in recent days. They are quick to tout their finds.
One investigator forwarded information to both sides that he says will shed new light on Nicole Simpson's character, while others have offered thoughts on the police and medical examiners involved in the case. Scores of calls to the hot line, meanwhile, come from people who say they have information about Simp-son, his ex-wife or Goldman that could help the case one way or the other.
Although most of the tips -- founded and unfounded -- are about the principal players in the celebrated whodunit, many come from people with a dizzying array of thoughts on other issues. One Santa Barbara woman hypothesized that a large dog might have carried a bloody glove to Simpson's home.
She called police and Simpson's hot line Wednesday, urging both sides to de-mand a test of the glove to determine whether it had saliva that could be matched to a large white Akita owned by Nicole Simpson. So far, neither side has complied.
Then there's the self-professed burglar who says he was casing houses in Brentwood on the night of the killings, looking for some quick jewelry and cash. He came forward within days of Simpson's arrest and said he heard a woman scream and saw two white men fleeing the crime scene about the time the killings took place.
The two men, according to the prowler, were carrying a bag or a pillowcase and fled Nicole Simpson's home by running out the front of the condominium prop-erty, not out the back gate, as police and prosecutors have theorized that Simp-son did.
Although Simpson has offered $500,000 for information leading to the arrest of the "real killer or killers," the prowler says he wants no part of the re-ward.
"I just want to straighten this out," he told The Times.
The prowler, who asked that his name not be used, has been interviewed by Simpson's investigators, who said they find him credible. He also has spoken with detectives over the phone and is scheduled for a formal interview later this week.
It won't be his first face-to-face encounter with the detectives. When he was being videotaped at the crime scene by Simpson investigator Pavelic, LAPD Detec-tive Tom Lange happened by. According to Pavelic, Lange asked who the witness was, but Pavelic said he brushed him off.
Police are reluctant to disclose their investigative efforts, but law en-forcement officials say both police and prosecutors have received a stream of calls and letters from across the nation and even other countries. The pace of tips slowed down a bit after Simpson's preliminary hearing, officials said, but picked up again after the Simpson camp opened its toll-free tip line.
"That seemed to make everyone out there feel like they were Deputy Dan," said one law enforcement source. "Our phones started ringing and the letters started arriving."
* REVERSING FIELD: O.J. Simpson's lawyers told a judge their experts will not participate in DNA testing of crime scene blood samples.

Los Angeles Times

January 21, 1997, Tuesday, Southland Edition

BYLINE: JIM NEWTON and MATT LAIT, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 1; Metro Desk

Authorities in New York have arrested two suspected extortionists in what was de-scribed as a failed attempt to blackmail Bill Cosby, while police in Los Angeles were were questioning two "possible witnesses" in connection with the slaying last week of the entertainment icon's only son. Officials stressed Monday that they do not believe the two investigations are connected.
The U.S. attorney's office in New York announced Monday that Autumn Jackson and Jose Medina, both of whom are from Southern California, sources said, had been ar-rested Saturday. Authorities said the two were threatening to take a story to the tabloid news media accusing Bill Cosby of fathering an illegitimate child--an alle-gation denied by Cosby's spokesman. Officials on both coasts conferred Monday about that case and last Thursday's shooting near Bel-Air of graduate student Ennis Wil-liam Cosby and concluded that they are not part of a single plot against the Cosby family.
Federal prosecutors said the extortion suspects had sought $ 40 million from the entertainer and were meeting with Cosby's attorneys in New York and were expecting to collect a $ 24-million settlement. Jackson, authorities said, had alleged that she was Cosby's illegitimate daughter.
"This kind of activity is not something that is unique to Bill Cosby," said Cosby spokesman David Brokaw. "It happens all the time to entertainment figures. It's dis-tressing and annoying and disruptive but he's learned over the years how to protect his family and himself from this kind of invasion."
In Los Angeles, detectives Monday questioned two men described as potential wit-nesses in the Cosby slaying. According to a source familiar with the case, the two men were seen driving a car similar to one described by a security guard as having been near the scene of the crime.  Police had announced Saturday they wanted to speak to the driver of that car, a blue hatchback, in the hopes that he might have seen events surrounding the killing of Ennis Cosby.
Driven in part by the release of composite photographs and in part by an escalat-ing tabloid reward derby, Los Angeles police detectives are being forced into a sort of investigative triage, attempting to separate factual from fanciful accounts of Ennis Cosby's slaying as he changed a tire near the San Diego Freeway. By midday Monday, police were sifting through more than 300 tips, some possibly serious clues, others passing observations or dubious suggestions.
On Sunday, Bill Cosby, speaking through his publicist, challenged print and elec-tronic tabloids to stop paying for information about the case and to instead use that money to offer a reward. The National Enquirer was quick to respond, posting $ 100,000 for information leading to apprehension of the killer.
On Monday, Globe Communications, parent company of the Globe tabloid, upped the ante, offering a $ 200,000 reward. The Globe also intends to set up a toll-free num-ber to accept tips about the case.
"In circumstances like this, it is often the case that individuals with informa-tion prefer to deal with someone other than the police," the Globe said in a press release announcing its reward. "We will handle all tips with the utmost confidenti-ality."
The offers of rewards can both assist and complicate the job of investigators. On one hand, experts say, the prospect of a reward may draw out some otherwise wary tipsters. But if the tips come from self-described eyewitnesses to the killing who withheld their accounts until there is money being offered, they could come back to haunt prosecutors.
Witnesses who cooperate with tabloids in return for money often find themselves subjected to withering criticism if they are called into court. In the O.J. Simpson case, for instance, one witness who told the grand jury that she saw a frantic Simp-son moments after the murders was dropped and given a tongue lashing by prosecutor Marcia Clark after she admitted that she had accepted money from a tabloid for her story.  Although that money was offered as payment for a story and not as a reward, the witness' acceptance of the cash cast such a cloud over her credibility that she was never called to testify during the criminal trial.
In the Cosby investigation, legal experts said the primary value of the rewards may be to draw out not eyewitnesses to the crime, but rather people who can identify the suspect from the composite drawing or otherwise aid police with secondhand in-formation.
"The risk to credibility is a real risk," said UCLA law professor Peter Arenella. "But it's arguably well worth it if some individuals with secondhand information may help the police with their investigation."
Tony Frost, editor of the Globe, said he was confident that the tabloid's reward would not compromise the investigation.
"It's not a fear because the information would be passed to the LAPD and their wealth of experience would be able to tell whether it witness was genuine or not," Frost said. He added that the Globe would screen the tips first, and possibly use them for stories, but then would pass along information to the LAPD.
At the LAPD, Cmdr. Tim McBride emphasized that police would prefer to have wit-nesses come directly to authorities. "We are encouraging people to come to the po-lice," McBride said. "We're not in partnership with the tabloids."
The most helpful tips, police and outside observers agree, are those that might lead to the identification of two men: one who is being called the primary suspect in the case and another who is being labeled a possible witness.
Most of the tips thus far have gone straight to the department's Robbery-Homicide Division, the same elite unit that handled the O.J.  Simpson investigation and other high-profile killings. LAPD press officers also have been receiving tips, said Cmdr. McBride, as have officers in other parts of the department, including the West Los Angeles Division, which covers the area where Ennis Cosby's body was found last week.
The result is a massive exercise in what LAPD officials call "clue management," the sifting of leads into credible tips and the rantings of wannabes who sometimes emerge to clamor for a place in a high-profile investigation.
"We appreciate the public's help," said McBride. "Some of the clues are clearly more critical than others. We try to focus our attention on the ones that may lead to a suspect."
Robert W. Peterson, a private investigator who worked on the Simpson case, said that in the days ahead, police can expect to be on the receiving end of a cascade of information, much of it bad.
"Everybody in the world is going to turn in somebody they don't like, a noisy neighbor or an ex-girlfriend or an ex-wife," he said. "Going through all that is like an insurmountable task."
Bill Pavelic, a former LAPD detective who now works as an investigator and con-sultant, said 99% of the calls to the Police Department are likely to be worthless--some from psychics, others from people playing amateur detective. But Pavelic said experienced detectives can quickly separate the wheat from the chaff.
The LAPD's ability to run down scores of leads has been tested before, most nota-bly during the investigation of the June 12, 1994, slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Lyle Goldman. In that case, thousands of callers offered tips--some true, most false--as to the killer or other details of that case.
In the investigation, the issue was complicated by Simpson's offer of a reward for information leading to the apprehension of the "real killer or killers." The Simpson defense team set up a toll-free number, took thousands of tips, then turned over some of them to the LAPD, forcing police investigators to chase them down.
In the Cosby case, the suspect is being described as a white man of average height and weight between the ages of 25 and 32. Police released a composite sketch of him Saturday; in the picture, he is wearing a knit cap.
The other man--whom police said was in his late 20s to mid-30s with dark hair, a mustache and a goatee--is being sought as a possible witness.
Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this story