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Speaker 3: Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the authors that
Speaker 3: have written about them Geesy Bundy Dahmer The Night Stalker VTK.
Speaker 3: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 3: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 3: your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Speaker 2: Good Eating. This is your host Dan Zupanski for the
Speaker 2: program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime
Speaker 2: History and the authors that have written about them. Rebecca
Speaker 2: Salcido had an easy smile, a sexy body, and strong appetites.
Speaker 2: She wanted the world. Bruce Clayland, she decided would buy
Speaker 2: it for her. The shy engineer quickly fell victim to
Speaker 2: her charms, getting her whatever she wanted, a new car,
Speaker 2: about a house. But he wasn't Rebecca's only admirer. Even
Speaker 2: after Rebecca manipulated Bruce into marrying her, hoping to divorce
Speaker 2: him and take him for everything he had, she occupied
Speaker 2: herself with a series of lovers, male strippers women. They
Speaker 2: all spent time in Rebecca's bed, but when she learned
Speaker 2: that a divorce would only get her a few pennies.
Speaker 2: She knew she had to find another way to secure
Speaker 2: Bruce's fortune. The book tonight that featured is Honeymoon with
Speaker 2: a Killer. He loved her, she loved his money. A
Speaker 2: return guest, Don Laster my very special guest, Don Lassiter,
Speaker 2: Honeymoon with a Killer. Welcome back to the program, Don Lassiter.
Speaker 4: Thank you, dam it's nice to be back with you again.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much to agreeing to this interview. And
Speaker 2: a great book, by the way, Honeymoon with a Killer.
Speaker 2: My favorite question, I think, because I always ask it
Speaker 2: is very curious, why did you decide to write about
Speaker 2: Rebecca Solcido and this case specifically.
Speaker 4: Well, it's kind of an interesting cultural story to that
Speaker 4: that I did not include in the book. But when
Speaker 4: my collaborator, my co writer, co author, and Ron Bowers,
Speaker 4: and I were considering this story, I was looking at
Speaker 4: it and then I was wondering, really, what's kind of
Speaker 4: so familiar about it, And suddenly hit me that it's
Speaker 4: a retelling of the opera Carmen viz As opera in
Speaker 4: that and when I was a kid, I saw a
Speaker 4: version of that with Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. So
Speaker 4: I'm picturing Rita Hayworth as Rebecca and the in Carmen.
Speaker 4: This woman is a beautiful, tempestuous, fiery gypsy in Spain
Speaker 4: who's selling her wares in a town pleasant and she
Speaker 4: meets a innocent, inexperienced soldier, Don Jose. He falls hopelessly
Speaker 4: in love, but she's unfaithful with a bullfighter. Their affair
Speaker 4: rex his life and ends in deadly tragedy. Rebecca meets
Speaker 4: Bruce while selling spices on a swap meat captures his heart.
Speaker 4: Is unfaithful with male strippers, so that relationship rex his life,
Speaker 4: which ends in deadly tragedy. So this is this is Carmen,
Speaker 4: only without the magnificent music, the march of the Tory
Speaker 4: doors and the beautiful Hobiniera. Wow, incredile got me hooked
Speaker 4: on it.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a great story. It has all these elements
Speaker 2: for sure. Now you mentioned Ronald E.
Speaker 4: Bauers.
Speaker 2: He's listed on the cover as Don Lassiter, the author
Speaker 2: with Ronald E. Bauer So tell us who what is
Speaker 2: his role in the writing of this book.
Speaker 4: Ron is a forty year veteran of the Los Angeles
Speaker 4: County District Attorney's Office. And he is. He's been involved
Speaker 4: in every mad you know, in prosecution of every major
Speaker 4: crime in that forty years, including all the ones you've
Speaker 4: heard about over the years. And so Ron has just
Speaker 4: a wealth of experience. So we became acquainted several years ago,
Speaker 4: and Ron just pretty much helps me with research. He
Speaker 4: writes some of the things too as well. One book
Speaker 4: we quoted quite a bit of his writing. We didn't
Speaker 4: do that in Honeymoon because I wanted to take a
Speaker 4: little different type of voice on this one. But Ron
Speaker 4: is just a wealth of information for me.
Speaker 2: Great, Great, Now for our audience, where does this story
Speaker 2: primarily take place in? What era? What time are we
Speaker 2: talking about? What years it took.
Speaker 4: Place in the Actually in the mid eighties on right
Speaker 4: here in southern California. She Rebecca met Bruce at the
Speaker 4: old Lamorada Drive in theater which is now a swamp
Speaker 4: meat in Orange County.
Speaker 2: Right now, we're talking about Rebecca Salcido, and it's an
Speaker 2: incredible story. Her character. Let's with her history. Where was
Speaker 2: she raised, what kind of up bringing did she have?
Speaker 2: Tell us about Rebecca Salcedo.
Speaker 4: Rebecca's one of the most complex, multifaceted women I've ever
Speaker 4: encountered in research. Her friends called her beautiful, fun, sexy, outrageous, generous, affectionate,
Speaker 4: other stars, duplicitous, self centered, greedy in the evil. Rebecca
Speaker 4: was born here in Los Angeles of Hispanic immigrants, and
Speaker 4: her mother was raped and produced the first daughter, Rebecca's
Speaker 4: older sister as a result of that rape in Tijuana,
Speaker 4: and then moved up here and that man deserted her
Speaker 4: and she was married again, and that marriage didn't last forever.
Speaker 4: So Rebecca grew up in pretty much a dysfunctional family
Speaker 4: with a lot of strain in the household. She and
Speaker 4: her sisters and get well. Her mother was a nurse,
Speaker 4: worked as a nurse, but was hooked on prescription drugs
Speaker 4: and spent a lot of time in her bedroom while
Speaker 4: the sisters pretty much ran the house. So it wasn't
Speaker 4: a happy childhood. And I don't know if we can
Speaker 4: say use that as the abuse excuse or not, as
Speaker 4: many criminals who say they grew up in a poor environment.
Speaker 2: Now, one thing you haven't talked about is her Okay,
Speaker 2: say hear her upbringing, but what did she develop into?
Speaker 2: What type of character? She obviously was an attractive woman,
Speaker 2: you can see as in the cover on the book.
Speaker 2: But she what did she realize if she didn't realize
Speaker 2: too many things, and what did she realize early on?
Speaker 2: And how did that affect her character development?
Speaker 4: Well, her good looks and her incredible body. It became
Speaker 4: her path through an existence to wealth. She learned soon
Speaker 4: at the age of about twelve or thirteen, when she
Speaker 4: into a woman's body, that men would give her just
Speaker 4: about anything she wanted if she behaved in certain ways.
Speaker 4: And she did, and she had she had no trouble
Speaker 4: at all displaying those wars. But she also developed a
Speaker 4: gregarious personality that attracted not only men, but women, and
Speaker 4: I mean men and women in any way you want
Speaker 4: to imagine. She saw that she could get just by
Speaker 4: the things she wanted. One one man even let her
Speaker 4: drive a Lamborghini that he owned, and no one knows
Speaker 4: what she was doing for that. She learned really early
Speaker 4: to use her female wiles and her figure to get
Speaker 4: what she wanted. She was by the way. She was
Speaker 4: once married, but only to provide an immigrant with a
Speaker 4: green card, and she treated that that marriage is no
Speaker 4: more important than a yard sale transaction, right right.
Speaker 2: And she also, if an early age looked much much
Speaker 2: older than her age as well, which she did which
Speaker 2: helped her or didn't help in a particular case. And
Speaker 2: so what was she doing, say, after her teenage life?
Speaker 2: But what age would we find her previous to? And
Speaker 2: we'll get into right away talking about and one of
Speaker 2: the other characters, Bruce Clayland. But let's talk about, say
Speaker 2: her at twenty years old. Where was she at in
Speaker 2: her life? What was she doing, what was her occupation?
Speaker 2: Was she going to school? Tell us what she was
Speaker 2: actually doing at that time.
Speaker 4: Well, let's back up a little further. She had at
Speaker 4: about thirteen or fourteen, she was going to a school,
Speaker 4: a makeup school so she could because she didn't do
Speaker 4: well that year in school. And that's where she met
Speaker 4: her best friend. It looks like Bertha when you read it,
Speaker 4: but it's pronounced better. That there's a prominent character in
Speaker 4: our book here. Then as they grew in the friend,
Speaker 4: you know, they became friends. And then Rebecca was very
Speaker 4: involved with a lot of men, and she produced a
Speaker 4: young boy, a son, and she didn't know who the
Speaker 4: father was was exactly, and she found out while she
Speaker 4: was in jail and watching in prison for a drug conviction,
Speaker 4: and she she conducted her friend Bertha. I'm gonna call
Speaker 4: her birth I'm not gonna try that better little way, okay,
Speaker 4: so Bertha, shekna. Bertha said, could you send me some
Speaker 4: pictures of the man I've been dating, so i'll ty
Speaker 4: can figure ot which one is the father. So that
Speaker 4: gives you a pretty pretty capsualized picture of what Rebecca
Speaker 4: really was.
Speaker 2: Right now, you talk about this Bertha, this is she's
Speaker 2: important to the story because she's with her at an
Speaker 2: early age and this is conceivably the very best friend,
Speaker 2: the person that knows her the best, and we'll say
Speaker 2: her very very closest friend. So that's why she's very
Speaker 2: important of all to this story. Isn't she exactly? That's correct,
Speaker 2: Bertha was.
Speaker 4: But Bertha was extremely intelligent, bright, articulate, also Hispanic heritage,
Speaker 4: but she had a level head. And that's what Bertha said.
Speaker 4: She felt like was attractive to Rebecca that she sort
Speaker 4: of kept her on the straight and narrow as much
Speaker 4: as she could.
Speaker 2: Now, what was the relationship with Rebecca and her other sisters? Dolores,
Speaker 2: one of her sisters, is a primary figure in this
Speaker 2: story as well. Tell us a little bit about the
Speaker 2: relationship with her other siblings thought it.
Speaker 4: Was a terribly fractious relationship, and Birth explained to me
Speaker 4: that the girls were just constantly each other's throats. They
Speaker 4: slept with each other's boyfriends just to make the other
Speaker 4: one jealous. They were in constant competition with one another.
Speaker 4: No peace, no serenity in that household at all, just warfare.
Speaker 2: Wow. And so again, now that we've caught up a
Speaker 2: little bit, as time goes on, what is her goals
Speaker 2: in life? I means you say she's easily can manipulate
Speaker 2: men to get whatever she wants. What is her goals
Speaker 2: in life? What is her occupation she'd believe she wants
Speaker 2: to do with her life?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think she ever had any real goals.
Speaker 4: She was a day to day exist and she had
Speaker 4: a few minor jobs, and Bertha got her a few jobs.
Speaker 4: One of them was at a company where Bertha was
Speaker 4: doing white collar work, and she got Rebecca a job
Speaker 4: as some helper. But Rebecca thought she would use her
Speaker 4: lovely figure to enchant the boss stepped out of a
Speaker 4: restroom with her blouse open, and as Bertha explained, everything
Speaker 4: popped out. The boss was just absolutely furious since I'd
Speaker 4: get her out of here, and she got fired from
Speaker 4: that one. So I don't think she had many goals
Speaker 4: as far as profession. When she met Bruce, she was
Speaker 4: working at a company that made spices and bottled them
Speaker 4: in interesting rectangular shaped jars. And Rebecca managed to smuggle
Speaker 4: a few of those from her employer and take them
Speaker 4: to the swamp meat and sell there for a little
Speaker 4: extra profit. And that's where she met Bruce.
Speaker 2: So she was hustling at that point. Now tell us,
Speaker 2: tell us about Bruce Cleland. You called the chapter and
Speaker 2: I don't know if if this is your idea, but
Speaker 2: I would think it might be that the evolution of
Speaker 2: a male virgin, and you can tell me why you
Speaker 2: titled it that. But what was his background? What was
Speaker 2: his family life of Bruce Cleland?
Speaker 4: Bruce grew up in a an upper middle class home
Speaker 4: in South Pasadena, just very nice down the earth, salt
Speaker 4: of the earth, of people who were with a fair
Speaker 4: amount of wealth. One one sister, one older sister. But Bruce,
Speaker 4: unfortunately he didn't have He wasn't born with the good looks.
Speaker 4: I pointed out that if anyone remembers the funny character
Speaker 4: in the Old Laughing series called tiny Tim. Right, yes, Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: poor Bruce in high school excuse me, bo a quite
Speaker 4: a resemblance to Tiny Tim. It made him extremely self
Speaker 4: conscious about his looks, so he just was. He became
Speaker 4: afraid to approach girls at all. They pretty much shunned him,
Speaker 4: ignored him, laughed at him. So he concentrated him academics.
Speaker 4: He was a very very bright kid, straight a's belonged
Speaker 4: as a. Was a four year member of the the
Speaker 4: group of the kids who achieve all the high grades.
Speaker 4: He got a scholarship through college and eventually graduated with
Speaker 4: a master's degree from Stanford University in computer software engineering.
Speaker 2: Right right now, you say again, you say the the
Speaker 2: evolution of a male virgin. You're saying he's shy. Now
Speaker 2: he goes to college. I guess his life changes. He does?
Speaker 2: Does he does he outgrow any of this sort of
Speaker 2: nerdy looks of how does his life continue?
Speaker 4: Well, actually he did involve to a fairly decent looking man,
Speaker 4: but I don't think he understood that. By the time
Speaker 4: he reached age forty two when he met when he
Speaker 4: meat Rebecca, he still was hadn't had any experience with
Speaker 4: women at all. He became extremely frugal during those years
Speaker 4: working up in Silicon Valley for computer firms and doing
Speaker 4: international work, actually undercover work across the various continents for
Speaker 4: the government. But Bruce became extremely frugal, invested all of
Speaker 4: his money and had accrued quite a bit of wealth
Speaker 4: by the time he was forty two. His best power
Speaker 4: was his father and his father and I he went
Speaker 4: to ball games together and did other things together, including
Speaker 4: driving from South Pasadena, Pasadena a few times to visit
Speaker 4: the swamp meet down in Orange County.
Speaker 2: Now he even lived with his parents still at that age,
Speaker 2: didn't he, that's.
Speaker 4: Correct, Well, no, not at that age. He had moved
Speaker 4: up to Silicon Valley and then had a place in
Speaker 4: Hermosa Beach down by the beach here. And that's amazing too,
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Speaker 2: I'm not trying too hard anyway. No, okay, So he
Speaker 2: accumulates an incredible wealth. You say he's likely a virgin.
Speaker 2: He has no virtually no experience with any women at all.
Speaker 2: And how I've described the day that Bruce Clayland meets again.
Speaker 2: He's with his father that day, isn't he and tell
Speaker 2: us about the meeting and what exactly happened and how
Speaker 2: it all came to be that these two people would meet.
Speaker 4: Well, Bruce and his father are strolling wrong along in
Speaker 4: this colorful swamp meat which just every kind of vendor
Speaker 4: in there at all, I think, I said, from tortillas
Speaker 4: to tires in there, colorful Mexican flags, music playing in
Speaker 4: the background. A very very interesting place to visit. Ron
Speaker 4: and I went over and strolled through there just to
Speaker 4: see what the ambiance of it was. Bruce and his
Speaker 4: father are strolling along, and he spots this rather attractive,
Speaker 4: a ruptuous woman selling spices from interesting jars, and something
Speaker 4: struck Bruce hard, just something like I guess Cupid shotting
Speaker 4: with an arrow. At that point, he told his father
Speaker 4: and surprised his father, AM messy, bessying, I'm going to
Speaker 4: go back and talk to that girl. His father was
Speaker 4: gobsmacked and just stood and looked at with big eyes.
Speaker 4: And Bruce actually went back and started a conversation with Rebecca,
Speaker 4: and she saw dollar signs. So they talked for a while,
Speaker 4: and it later turned out that she was trying to
Speaker 4: find out as much she could about him because in
Speaker 4: the company where she worked, she had access to credit records.
Speaker 4: And when she told some of her friends the next day,
Speaker 4: I've met the man I'm going to marry and let
Speaker 4: me show you something. They thought she was going to
Speaker 4: show a picture. Instead, she pulls out his credit report.
Speaker 2: Wow, Wow, what did she well before I go that?
Speaker 2: What did What did Bruce's family think of Rebecca or
Speaker 2: just the idea that he met this woman? What did
Speaker 2: he say to his father? Did he did he say, listen,
Speaker 2: I got her number, or I've set up a date?
Speaker 2: What was what was that conversation with his father about
Speaker 2: that meeting with Rebecca.
Speaker 4: I don't think they had much of a conversation, but
Speaker 4: his father was, you know, absolutely amazed and rather pleased
Speaker 4: to see his son flirting, trying to set up a
Speaker 4: date with the woman. And even though they the father
Speaker 4: strongly suspected that Rebecca wasn't exactly the type of woman
Speaker 4: he would like to see his son get involved with,
Speaker 4: he still was pleased that something was happening. So they were,
Speaker 4: and when he went home and told his wife, Bruce's mother,
Speaker 4: they were pretty pleased to see something with some possible
Speaker 4: future for their son.
Speaker 2: Now, you talked about her going to her co workers
Speaker 2: and showing the credit report as opposed to showing a
Speaker 2: photo of the men. So she said, this is the
Speaker 2: man she's going to marry. Other than those people at work,
Speaker 2: did she have a conversation with her sister about Bruce
Speaker 2: or about with Berta or Bertha? Did she have conversations
Speaker 2: with them immediately after meeting Bruce.
Speaker 4: Both, yeah, her sister and Bertha. And she said this
Speaker 4: is the man I'm going to marry. But she also added,
Speaker 4: I'm going to take him for everything he's worth and
Speaker 4: I'm going to be set for life and that showed
Speaker 4: pretty much the type of woman she was. Was not
Speaker 4: a sudden falling in love by her. I mean, if
Speaker 4: Bruce was in love, but that was one thing. She
Speaker 4: was not in love. She was in greed.
Speaker 2: Now what did her friend Bertha say, and what did
Speaker 2: her sister say in response to I mean, obviously she's
Speaker 2: manipulated men for all kinds of things, but to have
Speaker 2: that kind of I'm going to take every everything he's
Speaker 2: everything that he's worth, and also I'm going to marry
Speaker 2: this man. What what was Dolores's response or sister and
Speaker 2: what was Birtha's response to that?
Speaker 4: Well, both of them were pretty skeptical and pretty rather appalled.
Speaker 4: They thought, well, that's a that's not a very good
Speaker 4: way to approach this idea of meeting a man he
Speaker 4: only want his money, And but Rebecca was pretty persistent,
Speaker 4: and so that's that's what I'm after him. That's what
Speaker 4: I want, and I want to be sad for life,
Speaker 4: and I'll marry him and and he'll get me anything
Speaker 4: I want. And as it turned out, I told you
Speaker 4: that Bruce was quite a frugal character. Right a parcle happened.
Speaker 4: He made a complete about face one hundred and eighty
Speaker 4: degree turned and started buying her things, being extremely generous
Speaker 4: with her. She lived in a small, very small house
Speaker 4: in a rough neighborhood, and he went in and bought
Speaker 4: new furniture for her and her little boy. She wanted
Speaker 4: a hot tub, he bought that for her. He bought
Speaker 4: her a boat and a trailer to go with it.
Speaker 4: And he stunned. He stunned his parents and his sister
Speaker 4: who was married by then, and his brother in law.
Speaker 4: And this was his whole circle of social circle was
Speaker 4: where his parents and his sister and brother in law,
Speaker 4: and they were just absolutely amazed what happened to him.
Speaker 4: And while they were skeptical about it, and they still
Speaker 4: felt good that he was changing and that might he
Speaker 4: might have a woman in his life.
Speaker 2: So just despite their he had enough money he certainly
Speaker 2: could do whatever he wanted. The overall it looked like
Speaker 2: Bruce was enjoying himself. That he wasn't the happiest, go
Speaker 2: lucky guy in the whole world despite all of his
Speaker 2: financial success and business success. He saw a real change
Speaker 2: in him as a result of meeting Rebecca. And they
Speaker 2: were good with that because of that, correct, they said.
Speaker 4: You know, and I heard that later, he reports that
Speaker 4: he was just he was an absolute heaven. He was
Speaker 4: his personality change as well. He was happy and whistling
Speaker 4: and singing and looking forward to every moment he could
Speaker 4: be with Rebecca. And that's what makes this whole damn tragedy.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, absolutely, Now, what did Rebecca manage to convince
Speaker 2: Bruce to do in a short period of time. He
Speaker 2: talked about the boat, and I wanted to make sure
Speaker 2: the audience realizes too, these weren't exactly ideas that Bruce
Speaker 2: came up with about the boat. This was from the
Speaker 2: prodding of Rebecca. I need this, I need this, I
Speaker 2: expect this. And at the same time we got a
Speaker 2: bear in mind that she did tell Bruce drew some
Speaker 2: lines on terms of his idea of well not romance.
Speaker 2: But maybe you can tell the audience what her rules
Speaker 2: were and what she expected, what she told them in
Speaker 2: terms of, you know, in terms of her moral code.
Speaker 4: Well, that just seems a very good point. You make
Speaker 4: a very good question she had. Obviously, as I've mentioned,
Speaker 4: she'd been very promiscuous before this, But this facade she's
Speaker 4: putting on for Bruce, she claims, well, women of my
Speaker 4: hispanic origin, don't just go to bed with anyone, and
Speaker 4: she said, I have one boy, and that's the only
Speaker 4: man I've ever been with, my little boy's father, and
Speaker 4: so obviously we're not going to have any intimate relations
Speaker 4: until we're married. And she kept driving that home, I
Speaker 4: you know, we must get married before and so that
Speaker 4: that just don't we do not do anything naughty together.
Speaker 4: And Bruce brought it every inch of the way where
Speaker 4: most men within experience would have said, oh, oh my god,
Speaker 4: this is this is not working here, this is not right.
Speaker 2: And there was other things too as well. That he
Speaker 2: also made duplicates of his credit cards so she could
Speaker 2: use them basically at her whim. She also began, of course,
Speaker 2: you mentioned that she's very generous. She's very generous with
Speaker 2: Bruce's credit cards to people her entourage will say, people
Speaker 2: and her family are people around her. That was something
Speaker 2: that again, another reasonable person might might wonder, and there
Speaker 2: was wasn't there also a stipulation that he really couldn't
Speaker 2: just pop over to her place at any time? Or
Speaker 2: was that later when when when he actually bought the
Speaker 2: house for.
Speaker 4: Well, that's correct, he wasn't. He didn't even try to
Speaker 4: spend the nights with her at that because he bought
Speaker 4: her story that she was very moral and wasn't going
Speaker 4: to allow any hanky pain going on, right, And then
Speaker 4: eventually they began to talk about marriage, and and he
Speaker 4: decided he went to take her house shopping and they
Speaker 4: bought a He bought a beautiful home for and Whittier
Speaker 4: on a hilltop, magnificent home, and he bought that for her.
Speaker 4: And then she started angling, and she wanted to get
Speaker 4: her hooks into the fifty percent ownership of that thing.
Speaker 4: So she said, well, you know, we must be married
Speaker 4: in a church. Of course, because she's a religion demanded
Speaker 4: a marriage in a church, but she wanted to be
Speaker 4: She said, if we can just you know, maybe just
Speaker 4: go ahead, and we should have a civil ceremony first
Speaker 4: before the church. And he fell right for that and thinking,
Speaker 4: oh boy, now we can move in the house together.
Speaker 4: But even after the little civil service marriage, she moved
Speaker 4: into the house, but he wasn't allowed to. He still
Speaker 4: had to stay down with his parents in Southstina. A
Speaker 4: poor guy. You know most men read if most men
Speaker 4: reading this would say, Wow, what a fool there was
Speaker 4: Poor Bruce. You know, he had no experience with this,
Speaker 4: and so the poor guy was just gullible and love struck.
Speaker 4: And I've written before in other books it's funny what
Speaker 4: love can do to people.
Speaker 2: Sure, at this time you would just alluded to the
Speaker 2: brother in laws ed Brown and Theda and Harold Cleveland
Speaker 2: when it got to the point further along and they
Speaker 2: were talking about marriage and he bought the house for
Speaker 2: her and he wasn't allowed to be over There was
Speaker 2: there any suspicion from anything expressed with Bruce's parents or
Speaker 2: the brother in law at Brown. Was there any anybody
Speaker 2: from his side of the family that said, listen, this
Speaker 2: could be very bad.
Speaker 4: Well, two things happened. One, his brother in law, who
Speaker 4: understood what was going on here it did try to
Speaker 4: talk to Bruce and tell him, you know, maybe you
Speaker 4: want to be cautious about this before you, you know,
Speaker 4: plot forward with this woman. Also, one of Rebecca's sisters
Speaker 4: actually called Bruce's mother, Theda, and said, you know, my
Speaker 4: sister is to take your son for a lot of money,
Speaker 4: and she's not being very honest with him. And this
Speaker 4: is this shows the relationship between the sisters that her
Speaker 4: own sister would do that, but Bruce would was having
Speaker 4: was having none of that. So and the mother didn't
Speaker 4: even try to stop him. She thought, well, you know,
Speaker 4: he's a grown man. He should be able to make
Speaker 4: his own choice. Oh, by the way, let me back
Speaker 4: up just a little bit. You mentioned the credit cards. Yes,
Speaker 4: she was buying a lot of things, not just for
Speaker 4: herself with his credit cards, but for her friends, including
Speaker 4: a male stripper that she'd been seeing sometime before that.
Speaker 4: And she was and when she moved into the new house,
Speaker 4: the male stripper paid quite a few visits there too,
Speaker 4: and Bruce even even saw him there one time, and
Speaker 4: Rebecca casually explained, Oh, this is just one of my cousins.
Speaker 4: He just came to visit me a little while. And
Speaker 4: poor Bruce even brought into that. So some readers are
Speaker 4: going to begin to wonder what is the matter with
Speaker 4: this man. But he was he was gullible. He was
Speaker 4: into everything she was doing.
Speaker 2: Now, wedding plans have been been made correct and and
Speaker 2: at a bridal show, Rebecca meets a photographer that becomes
Speaker 2: a very important figure in this story, to name Elizabeth
Speaker 2: Lamb even can tell us a little bit about those
Speaker 2: wedding plans, and uh, and about Elizabeth Lamb too.
Speaker 4: You bet in the book readers will see I call
Speaker 4: Beth Lamb Elizabeth because that's a real name, and writers
Speaker 4: sometimes let me explain a little problem that writers have.
Speaker 4: Sometimes it's interesting because I have. It was really a
Speaker 4: struggle here. I had Beth, I had Bertha, and I
Speaker 4: had Becky. Becky is Rebecca's middle name, or given a nickname,
Speaker 4: I should say, And I had to make a be
Speaker 4: very very careful so that I didn't confuse readers. So
Speaker 4: I called Beth Lamb Elizabeth all the way through, and
Speaker 4: Bertha by Bertha, and then I refer to Rebecca all
Speaker 4: the way through as not Becky, so I don't confuse
Speaker 4: the readers. I thought that was kind of that was
Speaker 4: a real problem for me. Anyway. Beth was a successful
Speaker 4: wedding photographer. She was a very cordial, humorous, lovely person,
Speaker 4: and when Rebecca contacted her the first Beth was a
Speaker 4: little skeptical because she went to the little house in
Speaker 4: the rough neighborhood and was wondering, what do I really
Speaker 4: want to get into this? But Rebecca really wanted the
Speaker 4: first class treatment all the way. She ordered the most
Speaker 4: expensive package that the photographer had available, so Beth said, well, okay,
Speaker 4: I'll go along with it. Rebecca, though wanted to treat
Speaker 4: Beth like an intimate friend, you know, like she really
Speaker 4: were very close to her, preferred to keep it on
Speaker 4: a courteous professional level. Here I give an example of
Speaker 4: how that worked. Rebecca hosted a wild bachelorette party before
Speaker 4: the Catholic wedding. And I asked, when I was interviewing Beth,
Speaker 4: I said, did you attend? And she looked at me
Speaker 4: and she rolled her eyes, noted this Mormon mom, that
Speaker 4: gives you a little insight into what death was like,
Speaker 4: and and so yeah, and she so she went to
Speaker 4: They had the Catholic wedding and a very very nice
Speaker 4: Catholic church. They had a magnificent reception later at a
Speaker 4: country club that, because of the Brusu's parents had the
Speaker 4: contacts up in the wealthy section of San Marino area.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting, the wedding was attended by several of
Speaker 4: of Rebecca's relatives and friends and people she knew, but
Speaker 4: they didn't go to the reception because they didn't quite
Speaker 4: feel in the country club atmosphere wasn't theirs so right?
Speaker 4: The reception was pretty much attended by the Cleveland family
Speaker 4: and their acquaintances.
Speaker 2: Now, tell us you talked about the bachelor party, and
Speaker 2: the bachelor party is very important because, like you say,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Lamb said, I'm not going to show up, and
Speaker 2: he says, but it also was because what of some
Speaker 2: of the information that Rebecca told Elizabeth Lamb, Well, this
Speaker 2: is what's going to go on at this bachelor party,
Speaker 2: and it seemed way too raunchy for Elizabeth Lamb. But
Speaker 2: tell us about the bachelor party and who who was
Speaker 2: there to witness what actually happened at that bachelor party.
Speaker 4: Well, there's the bachelor party.
Speaker 3: As I said, was hell, he is Ryan here.
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Speaker 4: That's the new home that Bruce bought for her, But
Speaker 4: of course he wasn't going to be there. She invited
Speaker 4: all I think about twenty five of her female friends.
Speaker 4: But when she told Beth Lamb what the entertainment was
Speaker 4: going to be, that certainly convinced the Mormon mom she
Speaker 4: was going to go because she was going to have
Speaker 4: male strippers as well, including the one who she with
Speaker 4: whom she'd been having an affair. And the other women
Speaker 4: didn't mind, although Bertha, her best friend. Bertha did go,
Speaker 4: but she said, I left before the male strippers because
Speaker 4: by that time I was involved in a serious relationship
Speaker 4: and I didn't want to be there for these male strippers.
Speaker 4: But she said, I went in to say goodbye to
Speaker 4: Rebecca before I left. I couldn't find I went into
Speaker 4: the bedroom, and there she was in bed with one
Speaker 4: of the male strippers.
Speaker 2: Sure probably innocent though, oh absolutely, of.
Speaker 4: Course they were just getting warm.
Speaker 2: Now you say there was that Bertha left? Who witnessed
Speaker 2: the thing? Who who if anyone witnessed the entire thing?
Speaker 2: To say what happened the next day? Did anyone stay
Speaker 2: the night? Tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Quite a few of the women stayed the night because
Speaker 4: there was a free flow of much much a drink
Speaker 4: and much food. And but one of the sisters also
Speaker 4: saw the event between the between the male stripper and
Speaker 4: her sister, and she kept that in her little memory
Speaker 4: bank to use in the future if she needed to.
Speaker 2: Right now, the wedding takes place, and and and tell
Speaker 2: us about the wedding. Is it uneventful? Basically you say
Speaker 2: that the reception is basically attended by the Kleland's family
Speaker 2: and friends rather than her family. So tell us a
Speaker 2: little about the wedding, if there was anything unusual and
Speaker 2: towards there or uh, and and just tell us about
Speaker 2: the reception if and what happened at the reception itself.
Speaker 4: Well, at the wedding and the church. The wedding photographer
Speaker 4: Beth Uh, she said it was it was beautiful and man,
Speaker 4: everything's going well. But she this introduces one other character
Speaker 4: that we need to know about. Rebecca's uncle Arturo was there. Now.
Speaker 4: Uncle Arturo had a he had two sons, Uh, Rebecca's
Speaker 4: cousins Alvaro and Jose and uh Alvaro was there, but Jose,
Speaker 4: but Uncle Arturo, who was a woman grover. He had
Speaker 4: a couple of drinks. He and Bertha complained many times
Speaker 4: that every time I'd be around him, he try to
Speaker 4: grapple me, and she's I told him, I told Rebecca,
Speaker 4: if he ever touched is me like that again, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna kick him where it hurts the most and tell
Speaker 4: him to keep his hands off of me. Rebecca's, oh,
Speaker 4: don't worry about it. He does that all the meat
Speaker 4: to me all the time too. He just kidding around.
Speaker 4: He's just a funny guy. And the Mormon mom wedding
Speaker 4: photographer was there taking pictures and she said, my biggest
Speaker 4: problem was Uncle Artu was all over me trying to
Speaker 4: grope me. Who I told him, get your hands off
Speaker 4: and stay away from me. And then she took she
Speaker 4: took the pictures and then but the the the reception
Speaker 4: in the country club was pretty uneventful. It went off
Speaker 4: pretty well, and then the two went off on their
Speaker 4: honeymoon to Hawaii. Now do you want me to go ahead?
Speaker 2: And yes, yes, tell us about the honeymoon because it
Speaker 2: gets better.
Speaker 4: Okay, They're on their honeymoon in Hawaii and Beth Lamb
Speaker 4: is at home and her phone rings and she says,
Speaker 4: and she says hello, and it's it's Rebecca on her honeymoon.
Speaker 4: She says, Oh my god, Oh my god, Peth, you
Speaker 4: can't believe that this is horrible. And she's telling how
Speaker 4: poor Bruce is totally incapable of doing what he's supposed
Speaker 4: to do. He doesn't know how, he doesn't know anything
Speaker 4: about how to please a woman or what to do
Speaker 4: with a woman. Oh my god, this woman is calling
Speaker 4: this Mormon mom wedding photographer to complain about her honeymoon.
Speaker 4: And she Rebecca told several other people, She told her
Speaker 4: own sister. She even when she got back, she even
Speaker 4: called ed Brown, the brother in law with whom she
Speaker 4: had never had a one on one conversation, and was
Speaker 4: complaining about Bruce's incapable performance. And Ed Brown, the brother
Speaker 4: in law, told her, look, what are you doing telling
Speaker 4: me this carbage? Do you need to talk to someone else?
Speaker 4: This is not my business, for Heaven's sake. And it's
Speaker 4: stunning that this woman was spreading these kind of malicious
Speaker 4: comments about her poor new husband.
Speaker 2: Right, And what happened after they got back to the
Speaker 2: to the States after this anymoon, How did Rebecca proceed
Speaker 2: with Bruce? Where was her? We know what her complaint
Speaker 2: was about the honeymoon, but how did she proceed from there?
Speaker 2: What happened between the two?
Speaker 4: Well, when she got back, they moved. They did move
Speaker 4: into the house for a while, and poor Bruce is
Speaker 4: trying to do his best, but he's beginning to think, you,
Speaker 4: oh my god, this is you know, this is awful.
Speaker 4: I want what's going on? And Rebecca is really cold
Speaker 4: to him. She's spreading these nasty rumors, and then she
Speaker 4: begins to say, I want a divorce. This isn't working out.
Speaker 4: I want a divorce, and Bruce is broken hearted, and
Speaker 4: within just a few weeks she kicks him out and
Speaker 4: he moved back down with his parents, just stunned and
Speaker 4: horrified that this woman doesn't want him. Meanwhile, she's having
Speaker 4: parties up there and inviting her her male friends, her
Speaker 4: strip of friends coming out spending nights now, and poor
Speaker 4: Bruce doesn't know what to do, and so he finally
Speaker 4: at ed Brown, his brother in law's advice, sees a
Speaker 4: lawyer to talk about it, and the law gives Bruce
Speaker 4: some pretty good news. It's just you know, the divorce laws,
Speaker 4: she won't get very much from you because you acquired
Speaker 4: all that before you were married to her, and the
Speaker 4: divorces don't require to split that with her, and so
Speaker 4: she'll she'll pick up maybe three or four thousand dollars. Well,
Speaker 4: when Rebecca hears this, she changes her tone entirely. She
Speaker 4: she suddenly doesn't want this divorce, but she begins a
Speaker 4: news strategy. She begins spending the word among everyone who
Speaker 4: will listen for five minutes that Bruce has been molesting
Speaker 4: her little boy sexually, and now everyone who knows him
Speaker 4: is is just horrified, including Bertha. Bertha at first and
Speaker 4: are you are you kidding me? Are you are you
Speaker 4: telling me that he was actually molesting him? And she
Speaker 4: tries to rationalize maybe he was just holding him on
Speaker 4: his lap or something. He doesn't know how to treat
Speaker 4: little boys. No, No, I saw him and he complained.
Speaker 4: My little boy complained, he molested him. And Bertha realizes
Speaker 4: this is just a scam. All she's doing now is
Speaker 4: angling to get his money via another route and divorce.
Speaker 2: Did she tell anybody else the molestation accusation as well?
Speaker 4: She told the wedding photographer also by death, and she
Speaker 4: told everyone who would listen, including her sisters, and the
Speaker 4: sister didn't believe it. She just called her not right, liar,
Speaker 4: But Rebecca, I wanted to proceed with this.
Speaker 2: Did this molestation accusation get back to his family as well?
Speaker 4: I don't know if it ever got to his parents.
Speaker 4: I hope not, because they that would have devastated them.
Speaker 4: But Bertha asked, well, you know, have you called the police,
Speaker 4: you know, have you called anyone be counseling? You need
Speaker 4: police help on this? Oh no, no, no, I don't
Speaker 4: want to do that because that was that wouldn't work
Speaker 4: my But then she came up with an additional accusation
Speaker 4: that uncle Arturo had been visiting and that Bruce had
Speaker 4: had proposition him homosexual act and that now both Rebecca
Speaker 4: is spending the word that now there may be retribution.
Speaker 4: You know, my uncle in a Hispanic family, you do
Speaker 4: not make that kind of a proposition to man. I'm
Speaker 4: afraid my cousins might do something to him.
Speaker 2: So she was already she was already laying some groundwork,
Speaker 2: and in retrospect, when people think about it, she was
Speaker 2: laying some groundwork for any kind of sympathy for Bruce
Speaker 2: to be gone, and also laying the groundwork for possibly
Speaker 2: any kind of talk of assault as well, right exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's laying groundwork and this is what that's what.
Speaker 2: She's heading for now. Once she realizes she can't make
Speaker 2: any money from this divorce, how does she proceed with Bruce?
Speaker 2: What does she do? Is she's still on a spending spree?
Speaker 2: Does he still? Does he cancel any credit cards? How
Speaker 2: does he proceed? How does she proceed? And what timeframe
Speaker 2: were we talking about after he's booted out of the house.
Speaker 4: Well, in just a few weeks after he's booted out
Speaker 4: of the house now and she is she's still usually
Speaker 4: credit cards extravagantly, and her strip of boyfriend is having
Speaker 4: a tough time making meeting and things, his meeting his expenses,
Speaker 4: so she's feeding him money as well out of Bruce's accounts.
Speaker 4: And this is when Bertha becomes more estranged finally from Rebecca.
Speaker 4: This is just unfair because she liked Bruce and she
Speaker 4: didn't believe any of the stories about him, but she
Speaker 4: told him you stopped, you know, you should stop that.
Speaker 4: That's not very good. Well, how am I going to live?
Speaker 4: And so she's she's spending it rapidly. Now, finally ed
Speaker 4: Brown counsels Bruce and says, look, you know you got
Speaker 4: to stop that spending screen. So finally Bruce kills some
Speaker 4: of the credit cards so she can't keep doing that
Speaker 4: to him.
Speaker 2: Right right now, I guess. To Bruce's surprise, he gets
Speaker 2: a call from Rebecca. Rebecca give him a call about
Speaker 2: talking about their future. When does this happen and who
Speaker 2: makes the call? And what's Bruce's reaction?
Speaker 4: Yeah, versus's And he's folks one and he's just working
Speaker 4: every day, coming home and going into his bedroom every night,
Speaker 4: just morning and getting awful. And he gets a call
Speaker 4: one night. It's Rebecca and she says, you know, maybe
Speaker 4: we should make up, Maybe we should get back together.
Speaker 4: It would be really nice. Let's and they had often
Speaker 4: eaten at a Mexican food restaurant in Weyal Heights, which
Speaker 4: is East Los Angeles, And so how about a date.
Speaker 4: How about we go there and have a couple of
Speaker 4: drinks and a nice Mexican dinner and let's, uh, let's
Speaker 4: get back together. We can repair our marriage. Oh, Bruce
Speaker 4: is actually lated. He just oh, he's so thrilled and happy,
Speaker 4: and he tells his mom and dad and their dubious
Speaker 4: but they said, well, okay, maybe that's for the best.
Speaker 4: So they take off to go somewhere one night, and
Speaker 4: Rebecca shows up. I don't think I mentioned earlier that
Speaker 4: she Bruce also bought her a new suv, right, So
Speaker 4: she shows up in the suv and Burse gets in
Speaker 4: he's the passenger, and they drive to Boil Heights and
Speaker 4: go to their Mexican food restaurant. Rebecca during the meal
Speaker 4: gets up two or three times. First she goes back
Speaker 4: and the waitress spots her making a call from the payphone,
Speaker 4: and then but that lasts only briefly, and then spots
Speaker 4: her two other times hiding down the hallway making cell
Speaker 4: phone calls, and then they leave the restaurant.
Speaker 2: Now she takes the she had also they had also
Speaker 2: visited someone else that evening, which was, again in retrospect,
Speaker 2: kind of unusual, or at least they find out about it,
Speaker 2: and they investigate this this meeting. Who did they go
Speaker 2: and spend some time with that that evening that seemed
Speaker 2: a little unusual to police Later.
Speaker 4: They actually happened. After the restaurant they left the restaurant
Speaker 4: and go over to uncle Arturo's little shambles shambles of
Speaker 4: a house where he had raised Olvado and Jose and
Speaker 4: three three daughters as well. His wife, by the way,
Speaker 4: had left him years earlier and lived in another county
Speaker 4: because of his grouping of other women. So they go
Speaker 4: to uncle Arturo's house and his uncle Arturo's there with
Speaker 4: his girlfriend, and Bruce and Rebecca have they bring him
Speaker 4: actually food from the restaurant to uh and then they
Speaker 4: have several more drinks. They've had a few at the restaurant,
Speaker 4: and they have a few more, and poor Bruce by
Speaker 4: this time it's pretty well snuckered. He's he's had more
Speaker 4: than he can handle, and he's weaving around. And they
Speaker 4: spend They stay at uncle Alva's house until old pretty
Speaker 4: close to one o'clock in the morning, and then they said, well,
Speaker 4: we've got to get on home back up to Whittier.
Speaker 4: So they drive out and she takes a little different
Speaker 4: route than she normally takes to go to Whittier, right.
Speaker 2: And then happens something with the vehicle.
Speaker 4: By the way, I didn't think I mentioned earlier that Alvarro,
Speaker 4: her cousin Alvarro also became a male stripper in being
Speaker 4: up at the house often. After Bruce was kicked out,
Speaker 4: he pretty much moved in too, up at the house
Speaker 4: and he became a male stripper, a client of her,
Speaker 4: of Rebecca's lover, and so now he's involved. But okay, Now,
Speaker 4: Rebecca and Bruce drive out in the suv and she
Speaker 4: takes a little alternate route and makes a right turn
Speaker 4: into a residential section and Rebecca says, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: She says, the red lights on the dashboard. That means
Speaker 4: the back hatch is open. She pulls over into this dark,
Speaker 4: dark residential street and steps outside to allegedly to close that,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, a gunman steps out from
Speaker 4: the dark bushes beside him and it's you know, after
Speaker 4: one am, and opens fire. He shoots, He shoots Bruce,
Speaker 4: and one bullet pierss his mouth, his cheek and goes
Speaker 4: out one side. But that's not a lethal shot. Poor Bruce,
Speaker 4: absolutely stunned, horrified, in terrible pain, managed to scramble out
Speaker 4: of the car and start to run across the street,
Speaker 4: but the gunman is behind him and shoots him two
Speaker 4: or three more times, and Bruce makes it across and collapses.
Speaker 4: Then the gunman delivers a final shot into Bruce's head
Speaker 4: and then runs off down the street and turns the
Speaker 4: corner and disappears.
Speaker 2: Now in your book, you have a woman named Virginia Silva,
Speaker 2: and she becomes a little bit a very important character.
Speaker 4: Later.
Speaker 2: She doesn't make a phone call, but she does witness something.
Speaker 2: And what does she see that evening? Based on that
Speaker 2: she hears she must have heard shots. What does she witness?
Speaker 4: Virginia lives just across the street from where the car
Speaker 4: was parked. There's a they parked by some brush that
Speaker 4: they're just actually next to an turns to the sant
Speaker 4: Anna Freeway. But Virginia lives across the street in the
Speaker 4: row of houses, and at about one of the little
Speaker 4: after one on the morning, she had just gone to sleep,
Speaker 4: she heard this blast outside. She jumps out of bed
Speaker 4: and runs downstairs and looks out through her bay window
Speaker 4: and she sees the dark clad gunman chasing Bruce across
Speaker 4: the street and shooting at him, and then sees the
Speaker 4: gunman disappear down the street and for Virginia's horrified, But
Speaker 4: within just moments she sees police start arriving in ambulances,
Speaker 4: and so she said, well, there's no point in me
Speaker 4: calling nine one one. As it happened, the gunman ran
Speaker 4: about two blocks downhill after he turned left, and another witness,
Speaker 4: another Hispanic woman, saw him running along that sidewalk and
Speaker 4: was suspicious and she called nine one one because she
Speaker 4: had also heard gunshots up the street and saw men running.
Speaker 4: So she called nine one one and the police and
Speaker 4: the ambulances arrived just moments afterwards.
Speaker 2: Now what did they find at the scene. Again, they
Speaker 2: they make assessments very early on based on their their
Speaker 2: vast experience with these kinds of cases. What did they
Speaker 2: see and what did they initially think was unusual for
Speaker 2: and what did they think this crime was and when
Speaker 2: they what happened when they talked to Rebecca about this
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 4: Well. The first witness who saw it from her bay window,
Speaker 4: spotted Bruce lying face down in a driveway with blood poys.
Speaker 4: She couldn't see the blood, but blood was pouring out
Speaker 4: of them, and she also spotted a female figure behind
Speaker 4: the behind the suv, also prostate on the pavement, and
Speaker 4: it looked like two people have been shot to death.
Speaker 4: The police arrive and as just as they arrive, Rebecca
Speaker 4: rises up from her spot on the paymore. She'd been
Speaker 4: lying down oddly with her her head cupped in her
Speaker 4: hands and her shoes placed very neatly behind the wheel,
Speaker 4: as if she placed them in the closet. And she
Speaker 4: gets up. Oh, oh, my god, they were carjackers. They oh,
Speaker 4: and they hit me and hit me on my head
Speaker 4: and knocked me out and what oh, I don't know.
Speaker 4: They took my rings, they took my expensive rings. Oh,
Speaker 4: and she's just carrying on having a fit. And the
Speaker 4: police the paramedics examine Bruce and find that he's beyond
Speaker 4: any help. Then they examine Rebecca and they find no scratches,
Speaker 4: no pumps, no indication of being slugged, even though she's
Speaker 4: complaining she was knocked out by these carjackers. The police arrived,
Speaker 4: and the tectives arrive, and they wonder why carjackers would
Speaker 4: shoot this man and leave that car, that brand new car,
Speaker 4: sitting there running with the engine running and her purs
Speaker 4: sitting in the in the middle of the seat. Carjackers
Speaker 4: don't do that. But they don't have any real evidence
Speaker 4: that she's lying, so they they pretty much accept her story.
Speaker 4: And start investigation. And then they talked the witness down
Speaker 4: the street who also speaks of seeing the dark clad
Speaker 4: men running down the street and she thought she heard
Speaker 4: a car door slam and a car drive away a
Speaker 4: few feet away from her house.
Speaker 2: Right now, we don't have that much time. We've got
Speaker 2: eleven minutes. So what I'm going to do is that
Speaker 2: I want to talk about we go backwards a little
Speaker 2: bit too. Another important figure, which is a LAPD officer
Speaker 2: named Robert is a study and you use for him,
Speaker 2: but Robert Zavla or Zavala, and that there was some
Speaker 2: relationship with Alvero, and maybe tell us a little bit
Speaker 2: about his relationship to this story. And well, because it's
Speaker 2: very important right after this turn of events here, well, the.
Speaker 4: Cousin Alvaro had been working at the YMCA and Boyle
Speaker 4: Heights in East la and in doing that he met
Speaker 4: and a police officer who came in once in a while.
Speaker 4: We call him Zavale in the story and uh in
Speaker 4: the act that he actually asked if he could get
Speaker 4: some information about becoming a policeman. Alvarro wanted to become
Speaker 4: a policeman.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: And then they all after Bruce was kicked out of
Speaker 4: the house. They all took that suv and pulled the
Speaker 4: boat over to Lake Havasu, including the police officer, Alvaro, Rebecca,
Speaker 4: and a couple other people went over to have a
Speaker 4: few days at the lake. Now she's she's kind of
Speaker 4: hinting that she'd like to have an affair with his
Speaker 4: police officer, while she's also talking about maybe sitting in
Speaker 4: Her next target would be one of the greatest boxers
Speaker 4: in Southern California history. I want you to name him right
Speaker 4: now because but anyway, she has her She's targeting new
Speaker 4: men already before the murder. And then Zavalla gets a
Speaker 4: strange call early in the morning and wakes him up
Speaker 4: after one o'clock on the on the warning of the murder,
Speaker 4: and it's Alvaro and he first in one call, he says, Oh,
Speaker 4: I'm over here, and I'm all distraught because of my
Speaker 4: girlfriend's waking up with me. Uh, well, why are you
Speaker 4: calling me? Well, I just need someone to talk to.
Speaker 4: And then a little while later he calls, Oh, my god,
Speaker 4: I just heard that Bruce was shot. Bruce was shot
Speaker 4: and killed. Now Zavala is really wondering what's going on,
Speaker 4: So he goes in and tells the detective who's assigned
Speaker 4: this case about all this, and this begins to open
Speaker 4: things up. Now you want me to proceed with you.
Speaker 4: We're getting closed out short of time. He want me
Speaker 4: to step one step forward and.
Speaker 2: Tell yeah, go ahead, just just continue to yeah, continue
Speaker 2: with the story.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, we've talked about Beth Lamb the Mormon, the
Speaker 4: Mormon mom waiting photographer. Right now now Rebecca's sulsed to
Speaker 4: be grieving over her dead husband. But she calls Bath
Speaker 4: and she says, oh, we need a lot of whole
Speaker 4: bunch of pictures for the funeral, and we need a
Speaker 4: video tape. Oh my goodness. And so Beth goes up
Speaker 4: an appointment to talk about which pictures she wants from
Speaker 4: the wedding and what to do now. And Beth spots
Speaker 4: these beautiful rings on Rebecca's hands and then she hears
Speaker 4: later when when she's a question, she hears that the
Speaker 4: rings were stolen when when the carjacker hit them, and she,
Speaker 4: my god, she thinks, this is wait a minute, this
Speaker 4: woman is lying. She had those rings in her hand,
Speaker 4: and she she struggles for several days, a couple of days,
Speaker 4: and what am I going to do? She calls a
Speaker 4: police officer friend hers and he said, you call that
Speaker 4: detective right now and you tell them. So she did
Speaker 4: and this turn, this turned, This is actually the turning
Speaker 4: point in the whole case. The Mormon momb wedding photographers
Speaker 4: information helps get this case opened up and solved.
Speaker 2: They what do the police ask Elizabeth Lamb to do?
Speaker 4: But they asked her if she'd wear a wire and
Speaker 4: go to the house and see if she could get
Speaker 4: Rebecca to talk. And Elizabeth was scared to death. She
Speaker 4: didn't she didn't want to, but she did. She was
Speaker 4: very courageous and she tried. But no, no, no interesting
Speaker 4: information developed out of that. But because the the rings
Speaker 4: were obvious, uh the uh, the officers asked her, could
Speaker 4: you go up there and and make sure she's there
Speaker 4: because we're going to do a raid, and Elizabeth helps him.
Speaker 4: She she chooses not to be in the house when
Speaker 4: the search worm arrives and they go into the house
Speaker 4: and to search and see what they can find. When
Speaker 4: they have a search worm and Rebecca's sitting on her hands,
Speaker 4: Rebecca could could we see her hands please? And she
Speaker 4: very shyly and reluctantly holds out her hands on there
Speaker 4: that beautiful glowing diamond ring that had been stolen. Okay,
Speaker 4: now she's lying, and so with a little bit more
Speaker 4: information beyond that, she is arrested. And by this time
Speaker 4: they have also began a unique, brand new forensic study,
Speaker 4: and that's the use of cell phones. A lot of
Speaker 4: people don't realize that cell phones can tell what your
Speaker 4: location was on those records of your calls, and the
Speaker 4: calls you received are on records somewhere any given date
Speaker 4: that you use your cell phone, you can be traced
Speaker 4: within a few hundred yards where you were. Well, as
Speaker 4: it turns out, Alvaro was very very close to the
Speaker 4: murder scene when it happened, and the cell phone records
Speaker 4: also connected those strange calls that Rebecca was making from
Speaker 4: the restaurant to Alvaro, and she and Alvaro exchanged dozens
Speaker 4: of calls just leading up to and right after the murder.
Speaker 2: So basically police didn't I mean not to say they
Speaker 2: didn't have a hard job, but it was fairly easy
Speaker 2: based on the interviews with her friends, those phone records,
Speaker 2: like you say that they able to pinpoint that Alvaro
Speaker 2: had made the call very close. They also for audience
Speaker 2: that doesn't know it, it's pretty simple why they wanted
Speaker 2: to have a police officer. They wanted to know if
Speaker 2: they could get any information about the investigation. They wanted
Speaker 2: to have an ally they figured in the police force.
Speaker 2: Didn't really work out that way. Not the smartest of criminals.
Speaker 2: So anyway, we'll just leave it at that. Because it's
Speaker 2: the trial, the story has more twists and turns, and
Speaker 2: it's an incredible trial itself too.
Speaker 4: So the final twist was that the witness down the
Speaker 4: street saw the dark clad figure running was able to
Speaker 4: identify Jose the other Albaro's brother, as the shooter, and
Speaker 4: so that witness idem medication pinned him and they all
Speaker 4: went to trial, and it took three trials to settle
Speaker 4: this case. Finally.
Speaker 2: Oh that's incredible. Yeah, we'll have to leave it for
Speaker 2: audience to want to read this book, and because it
Speaker 2: looks like it looked looks like an incredible slam dunk
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the trial, but not so not
Speaker 2: with three trials, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: Well, I was hoping we leave some mystery for the readers.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely no, it's a great book. Don I
Speaker 2: also wanted to talk about one of the new projects
Speaker 2: you're working on right now, and I wanted to tell
Speaker 2: people how many books have you written so far? In
Speaker 2: here you said fifteen year career. So far, how many
Speaker 2: books have you written?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm glad you asked. This book was number eighteen.
Speaker 4: I've just finished number nineteen, and I just just in
Speaker 4: August I went to the trial for the one I'm
Speaker 4: beginning to work on right now, which will be number twenty.
Speaker 4: All of these but one were true crime books.
Speaker 2: Wow. What does the new case you're working on it?
Speaker 2: Can you tell us about that who it's involved in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a case of a New York lawyer
Speaker 4: who moved to Hollywood and wanted to immerse himself in
Speaker 4: the lifestyle, and he did, and the pornography, drugs, strippers,
Speaker 4: and the wound up killing a young woman with him,
Speaker 4: and he became involved here with a little clumsy game
Speaker 4: of Russian roulette. Wow, after your body out in the desert?
Speaker 2: Do you have a working title for this book?
Speaker 4: Well? Yeah, we're calling it the one I just finished.
Speaker 4: We just tied Deadly Deceit. That's about a man who
Speaker 4: murdered his own parents in Arizona. And used their money
Speaker 4: to take his fifteen year old girlfriend of Hawaii.
Speaker 2: Oh incredible.
Speaker 4: And what I'm starting to work on right now is
Speaker 4: called Homicide in the Hollywood Hills.
Speaker 2: Well, great title, so deadly Deceit. When did that come out?
Speaker 4: It will come out. I just finished it. Oh, it's
Speaker 4: in the process of publication now, will probably come out
Speaker 4: a little bit later this year or early next year.
Speaker 2: Is that another title with Kensington?
Speaker 4: That? Yeah, he is with Kensington and that's Deadly.
Speaker 2: Deceit, Deadly Deceit. That's great. Ah. Yeah, And so what
Speaker 2: made you start to write true crime? I know maybe
Speaker 2: I don't know if we'd actually talked about it on
Speaker 2: the show last time when we did Die for Me.
Speaker 2: But what made you? What compelled you to become involved
Speaker 2: with this true crime genre?
Speaker 4: Well, that's what I read then, And I had a
Speaker 4: thirty year career with the phone company and spent five
Speaker 4: years after that just traveling the world, and I thought,
Speaker 4: I get some time, I should be doing something else,
Speaker 4: so I thought I'll write a book. Well, I'd always
Speaker 4: read true crime books, and I've always had a deadly
Speaker 4: horror of being locked up. I'm a little clusterphobic and
Speaker 4: being locked up. It just gives me the shivers. So
Speaker 4: I read several books about people in life in prison,
Speaker 4: and so when I decided what shall I do next,
Speaker 4: I got to write a true crime book, and so
Speaker 4: that's what got that started. It's been a great second career,
Speaker 4: I'll tell you. It has a great, great fun.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely. And what point did you take a foray
Speaker 2: into fiction?
Speaker 4: And I've not written any fiction. These are all nonfiction books,
Speaker 4: every book of mine, and including the other one which is
Speaker 4: not which is not true crime, that was about World
Speaker 4: War two men shot down in France and the rescued
Speaker 4: for the French.
Speaker 2: Underground and what was the name of that book, that's.
Speaker 4: Called Their Deeds of Valor, And that one comes from
Speaker 4: my heart. I love doing that one because I got
Speaker 4: to go interview scores of men who actually flew those
Speaker 4: B seventeens and and P fifty ones and were shot
Speaker 4: down or crash landed in France. I went to France
Speaker 4: as well and interviewed some of the French underground people,
Speaker 4: which was great fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely absolutely. And you say you decided you'd probably
Speaker 2: always read true crime. What are what are some of
Speaker 2: the authors that were influences for you.
Speaker 4: It's interesting. Of course, Truman Capoti was in Cold Blood
Speaker 4: was He's the Pioneer, and then the second one was
Speaker 4: Onion Field by Joe Wamba, And right now I just
Speaker 4: finished reading Warmbas. I think he's about his eighteenth or
Speaker 4: twentieth book, and it ties in so nicely with my
Speaker 4: homicide in the Hollywood Hills. He even mentions a detective
Speaker 4: whom I interviewed a few weeks ago and is acknowledging
Speaker 4: his book, So it's going to tie in wonderfully with
Speaker 4: Wombo's works, who was one of my idols when I've
Speaker 4: began writing.
Speaker 2: Well. It's also interesting as well because I interviewed Philip Carlo,
Speaker 2: another Pinnacle author, Kensington author about the night Stalker, and
Speaker 2: this family was involved with the capture of Richard Rameirez
Speaker 2: in that neighborhood when he was running from the law.
Speaker 4: That's right. Was when I interviewed her and she told
Speaker 4: me that her friends were those Hispanic people who chased
Speaker 4: Ramirez down and captured him.
Speaker 2: It was just incredible to that story where where Rameraz
Speaker 2: comes back into Los Angeles and his face is all
Speaker 2: over the newspapers and the the Hispanic people are saying
Speaker 2: El matador elmantador is he's running away the killer, the killer,
Speaker 2: you know, Oh right, incredible, Rob And.
Speaker 4: I actually retraced the route he ran that day and
Speaker 4: stopped at the little story where he saw the newspaper
Speaker 4: with his picture on the front. And then I have
Speaker 4: my picture who stayed taking it that same newstand.
Speaker 2: Wow. Incredible, incredible. Yeah. Well, I just really want to
Speaker 2: thank you very much Don for coming back on the
Speaker 2: program and with this second book that we've talked about.
Speaker 2: I guess we'll have to talk about a lot more
Speaker 2: than that with your on your twentieth right now. So
Speaker 2: I want to thank you very much for coming on
Speaker 2: and talking about your great book, Honeymoon with a Killer.
Speaker 2: Great story, and thank you very much for the interview.
Speaker 4: Don, my pleasure. Dan, thanks so much. I'll be looking
Speaker 4: forward to talking to you on the next one.
Speaker 2: Okay, Don, have yourself a good evening. Okay, thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you, good night. By you've been listening to the
Speaker 2: program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime
Speaker 2: history and the authors that are written about them, with
Speaker 2: my special guest Don Lassiter with Ronald E. Bauers. That's
Speaker 2: Honeymoon with the Killer on Kensington Pinnacle is the true
Speaker 2: crime imprint. Have yourself a good evening, good night,