Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
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Speaker 1: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 1: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 1: your host journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
Speaker 2: Good Evening.
Speaker 3: Detective Rick Jackson, a decorated LAPD detective and a key
Speaker 3: inspiration in the development of Harry Bosch, delivers a shocking
Speaker 3: and immersive look into the one case he could never
Speaker 3: let go. In June nineteen ninety, Ronald Baker, straight a
Speaker 3: UCLA student, was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a
Speaker 3: tunnel near Spawn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers
Speaker 3: once lived. Shortly thereafter, Detective Rick Jackson and his partner
Speaker 3: Frank Garcia were assigned the case. Yet the facts made
Speaker 3: no sense. Who would have a motive to kill Ron
Speaker 3: Baker in such a grisly manner? Was the proximity to
Speaker 3: the Manson ranch related to the murder? And what about
Speaker 3: the pentagram pendant Ron wore around his neck? Jackson and
Speaker 3: Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker's two male roommates,
Speaker 3: one black and one white. What emerges is at once
Speaker 3: a story of confounding, betrayal, and co hearted intentions, as
Speaker 3: well as a larger portrait of an unbattled Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: a city in the grip of the Satanic panic and
Speaker 3: grappling with questions of racial injustice and police brutality in
Speaker 3: the wake of Rodney King. Rick Jackson, the now retired
Speaker 3: police detective who helped inspire Michael Connolly's beloved Harry Bosch,
Speaker 3: along with co writer Matthew McGoff, take us through the
Speaker 3: events as he and his partner experienced them, piecing together
Speaker 3: the truth with each emerging clue. Black Tunnel White Magic
Speaker 3: is the true story of a murder in cold blood,
Speaker 3: deception and betrayal, and a city at the brink, set
Speaker 3: forth by the only man who could tell it. The
Speaker 3: book that we're featuring this evening is Black Tunnel, White Magic,
Speaker 3: a murder, a detective's obsession, and nineties Los Angeles on
Speaker 3: the Brink with my special guest, retired detective and author
Speaker 3: Rick Jackson and journalist and author Matthew McGoff. Welcome to
Speaker 3: the program. Thank you very much for this interview Rick
Speaker 3: Jackson and Matthew McGough.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Dan, Thank you, Dan, happy to
Speaker 2: be here.
Speaker 3: Tell us about the genesis of this book, Matthew, how
Speaker 3: you got involved with Rick Jackson and why you wanted
Speaker 3: to be involved in this story.
Speaker 4: Well, for Rick, the story obviously goes back quite a
Speaker 4: bit further than me. It's a nineteen ninety murder case.
Speaker 4: And I first met Rick time around twenty ten, twenty
Speaker 4: eleven or so. At the time, he was still an
Speaker 4: active LAPD detective working in the LAPD's Cold Case homicide unit,
Speaker 4: and I was a reporter doing some research on a
Speaker 4: pretty notorious LAPD cold case, but also about the cold
Speaker 4: case unit itself. This was research for what became my book,
Speaker 4: The Lazarus Files. So even though Rick wasn't directly involved
Speaker 4: in that case, he was one of the LAPD detectives
Speaker 4: who I interviewed and got to know while I was
Speaker 4: doing that reporting, and we became pretty quick friends, and
Speaker 4: I don't know, after a year or so, Rick came
Speaker 4: to me and said that there was a story and
Speaker 4: a case that he had worked earlier in his career
Speaker 4: that he considered one of the most interesting cases of
Speaker 4: his career, and that he always thought it would make
Speaker 4: a good book, and he'd always dreamed of writing a book,
Speaker 4: and would I be interested in working on a book
Speaker 4: project about this case with him and Frankly Once he
Speaker 4: told me the story, it's a really unusual case and story.
Speaker 4: I hadn't heard of any case quite like it. But
Speaker 4: what particularly drew me to it as I learned more
Speaker 4: about the case was this was a really thorough, diligent
Speaker 4: investigation that Rick and his partner Frank Garcia conducted. And Dan,
Speaker 4: you know, because I was on your show to discuss
Speaker 4: my previous book. Yes, that investigation was not an exemplary investigation.
Speaker 4: So for me, the opportunity to kind of look at
Speaker 4: the other side of the coin and tell the story
Speaker 4: of how a murder investigation should be conducted.
Speaker 3: And if it was.
Speaker 4: Your family member, you know who is who was a
Speaker 4: victim of a crime like this, you know what kind
Speaker 4: of kind of investigation you would you would hope to
Speaker 4: receive into what happened. And so it was a mix
Speaker 4: of all of those things. My friendship with Rick, my
Speaker 4: interest in the story, the opportunity to write about an
Speaker 4: interesting time in the history of Los Angeles, and and
Speaker 4: to sort of present this investigation as a case study
Speaker 4: of how it should be done.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 4: Rick's pretty humble and maybe wouldn't describe it the same way,
Speaker 4: but that's that's how I.
Speaker 3: Saw it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Matthew tell Us also there was fears of Satanism and
Speaker 3: a cult in America in nineteen ninety, and you say
Speaker 3: this is on the heels of a hoarded Satanic killings
Speaker 3: and also including the Manson murders in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 3: So tell us the mood in nineteen ninety regarding Satanism
Speaker 3: and the occult in general.
Speaker 4: Well, it's important to remember, you know, this is it's
Speaker 4: not that long ago in terms of the passage of time,
Speaker 4: but it was a different time. And in nineteen ninety
Speaker 4: things that are part of the zeitgeist now but maybe
Speaker 4: not so fresh and present, were much more present in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety. So I'm speaking, for instance, of the Manson
Speaker 4: murders in the summer of nineteen sixty nine, that was
Speaker 4: only you know, that was that was much more recent
Speaker 4: crimes like the Nightstalker Richard Ramirez, who there were a
Speaker 4: lot of Satanic aspects and elements of the crime spree
Speaker 4: that Ramirez engaged in that. Again, we're very fresh in
Speaker 4: the public's mind, and there was a great deal of
Speaker 4: media coverage the McMartin preschool cases, another kind of vector
Speaker 4: in all these different cases that now, in hindsight, looking
Speaker 4: back with the benefit of a little time since then,
Speaker 4: people recognize that they call it the Satanic panic because
Speaker 4: were these really widespread fears to some degree stoked by
Speaker 4: the media, popular culture. You can trace some of the
Speaker 4: threads back even to the film The Exorcist. Just a
Speaker 4: lot of fears about Satanism, satanic worship, human sacrifice, all
Speaker 4: of these concerns that looking back it seems pretty clear
Speaker 4: were overblown, but at the time were front and center
Speaker 4: in terms of what people would think about and fear
Speaker 4: when they turned on their TV and saw the local
Speaker 4: news or even the national news.
Speaker 3: You take us to June twenty, nineteen ninety and there's
Speaker 3: fourteens had a railroad tunnel that is known or at
Speaker 3: least associated with the Manson family because it's near the
Speaker 3: Spawn movie ranch, so it's known that it's associated with
Speaker 3: Manson and this railroad tunnel tell us Rick about the
Speaker 3: call that they get the police get on June twenty first,
Speaker 3: from fourteens.
Speaker 2: It was actually, you know, like one point thirty in
Speaker 2: the morning. These fourteens decided to kind of they didn't
Speaker 2: want to go home. They wanted to keep having a
Speaker 2: good time. And they were roughly sixteen to nineteen years old,
Speaker 2: and two of the boys, the two boys rather, had
Speaker 2: been to the tunnel before and they thought it was cool,
Speaker 2: and they told the girls, and the girls thought it
Speaker 2: was kind of creepy, but it sounded icing and enough
Speaker 2: for them to go. And as they got closer, they
Speaker 2: started hearing the stories about They heard that, you know,
Speaker 2: witchcraft and different occault philosophies, and sometimes the train went
Speaker 2: through when you were inside of the tunnel and you
Speaker 2: hugged the wall and got the rush of that. So
Speaker 2: they were all up for it. They start walking into
Speaker 2: the tunnel and they go in, you know, and it's
Speaker 2: pitch black. It's even pitch black during the day once
Speaker 2: you get it kind of curved, so the entrance is
Speaker 2: once you get past where you can see either entrance,
Speaker 2: it's pitch black even during the day, and you need
Speaker 2: artificial light, which they had cigarette lighters. And they're walking
Speaker 2: through the tunnel. Two young girls were especially afraid, but
Speaker 2: were drawn to it, and sure enough they come upon
Speaker 2: what turns out to be a twenty one year old
Speaker 2: young man that has been stabbed many many times, a
Speaker 2: lot of blood, his throat's been slit, and I almost
Speaker 2: liken it probably too. Their reaction was probably like in
Speaker 2: a cartoon where they jump up and they're running before
Speaker 2: they even hit the ground again. And it terrified them.
Speaker 2: And they didn't know if anybody he was still in
Speaker 2: the tunnel that had done this. They just be lined
Speaker 2: out and one of the men young men went down
Speaker 2: and knocked on a few doors. The first door so
Speaker 2: didn't even answer. They wouldn't even answer the door, probably
Speaker 2: not knowing who this is in the middle of the night.
Speaker 2: But eventually paramedics and police were called to the scene.
Speaker 2: He was definitely already dead, had no idea on him.
Speaker 2: He was wearing a pentagram around a twined necklace around
Speaker 2: his neck. He was carried as an unidentified body at
Speaker 2: John Doe number one thirty five, which is that means
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty fifth John Doe intake for deaths
Speaker 2: in the calendar year so far and the local division
Speaker 2: at that time LAPD. I think they had eighteen divisions
Speaker 2: beyond that now, but every unit had their every division
Speaker 2: had their own homicide unit. So initially the Devonshire Division Tectives,
Speaker 2: which handled that part of the northwest area of Los
Speaker 2: Angeles City. And it's up in really a pretty cool setting.
Speaker 2: It's boulders, beautiful boulders, sandstone boulders, and it's almost like
Speaker 2: I think Matt described it in the book as looking
Speaker 2: like bedrock, kind of bedrock from the flintstones, I should say,
Speaker 2: and he went. So they began investigating the murder of
Speaker 2: this unidentified young man. My partner and I, Frank Garcia,
Speaker 2: We worked out of headquarters and we worked a specialized
Speaker 2: homicide called the Major Crime Investigation Section, and we handled
Speaker 2: serial cases, high profile cases, particularly involved cases, and then
Speaker 2: also helped out divisions that were very busy. So we
Speaker 2: didn't get this eventually for a few days because some
Speaker 2: of the circumstances that followed the discovery of the body.
Speaker 3: June twenty. First, you write that about two hours before
Speaker 3: the teens found the John Doe and the tunnel, that
Speaker 3: Yale and Kay Baker got a call. Yes, and they
Speaker 3: had a son named Ron and a daughter named Patty,
Speaker 3: and both of them didn't live at home at that time. Now,
Speaker 3: this family was not wealthy, but they were religious. And
Speaker 3: you say that the father took the call about eleven fifty.
Speaker 3: What was said in that call.
Speaker 2: Basically, the message was from a mail who seemed to
Speaker 2: be using a disguised voice, and he referred to Gail
Speaker 2: Baker as mister Baker and said, we have your son.
Speaker 2: We want one hundred thousand dollars. Do not call the police,
Speaker 2: and we will be in touch a later point. Get
Speaker 2: the money ready. Basically that's the message. So he's obviously shocked.
Speaker 2: His wife was already in bed. He told his wife,
Speaker 2: who was you know, He went in and woke her up.
Speaker 2: He had been dozing in a chair out front, watching
Speaker 2: the news out in the den. They immediately called their
Speaker 2: the apartment where Ron Baker lived. He was a twenty
Speaker 2: one UCLA student living with two friends. Where they said
Speaker 2: Ron wasn't home. He had gone to Ucla to meet
Speaker 2: with the group, a group that he was associated with,
Speaker 2: a club kind of called the Mythtic Circle. He hadn't
Speaker 2: come home yet, so mister Baker said, well, when he
Speaker 2: comes home anytime, haven't give me a call. Mister Baker.
Speaker 2: Because of many reasons thought it was a joke, so
Speaker 2: they retired for the evening, and then the next day
Speaker 2: a second call came in the next mid morning, a
Speaker 2: second call came in from the same person and mister
Speaker 2: Baker talked to him as well, and he repeated the
Speaker 2: attempt to get money and said where they were holding Ron?
Speaker 3: Baker, the investigation that you're talking about is unbeknownst to
Speaker 3: homicide detectives that this kidnapping and the unidentified body in
Speaker 3: the tunnel are unrelated. How do they get to know
Speaker 3: that these two cases are related.
Speaker 2: Well after the second call mister Baker. Initially the first
Speaker 2: call he made was to the roommates again and said
Speaker 2: did Ron come home? And they said no, and so
Speaker 2: he says, well, I'm going to call the police. And
Speaker 2: what happened then is two detectives from downtown handle a
Speaker 2: kidnappings like this ransom calls. So two downtown detectives had
Speaker 2: no idea that to Devin Geer, homicide detectives were handling
Speaker 2: the murder of a John Doe. There was no connect
Speaker 2: up yet and this is Friday morning, so they both
Speaker 2: are working independent investigations kidnapping and the murder, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't till two days later when they were making calls
Speaker 2: around to local hospitals in the corner's office that the
Speaker 2: description of the John Doe matched the description of Ron
Speaker 2: Baker's napping and it became known that, in fact, the
Speaker 2: identification was made that the John Doe was in fact
Speaker 2: Ron Baker, and that's when Frank Garcia and I got
Speaker 2: the call to take over the case, the kidnapping part
Speaker 2: of it as well as the murder obviously because they
Speaker 2: were connected. So that's where we come in Sunday night,
Speaker 2: I think it was June twenty fourth, we had out.
Speaker 2: The first thing we do is head to the corner's
Speaker 2: office to view the body and to find out whatever
Speaker 2: we can, and then we went to the victim's mom
Speaker 2: and dad's house to make the notification, which is always
Speaker 2: the worst of the worst things you can do as
Speaker 2: a police detective.
Speaker 3: Now you talk about that, Baker's two roommates were interviewed
Speaker 3: by LAPD detective Craig Rudy, right, and they also looked
Speaker 3: around Ron's room. So what did they garner from that
Speaker 3: initial interview and also what did they find in Ron's
Speaker 3: room at that apartment.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we interviewed Rudy. Once we took over the case,
Speaker 2: we met with Rudy, talked to him and he had
Speaker 2: been sent out there to do a crime report for
Speaker 2: the kidnapping for ransom. On that investigation, he interviewed the
Speaker 2: two roommates. They explained that on the night where the
Speaker 2: incident occurred, they were going out. The two roommates were
Speaker 2: going out drink beer and discuss Nathan. One of the
Speaker 2: guys is Duncan Martinez. The other guy is Nathan Blaylock.
Speaker 2: One white. Duncan Martinez is actually white his true name.
Speaker 2: He wasn't Hispanic his true name. It was an adopted
Speaker 2: step father's name. And then Nathan Blaylock was black. And
Speaker 2: they were the two roommates. And they said that Ron
Speaker 2: said he wanted to go to Ucla to visit and
Speaker 2: make get together with friends to celebrate the summer soultstice.
Speaker 2: He was in Dewicca, which is a very tame occult
Speaker 2: philosophy harmony and nature, you know everything, people living in
Speaker 2: harmony with each other, and it centered on a nature
Speaker 2: based philosophy. No Satanism or sacrifices or anything like that
Speaker 2: at all. But he was going to get together with
Speaker 2: some of his friends from this group called the Mystic Circle,
Speaker 2: which is a registered on campus club at UCLA at
Speaker 2: the time, and so they dropped them off at the
Speaker 2: bus stop. Ron did not drive. He had bad luck
Speaker 2: driving and decided to start taking buses everywhere, and so
Speaker 2: they dropped them off the bus stop and then they
Speaker 2: went and did their thing, and they came home about
Speaker 2: ten thirty or so eleven o'clock and Ron wasn't back,
Speaker 2: which didn't surprise them. They confirmed that mister Baker had
Speaker 2: called about the two ransom calls, one that evening and
Speaker 2: one the next morning. So he took the statements from them,
Speaker 2: and then he went and looked in Ron's room and
Speaker 2: he saw that it was filled with, you know, different
Speaker 2: posters about WICCA or you know, the United Nations flag,
Speaker 2: and a lot of books on occult philosophies and witches
Speaker 2: and different types of ac cult that centered around WICCA.
Speaker 2: And that was basically it. You know, we recorded it
Speaker 2: and submitted that report, which we eventually got.
Speaker 3: Let's lose this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 3: these messages. Now, Rick, how do you proceed with this?
Speaker 3: You have this detailed step by step process that you
Speaker 3: have to go through as a homicide detective, but also
Speaker 3: you're very wary of all of the elements that you're
Speaker 3: able to gather and learn as you progress with this investigation.
Speaker 3: You talk first with Duncan Martinez about Ron and some
Speaker 3: of the things that happened that night.
Speaker 2: So the next day, Monday, we start the fresh case.
Speaker 2: The night before, it was strictly the corner's office and
Speaker 2: the family notification, and we didn't even talk to the
Speaker 2: family a whole lot because there were stunned and we
Speaker 2: knew we'd get back to him eventually to you know,
Speaker 2: once things settled a bit and get more information, because
Speaker 2: on something like this, what we needed to do is
Speaker 2: know as much as we could about Ron, not just
Speaker 2: from his friends, but from his family. And obviously families
Speaker 2: don't always know the same information about people that their
Speaker 2: close friends know, so we needed to talk to both
Speaker 2: sides of that equation. And so we went out that
Speaker 2: Monday afternoon and went up to the tunnel with the
Speaker 2: the original detective so they could walk us through and
Speaker 2: point out what was where and so on and so
Speaker 2: forth regarding the evidence. But then we went over to
Speaker 2: the apartment building, which is in a little area called
Speaker 2: Van Eyes out in the San Fernando Valley and that's
Speaker 2: where the three of them lived. And it was a
Speaker 2: two bedroom apartment Nathan Blaylock one room. It wasn't there.
Speaker 2: He had gone out to Riverside the day before. He
Speaker 2: spent a couple of days with his girlfriend. Then he
Speaker 2: was going to a pre plan family reunion in Detroit
Speaker 2: and Duncan was there, and there were two young women
Speaker 2: there that were friends of Ron, and they were, you know, frantic,
Speaker 2: you know, where's Ron. It's been a couple of days.
Speaker 2: They'd been calling friends trying to find out if anybody
Speaker 2: had heard from Ron. You know, they were very stressed.
Speaker 2: And so I interviewed the two women and Frank. At
Speaker 2: some point no I interviewed one one of the women,
Speaker 2: Frank interviewed one, and then he finished before me. So
Speaker 2: he started talking to Duncan in a room. We separated
Speaker 2: them all and spoke to them on their own, and
Speaker 2: Duncan was very helpful, very gracious, gave what information he
Speaker 2: could about Ron and what he'd been doing to try to,
Speaker 2: you know, find maybe what happened or where he might be.
Speaker 2: But there was one thing that bothered Frank that he
Speaker 2: was told by Duncan, and it was just one of
Speaker 2: those things that kind of like doesn't totally make sense.
Speaker 2: And what that was was Duncan and Nathan, according to Duncan,
Speaker 2: on Saturday morning, when he was still missing, as far
Speaker 2: as they knew, allegedly, they had gone out to Chatsworth
Speaker 2: Park where this railroad tunnel is, to look for Ron.
Speaker 2: And Frank right away asked Duncan, well, why are you
Speaker 2: going and he says, well, we went there because Ron
Speaker 2: liked to go there, and we searched around and he says, well,
Speaker 2: did you go up to a railroad the railroad tunnel?
Speaker 2: And he says no, we kind of went up there,
Speaker 2: but then we decided not to go in the park
Speaker 2: was too big, and then we were going to go
Speaker 2: to UCLA, but the UCLA campus so big, so we
Speaker 2: just went home. Frank said to Duncan, why would you
Speaker 2: go to a place that the victim liked to go
Speaker 2: when he's actually being kidnapped by somebody. He's been kidnapped,
Speaker 2: you know, kidnappers don't just take you to a place
Speaker 2: you like to go. It just hit Frank wrong, and
Speaker 2: Dunk and explained it away the best he could, and
Speaker 2: then when Frank told me about it after that interview,
Speaker 2: when we were driving back to downtown to go to
Speaker 2: the station, I played the devil's advocate a bit and said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, who knows, maybe they just were frustrated, they
Speaker 2: didn't know what to do. Let's go over there and
Speaker 2: just look around. You know, we're just trying to come
Speaker 2: up with something to try to help. So I played
Speaker 2: that way, but it still we both thought it was unusual,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't anything directly incriminating regarding Duncan, but it
Speaker 2: was interesting.
Speaker 4: It just seemed odd because if you're a kidnapping victim,
Speaker 4: the kidnappers don't take you places that you like to go.
Speaker 4: You don't have a choice where they're going to take you.
Speaker 4: So at that point in time, when Ron Baker was
Speaker 4: a missing person, not a murder victim yet, as far
Speaker 4: as any of his friends would have known, it just
Speaker 4: didn't land right that they would go looking for their
Speaker 4: missing friend somewhere that he'd liked to go on his
Speaker 4: own where his body was actually found.
Speaker 3: Get to you get to the point where Duncan has
Speaker 3: asked to submit to a polygraph exam, and this is
Speaker 3: an interviewer Gorely and he wants asked him some questions,
Speaker 3: So how does Duncan fair at this polygraph? And you
Speaker 3: also talk about Rick that even though that's inadmissible at
Speaker 3: court at trial, that you still find it in an
Speaker 3: effective tool and why Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it was a couple of weeks later when we
Speaker 2: did other investigative stuff. It wasn't like we right there after.
Speaker 2: Duncan said that one statement, Sure are other things that
Speaker 2: bothered us that started coming into our investigation that you know,
Speaker 2: like we need to eliminate these guys as being involved.
Speaker 2: And we hadn't talked to Nathan Blaylockley. I think we
Speaker 2: had a short conversation on the phone, but we offered
Speaker 2: Duncan a polygraph, and I just wanted to see how
Speaker 2: partly is how is he going to react to it?
Speaker 2: You react to being asked that? And he was very sure,
Speaker 2: no problem when you want to do it, And so
Speaker 2: we scheduled it. It was actually in the first few
Speaker 2: days of July, so we'd been into the case for
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks. Did the gory when he came out,
Speaker 2: and he's a civilian employee, he's a polygraph examiner and
Speaker 2: Duncan showed up and submitted to the test. He did
Speaker 2: four runs on the test and failed miserably in literally
Speaker 2: every category of pertinent questions they called him. There's control
Speaker 2: questions like what's your name? Is your name Duncan Martinez?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: Then there are the ones were you present when Ron
Speaker 2: was killed? Did you yourself kill Ron? Do you know
Speaker 2: who killed Ron? Just the pertinent questions? Every one of
Speaker 2: those he failed miserably, and so we interviewed him. We
Speaker 2: had to give him his rights at that point. The
Speaker 2: rights had to actually be given by Gorley before the polygraph,
Speaker 2: and he waived his rights, but he was steadfast in
Speaker 2: his denial to both Gorley, who confronted him with the
Speaker 2: results of the test, and to Frank and me. We
Speaker 2: were at a standstill. We did not have enough to
Speaker 2: arrest them, obviously, you know, just on the based on
Speaker 2: the polygraph results, you don't have probable cause for that.
Speaker 2: But we now were more centering on the relationship about
Speaker 2: Duncan and Nathan had with Ron and looking at them
Speaker 2: as potentially involved because if one of them, if one
Speaker 2: of them was involved, and both of them were involved
Speaker 2: because they were together when they left, they could not
Speaker 2: account for their time other than their own alibis that
Speaker 2: they were out drinking and talking and then came back
Speaker 2: and went to a party at the apartment building and so,
Speaker 2: and we still had not talked to Nathan. He was
Speaker 2: still in Detroit. So we now had a focus, but
Speaker 2: we were not We were looking at there were other
Speaker 2: things that were going on that really we don't get
Speaker 2: too involved into the book part of it, because you know,
Speaker 2: it took time and this already is a you know,
Speaker 2: a four hundred plus page book, and but there were
Speaker 2: other people we looked at and eliminated. But now the
Speaker 2: center stage was kind of Martinez and Blaylock Rick.
Speaker 4: If I can just jump in and correct if I misspeak,
Speaker 4: because you were there.
Speaker 3: But part of what.
Speaker 4: Was interesting about the dynamic was not only were there
Speaker 4: some odd things that just didn't fit together and made
Speaker 4: you maybe suspicious of Duncan, but on the flip side,
Speaker 4: there was there was no indication of any sort of
Speaker 4: animosity that you were getting from other friends, of any
Speaker 4: sort of roommate problems, no sense of any sort of
Speaker 4: a motive. Duncan new Rom's family quite well.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 4: He actually delivered a eulogy at Ron's funeral so it
Speaker 4: was not as if there was any sense of bad
Speaker 4: blood or anything that made you focus on these guys
Speaker 4: as bad actors. It was more just a couple of
Speaker 4: strange things that Duncan had said, and then importantly that
Speaker 4: by their own account, they were the last people to
Speaker 4: be with Ron to see him alive, and so from
Speaker 4: a detective's perspective, it was imperative that you eliminate them
Speaker 4: as suspects, and that that was difficult to do because
Speaker 4: it was really their word. And now with this polygraph
Speaker 4: that Duncan had failed, you saw that his word maybe
Speaker 4: wasn't worth very much.
Speaker 2: You know. In the book goes obviously into much more detail.
Speaker 2: There were factors. Every time we had tried to eliminate
Speaker 2: those two before the poly you know, it was it
Speaker 2: would point right, this doesn't follow, This goes more into
Speaker 2: the guilty cantor, and we do the next one. And
Speaker 2: we were trying to eliminate them in so many ways
Speaker 2: because nothing made sense. Why would they do this? There
Speaker 2: was no animosity other than just basic roommate problems. And
Speaker 2: you owe more on the TV bill because you know,
Speaker 2: you got these extra channels or whatever. It was just
Speaker 2: little stuff, but not and Duncan always just said those guys,
Speaker 2: these two guys are my two best friends. Ron and
Speaker 2: Nathan are my two best friends. And they don't even
Speaker 2: met Nathan a few months back at the Renaissance Fair,
Speaker 2: and they'd become fast friends. And then that's where the
Speaker 2: three of them end up in an apartment. Ron had
Speaker 2: as a single he was living near by himself and
Speaker 2: wanted a couple of roommates to differ costs while I
Speaker 2: was in college. That's how all came together. And so
Speaker 2: it just didn't make sense from a mode of as
Speaker 2: you're getting more information and verify it.
Speaker 4: So Duncan and Nathan say that they drop Ron off
Speaker 4: and he went to meet his friends at UCLA. You
Speaker 4: and your partner, Frank went to UCLA interviewed people there.
Speaker 4: No one saw Ron arrive, no one had plans with
Speaker 4: him to meet, and so again there's something that's not
Speaker 4: adding up. You're learning as you try to verify things
Speaker 4: that Duncan told you that something is not right here,
Speaker 4: although you know yet what that might be.
Speaker 3: Now it's important to interview Nathan, and so by telephone.
Speaker 3: He has a girlfriend named Diane Henderson. Obviously you wanted
Speaker 3: to you did speak to Diane Henderson as well. She
Speaker 3: was at the apartment that night on the couch when
Speaker 3: they returned, just as you had mentioned prior to going
Speaker 3: to this party upstairs in the apartment. But you say
Speaker 3: there was imperative to speak to Nathan, Now, what was
Speaker 3: his demeanor?
Speaker 2: Like Frank had spoken to him briefly a few times
Speaker 2: on the phone and kind of just corroborate the basic
Speaker 2: story about and being dropped off and so, but we
Speaker 2: needed to be sitting across the table for him to
Speaker 2: get a read on him. And so we go out
Speaker 2: to where he and Diane live in Riverside County and
Speaker 2: we interviewed Nathan first. He's very a light, cordial, not
Speaker 2: defensive at all, welcoming, you know, just he had He
Speaker 2: told his story and it was pretty consistent with Ron,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean Duncan. It was pretty consistent with
Speaker 2: Duncan's story. There were no really major differences. They might
Speaker 2: recall dropping him off maybe on a different corner something
Speaker 2: like that, but you know, minor stuff. We actually were
Speaker 2: asked to leave the house we're interviewing him. It was
Speaker 2: Diane's father and he said, you guys have been talking
Speaker 2: too long and so we asked him, and they followed
Speaker 2: us down to the shaff Station local share station and
Speaker 2: we interviewed him a little bit more, and we interviewed
Speaker 2: him after Diane talked to us, So we went back
Speaker 2: and interviewed Nathan again just to clarify some things. Dying
Speaker 2: it said, and as we're driving home that night, and
Speaker 2: I'll never forget this. It's a quote, but I know
Speaker 2: it's Forbade him and Frank Garcia, who was very seased,
Speaker 2: and he had more time in the job than I did.
Speaker 2: He worked major narcotics and dealt with, you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of undercover situations where he had to be smooth
Speaker 2: and cool, and he he's a really good people person
Speaker 2: and knows how to read people. He says, I don't know, man,
Speaker 2: he goes, if if that guy's lying to us, He's
Speaker 2: the coolest motherfucker I've ever dealt with. And so that
Speaker 2: went into my mind indelibly right at that day, at
Speaker 2: that time, and so when that chapter came up, that's
Speaker 2: the that's what I wanted to call it. And I
Speaker 2: have to say, just on a side note, one of them,
Speaker 2: and I've told not this many times. One of my
Speaker 2: favorite things writing this book was coming up with chapter
Speaker 2: titles that some don't even make sense until you read
Speaker 2: the You read the chapter and you know whether it's
Speaker 2: a terminology that's used or a quote or whatever. I
Speaker 2: really literally enjoyed that and anyway, but yeah, so we
Speaker 2: now talked to both of them. We still we're at
Speaker 2: a standstill. We asked Nathan to take a polly and
Speaker 2: he said, no, you didn't trust him, which is a
Speaker 2: common response for people and even people sometimes that aren't
Speaker 2: involved in it. You know, we later determined but he wouldn't.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't submit to one. I don't know they ever,
Speaker 2: They never acknowledge whether Duncan somehow got a message to him,
Speaker 2: because they really weren't talking that much once he left
Speaker 2: for Detroit and then was living out in Riverside County.
Speaker 2: Whether anybody knew that Duncan or whether Nathan knew that
Speaker 2: Duncan had failed the polygraph, but you know, we weren't
Speaker 2: going to get that with Nathan.
Speaker 4: And I would just chime in that even though Duncan
Speaker 4: is is failing a polygraph and Nathan is refusing to
Speaker 4: take a polygraph, these are not adverse aerial interactions that
Speaker 4: you're you're having with these guys, Rick, there no cooperative
Speaker 4: seem as if they want to help, consenting to answer
Speaker 4: a question, multiple interviews. So again that's not typical I
Speaker 4: understand from you when you're you know, interviewing suspects, they
Speaker 4: often don't want to talk correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, there they were easy to deal with, very
Speaker 2: welcoming up to that point, and Nathan continued to be
Speaker 2: that way. Duncan it changed a little bit after the
Speaker 2: poly That was kind of the dynamics we had with
Speaker 2: both of them.
Speaker 3: You write about Duncan and is seemingly cooperation, but you
Speaker 3: talk about that he retains an attorney named Jim Barnes,
Speaker 3: and and then Jim Barnes sends a letter. So what
Speaker 3: do you think Duncan speaks to Jim Barnes And what
Speaker 3: why is reason why Jim Barnes is representing Duncan.
Speaker 2: Well, once, once he took the polygraph and was questioned
Speaker 2: and then invoked his rights. He then that same evening
Speaker 2: he allowed us to search his car, gave us consent
Speaker 2: to search his car, and we were looking for trace
Speaker 2: evidence or blood because whoever did this it had to
Speaker 2: almost had had a lot of spillover of blood onto
Speaker 2: the person or persons who were involved in this right
Speaker 2: major major stab wounds, slice throat, close contact, wrestling around,
Speaker 2: things like that. So you'd expect to find blood in
Speaker 2: the car. We would, we would think that the blood,
Speaker 2: there would be blood traces in the car, and we
Speaker 2: found nothing. But shortly thereafter his parents told him he
Speaker 2: should not take the polly. He did. Then he realized
Speaker 2: he probably shouldn't have as well, and so he retained
Speaker 2: Jim Barnes as a private attorney represents him. And we
Speaker 2: got a letter from Barnes basically saying, you know that
Speaker 2: he still was willing to cooperate, but Barnes needs to
Speaker 2: be present. Go through me. The letter said, you know,
Speaker 2: go through Jim Barnes before you reach out to Duncan.
Speaker 2: He's not a flight risk. If you decide you're going
Speaker 2: to arrest him for anything, please let me know and
Speaker 2: I'll surrender him. That kind of letter. And I knew
Speaker 2: Barnes from actually I was working a case a trial
Speaker 2: at that time with Barnes, but he had initially started
Speaker 2: going through Frank Garcia, and he didn't know why it
Speaker 2: was necessarily connected to the Duncan Martinez case. While we
Speaker 2: were in trial on a totally unrelated case. So it's
Speaker 2: kind of aronic, small world kind of situation. But anyway, yeah,
Speaker 2: so we were now kind of shut off from Duncan
Speaker 2: Martinez at that point.
Speaker 3: You write that July twenty fourth, at one thirty am,
Speaker 3: Garcia gets a call from Lydia Archibald, the friend of
Speaker 3: Nathan and Duncan. What does she have to say? What
Speaker 3: does she report?
Speaker 2: Well, Lydia was that she was asleep that night, and
Speaker 2: so this is about what five weeks after the murder.
Speaker 2: Her phone goes off, but she's because she's in the
Speaker 2: dead sleep. She doesn't reach her phone until just as
Speaker 2: the answer machine goes off. So the answering machine, as
Speaker 2: we had back in those days, starts recording and it
Speaker 2: picks up this conversation that we're able to listen to
Speaker 2: it later, and basically it's Duncan kind of whispering something like, Lydia,
Speaker 2: they got me, four guys got me. I'm in a
Speaker 2: warehouse I think in North Hollywood, and let Garcia know
Speaker 2: what's going on. Oh, and then the phone goes dead,
Speaker 2: so she freaks out, calls LAPD twenty four hour number,
Speaker 2: and they rouse Garcia from my sleep and he does
Speaker 2: the same me, and we respond to the location and
Speaker 2: we listen to the tape, and right away, because of
Speaker 2: several things that had been happening recently with Duncan's behavior
Speaker 2: and some of the stories he was telling, it just
Speaker 2: seemed like doesn't pull water as being a legitimate But
Speaker 2: you can assume that and you can't not act on
Speaker 2: it like it's actually happening, because if it is true,
Speaker 2: his life's at stake, obviously, So we start an investigation
Speaker 2: on Duncan's phone call and his potential kidnapping, and we
Speaker 2: go through all the notifying information so that police, if
Speaker 2: they see his car, they'll you know, it's involved in
Speaker 2: a possible kidnapping. We start doing phone traps on the
Speaker 2: phone of Lydia's house. We're doing what we can technologically
Speaker 2: and investigatively to try to locate Duncan as soon as possible,
Speaker 2: including contacting his friends, contacting his parents, contacting Nathan, and
Speaker 2: nothing's going on. He's disappeared basically off the face of
Speaker 2: the earth. And so that starts, you know, we have
Speaker 2: to put the Baker investigation on the back burner, the
Speaker 2: murder part of it, and now you know, working on
Speaker 2: what happened to Duncan and if he did stage this,
Speaker 2: why and what was going to go beyond his initial
Speaker 2: call about the kidnapping, what was going to take place
Speaker 2: from there? So again a b a big bizarre twist.
Speaker 3: That Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 3: Now you're right in the midst of all of this.
Speaker 3: A historic event, very negative event for Los Angeles and
Speaker 3: America itself. March third, nineteen ninety one, the Rodney King
Speaker 3: police chase and assault. And you experienced these riots personally,
Speaker 3: don't you. You and Frank, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were part of the team that eventually investigated
Speaker 2: the criminal investigation against the officers. You know, we weren't
Speaker 2: the leads on it, but we all you know, there
Speaker 2: were twelve ifs in our unit, and we are all
Speaker 2: tasked to do different things in the investigation. I ended
Speaker 2: up searching the officers lockers for their uniforms that were
Speaker 2: wearing that either batons or shoes, things of that nature.
Speaker 2: And so there were different, you know, fragments of the
Speaker 2: investigation that our whole unit was working on. And then
Speaker 2: we were also put in uniform in case any problems occurred.
Speaker 2: At least for a few days anyway, I believe eventually
Speaker 2: with the riots that came after the not guilty verdict,
Speaker 2: we were in uniform for a few weeks, maximum deployment everybody.
Speaker 1: And Dan.
Speaker 4: It was something again that was another element that drew
Speaker 4: me to the story is if you think about the
Speaker 4: time span, it's like a six year time span that
Speaker 4: the events in this case take place. The murder is
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety and the trials eventually happen in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 4: And if you look at that time span, it's Rodney King,
Speaker 4: it's the LA riots, it's OJ Simpson, the OJ Simpson trial,
Speaker 4: all of these events that are are traumatic events for
Speaker 4: the city. Racial tensions are being inflamed, suspicion of the
Speaker 4: police is skyrocketing, and then you know, you have people
Speaker 4: who are maybe not directly involved in these events that
Speaker 4: are making the headlines, but certainly present and involved in
Speaker 4: the peripheral ways that Rick started to describe. So some
Speaker 4: of the ways that race end up influencing the case
Speaker 4: are pretty nuanced, but on another level, these themes are
Speaker 4: really present and emerging during the life of this case
Speaker 4: and ultimately do end up having some impact at least
Speaker 4: on strategy approaching trial and things that Rick and Frank
Speaker 4: and ultimately the prosecutors in the case needed needed to
Speaker 4: be aware of and we're concerned about for good reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this, the Baker killing was not a racial killing,
Speaker 2: but there were definitely racial aspects to the case with
Speaker 2: one white suspect and one black suspect, which I don't
Speaker 2: have cases with that kind of a situation many times,
Speaker 2: but just without getting into great detail, things started happening
Speaker 2: where there was some concern about the white suspect and
Speaker 2: the black suspect being treated differently. That plays out for
Speaker 2: a few years eventually, and how a jury would look
Speaker 2: at this, especially with the recent history in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: with you know, the the trial of the white officers
Speaker 2: or I shouldn't say white non black officers because one
Speaker 2: who's Hispanic, and then the the divisiveness of the O. J.
Speaker 2: Simpson trial. So you had to be aware of how
Speaker 2: potential jurors would look at that kind of dynamic in
Speaker 2: our case as we move forward toward trials.
Speaker 3: You're right about January twenty first, about a year after
Speaker 3: these well over a year from these or less than
Speaker 3: a year from these riots, Garcia gets a call from
Speaker 3: Jim Barnes, Duncan's defense attorney. What does Duncan want? As
Speaker 3: he conveyed through his attorney.
Speaker 2: Duncan wanted to talk to us now he'd been gone.
Speaker 2: We had nose. We did make a determination during the
Speaker 2: investigation of his kidnapping that he in fact was not
Speaker 2: kidnapped and showed up at his natural fathers in Kentucky
Speaker 2: and then was using an alias and then was looking
Speaker 2: to change his change his name again, even though we
Speaker 2: had no evidence to connect him to our murder. You know,
Speaker 2: we believed he was involved now, especially with this kidnapping situation,
Speaker 2: but we had nothing to arrest him. We could not
Speaker 2: put him in the park or the tunnel of the
Speaker 2: night of the murder, neither one of them. But basically
Speaker 2: he Barnes says, you know, I can't tell you where
Speaker 2: he is right now, but he wants to talk with
Speaker 2: you guys and cooperate and maybe have some kind of
Speaker 2: a deal in this situation. And we didn't know, We
Speaker 2: didn't know what that was, We didn't know what the
Speaker 2: story was going to be. But we eventually did meet
Speaker 2: with him shortly after that initial phone call from Jim Barnes,
Speaker 2: to Frank Garcia, but he had been he had been
Speaker 2: missing for a year and a half and we didn't
Speaker 2: know where he had been.
Speaker 3: You call this king for a day, and with that
Speaker 3: were some conditions on him speaking. So what were those conditions.
Speaker 2: The agreement between the DA's office, who had to arrange
Speaker 2: this kind of a situation from legal reasons, and the
Speaker 2: defense attorney Barnes, was that Duncan could tell us what
Speaker 2: he wanted to tell us. We will listen Duncan. There
Speaker 2: was an indication Duncan knew what happened and would be
Speaker 2: willing to give that to us for some kind of
Speaker 2: consideration potentially, and that anything he told us could not
Speaker 2: be used against him or anything he told us about
Speaker 2: other people's knowledge of maybe what he told them about
Speaker 2: this his involvement in this case could not be used
Speaker 2: because we want to interview them to corroborate the story.
Speaker 2: So we met. We determined before Barnes told us where
Speaker 2: he was that he was in Salt Lake City slash
Speaker 2: Park City, Utah. So the agreement was made to go
Speaker 2: and listen to what he had to say. We obviously
Speaker 2: recorded everything. The deal was presented on tape. This is
Speaker 2: the agreement we have, and we went and probably sat
Speaker 2: with him for three hours that night in Salt Lake
Speaker 2: City jail because he had been arrested using an alias
Speaker 2: for a crime that he committed in Boston, Massachusetts, where
Speaker 2: he had lived for quite a while over a year
Speaker 2: after fleeing Los Angeles. So now it really gets even
Speaker 2: more convoluted, and Duncan is there's more history of Duncan
Speaker 2: being Duncan, as I call it in the book, because
Speaker 2: he kept having these you know, I don't know what's
Speaker 2: the good term to describe crazy events happening in stories
Speaker 2: that he would be telling about his past to people
Speaker 2: that he now met along the way in this flight
Speaker 2: from Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: So tell us about the decision, the discussion about utilizing
Speaker 3: Nathan apart me Duncan to testify against Nathan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he told us the story of what he
Speaker 2: has happened. He removed himself a lot from the main
Speaker 2: thrust of the wrongdoing. I mean, he admitted certain things,
Speaker 2: but Nathan was, according to him, the soul stabber, and
Speaker 2: there was some kind of a plan to pull off
Speaker 2: kind of like a perfect crime. They had seen something
Speaker 2: on television, the two of them, Nathan and Duncan, and
Speaker 2: they kind of expounded on that and expanded their thoughts
Speaker 2: about how they could get away with it and do
Speaker 2: it better. And that's what it really came down to,
Speaker 2: this bizarre motive, which Duncan said, I didn't think it
Speaker 2: was really going to happen. So the agreement that we
Speaker 2: came up with is we have to be crazy not
Speaker 2: to listen to what he said. We may be able
Speaker 2: to move against Nathan strictly because we had now have information,
Speaker 2: and we had ideas in our mind how we could
Speaker 2: get more information by using Duncan to have conversations with Nathan.
Speaker 2: Some people looked at that like, you know eventually later
Speaker 2: like you're using the white guy to get the black guy.
Speaker 2: And that's part of what Matt and I were talking about.
Speaker 2: But Duncan was the one that came to us. If
Speaker 2: Nathan would have come to us, we would have been
Speaker 2: glad to use him to get Duncan. It just the
Speaker 2: way it played out, so anyway, that was the agreement.
Speaker 2: We knew Duncan was going to have credibility issues to testify.
Speaker 2: We needed much more than Duncan telling what happened on
Speaker 2: the witness stand, because he had come up with these
Speaker 2: crazy like he'd been to the Middle East in the
Speaker 2: Marines and done assassinations, and they were following him and
Speaker 2: trying to get back at him for taking out a
Speaker 2: general in the Middle East, and just craziness and many,
Speaker 2: many stories. And so we knew we could not rely
Speaker 2: on him alone to really tell a jury what happened,
Speaker 2: because who's going to believe a guy like that without
Speaker 2: other evidence, right, So we created a plan based on
Speaker 2: that original interview that had been negotiated as a King
Speaker 2: for a day interview. In other words, you tell us
Speaker 2: what happened. We can't use it against you, but we
Speaker 2: can use it to go out and do further investigations
Speaker 2: to try to pull the case together. So that's sometimes
Speaker 2: if they were talking to a woman, it's Queen for
Speaker 2: a day, talking to the mail, it's King for a day.
Speaker 2: So that became the title of that chapter.
Speaker 4: And Rick, just just to clarify, there was another important
Speaker 4: condition that was part of this deal, which was that
Speaker 4: Duncan had to tell you the truth, how to tell
Speaker 4: you and Frank the truth, but also that he could
Speaker 4: not and should not talk about the case with other people. Yes,
Speaker 4: could only be speaking to to to you guys, so
Speaker 4: that that's part of the deal moving forward with you
Speaker 4: and Frank deciding to try to use Duncan's cooperation to
Speaker 4: implicate Nathan. But Duncan's not really out of the woods.
Speaker 4: It a lot depends on on whether he keeps his word.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the deal was we potentially could use you
Speaker 2: as a witness. It was never we are going to
Speaker 2: use you and this is what we will give you.
Speaker 2: Sentence wise, there were talk There were the discussions between
Speaker 2: Barnes and the DA, the man named Ernie Norris who
Speaker 2: was a veteran DA that was really helping us with
Speaker 2: the case. There was some discussions, but nothing had formulated.
Speaker 2: Is this is a guarantee. There was no immunity. It
Speaker 2: was like immunity for the day and immunity for when
Speaker 2: we used Duncan in the future. But there was no
Speaker 2: immunity like we are never going to prosecute for your help,
Speaker 2: prosecute you for and that's a benefit for your cooperation.
Speaker 2: We're not going to do that. We can't give that
Speaker 2: because we didn't know what he was going to say.
Speaker 2: He could have said I did the stabbing and then
Speaker 2: you know, you've given the guy immunity for it, so
Speaker 2: you don't you would never do that. But yes, the
Speaker 2: key thing, especially for Duncan who has a ox A lot,
Speaker 2: is you do not tell other people about this because
Speaker 2: they could be used against you. That's not part of
Speaker 2: this deal. So that became a big issue.
Speaker 3: Eventually, Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to
Speaker 3: hear these messages. Now, Rick, tell us about Frank Garcia.
Speaker 3: You say that he retires from the LAPD in January
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety three, but you call him and ask him
Speaker 3: for one day more, and that's the interview Nathan on
Speaker 3: February seventeenth. Tell us about this stratgener that you go
Speaker 3: into this interview with and what do you and how
Speaker 3: do you get this information from Nathan?
Speaker 2: So basically what happened is, prior to Frank's retirement, we
Speaker 2: had three times where Duncan either met him in person
Speaker 2: or talked to Nathan on the phone where we recorded
Speaker 2: those conversations and they talked about the case and their concerns.
Speaker 2: They hadn't seen each other in years since way back
Speaker 2: just after the murder happened, and Duncan had been on
Speaker 2: the run, and now he's calling because he's concerned about things,
Speaker 2: and he tells certain things to Nathan. Then they start
Speaker 2: talking about the case and we get some really good
Speaker 2: stuff that we know we're going to eventually file on Nathan.
Speaker 2: Nathan was in prison for an unrelated bank robbery he
Speaker 2: did a couple of years after the murders, and so
Speaker 2: those are all recorded good evidence. We go up Frank
Speaker 2: and I go up. I call him at his new
Speaker 2: work place after he retired, he took another job, and
Speaker 2: I just told him, I need you for one more day.
Speaker 2: And because it was the Frank and I together that
Speaker 2: had the bond with Nathan, and if I would have
Speaker 2: brought in another investigator there, you know, it might have
Speaker 2: not worked. If something started going sideways with me in
Speaker 2: the interview as far as I wasn't connecting and talking
Speaker 2: with him, the new guy would not know the case
Speaker 2: to really talk. So it was Frank and me that
Speaker 2: needed to do this together. And basically he went through
Speaker 2: the whole thing again and denied it and told the
Speaker 2: same story. And then we said we had somebody to
Speaker 2: telling us that he was involved, and we had picked
Speaker 2: out just a few short little clips of those recorded interviews,
Speaker 2: and he said he wanted to hear who it was,
Speaker 2: and I said, well, let you listen to the tape
Speaker 2: of this person telling us that you were involved. And
Speaker 2: we played those and his head dropped and he didn't
Speaker 2: talk for a bit. He knew that, you know, he
Speaker 2: had been outed by Duncan. He knew some of the
Speaker 2: things he had said, you know, incriminating himself on those conversations.
Speaker 2: And eventually he confessed to the killing and he said
Speaker 2: he was really the stabber, is basically what it came down.
Speaker 2: So eventually he was charged with Ronbaker's murder, and I
Speaker 2: think that was in nineteen ninety three or four. I
Speaker 2: think it was ninety three. But Duncan's still out there.
Speaker 2: You know, we had no evidence that Duncan was even
Speaker 2: in the park. The evidence we could officially that was
Speaker 2: admissible evidence. We had nothing, so we were proceeding against Nathan.
Speaker 3: You write about a message on your desk from Salt
Speaker 3: Lake City Detective Jim Pryor December thirteenth. Yes, pardon me, yes,
Speaker 3: So tell us about this call from Detective Jim Pryor.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was an early Christmas present. So I call
Speaker 2: and I know Duncan's in Salt Lake city area. He's
Speaker 2: actually he's a University Utah student majoring in film. And
Speaker 2: I call Prior, knowing it's got to be something to
Speaker 2: do with Duncan, and so he tells me that a
Speaker 2: few days earlier, Duncan had broken into a sporting good
Speaker 2: shop late at night and was preparing to steal a
Speaker 2: bunch of items, including a mountain bike, but the door
Speaker 2: was locked from the inside and the alarm went off,
Speaker 2: and a witness saw him breaking in and breaking a
Speaker 2: window and called the police, and he was arrested. Inside. Still,
Speaker 2: he tried to blame somebody else or saying by saying
Speaker 2: that this guy put him up to it, and if
Speaker 2: Duncan didn't do the burglary for him, he would turn
Speaker 2: him over to the school authorities because of his involvement
Speaker 2: with this murder case that he said he knew about
Speaker 2: that according to Duncan. Anyway, he was arrested. So right
Speaker 2: away I realized this is my opportunity. So I told Prior,
Speaker 2: tell him you try to get a hold of me.
Speaker 2: Call Duncan back, tell him you try to get a
Speaker 2: hold of me. Tell him you know it's not making sense.
Speaker 2: Duncan basically said, you know, you know, I was kind
Speaker 2: of involved in this thing in LA and so this
Speaker 2: guy had information and that's how he pressured me. And
Speaker 2: I said, well we need more than that. Go back
Speaker 2: and talk to him again and try to make sense
Speaker 2: to tell him, you try to make sense of this
Speaker 2: so you can talk to the DA's office in Salt
Speaker 2: Lake City, who's going to prosecute him on a burglary.
Speaker 2: So Duncan lays out the whole story to him, it's
Speaker 2: admissible evidence, tells the you know, the whole thing, being
Speaker 2: in the park, being in the tunnel. He even goes
Speaker 2: as far as saying when Nathan did the stabbing, Ron
Speaker 2: was so suffering that Duncan told him to finish him off,
Speaker 2: and that's the slit throat. So that's you know, now
Speaker 2: we know have I know of no doubt in my
Speaker 2: mind that Duncan's going to be charged with the murder
Speaker 2: because he had violated obviously the do not talk to
Speaker 2: anybody else policy, and here he is using it to
Speaker 2: try to get out of another charge. So eventually Duncan
Speaker 2: was charged as well by Marsha Clark, the DA that
Speaker 2: would leave the case shortly thereafter because of the O. J.
Speaker 3: Simpson case, there was a deal offered to Duncan if
Speaker 3: he were to plead guilty. What was that offer and
Speaker 3: what was his response and what was his attorney's advice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, eventually, after he's arrested the DA's office they actually
Speaker 2: dropped two levels from murder with special circumstances of lying
Speaker 2: away in financial gain, which gives you a life without
Speaker 2: parole sentence, which literally means that in most and most
Speaker 2: of the times where people get that sentence. Duncan was
Speaker 2: offered a second degree murder because he had cooperated, and
Speaker 2: he eventually rejects it, which I felt he should, because
Speaker 2: I thought a jury would hate him when they heard
Speaker 2: the when they heard the case, and no matter how
Speaker 2: much he says I wasn't involved, that we had so
Speaker 2: much evidence against him to show that he was involved
Speaker 2: and in the planning of it that I thought a
Speaker 2: jury would convict him quickly anyway. But they denied, and
Speaker 2: he rolled the dice and then eventually lost when he
Speaker 2: was eventually convicted and Nathan had been convicted the year before.
Speaker 2: They had been tried separately because evidence against one wasn't
Speaker 2: evident since another, and there was too convoluted of a
Speaker 2: tale to connect each one of them separately, so we
Speaker 2: tried them separately.
Speaker 3: You write about a very dramatic trial where Nathan takes
Speaker 3: the stand, but you also explained that all along that
Speaker 3: Duncan Martinez had had a private attorney, whereas once Nathan
Speaker 3: was charged, he had a public defender, which makes a difference.
Speaker 2: It does, and you know, not always because public defenders
Speaker 2: try a lot more cases. You know they're being pulled
Speaker 2: in too many different directions because their case load is
Speaker 2: probably higher. But a good public defender can be great.
Speaker 2: I know some. I know some, and I respect some
Speaker 2: of them because they're doing their job. But yeah, there
Speaker 2: are advantages as well to hand pick your attorney, so
Speaker 2: that was an issue.
Speaker 4: There is a discrepancy, I think in the resources that
Speaker 4: Duncan had available to him and that Nathan had available
Speaker 4: to him. And you see that during the trial in
Speaker 4: terms of the representation that they have. But you'll also
Speaker 4: see it again in terms of what unfolds later in
Speaker 4: the case. The most recent events and I guess the
Speaker 4: final twist in a story with so many twists.
Speaker 3: So Nathan is convicted and he is sentenced to life
Speaker 3: without parole, and Duncan is offered and Duncan is offered
Speaker 3: a deal and refuses that deal. Tell us about what's
Speaker 3: the result of that trial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So shortly thereafter when he refused that deal, so
Speaker 2: the charge of stayed. He was charged and tried for
Speaker 2: life without charge for the murder with the special circumstances
Speaker 2: which would qualify him for one of two things to
Speaker 2: death penalty, which was already going to be off the
Speaker 2: table that they were not going to charge him with
Speaker 2: death penalty, So the only sentence he could receive if
Speaker 2: he was convicted was life without parole, which in nineteen
Speaker 2: nine tinety six he was convicted of that and was
Speaker 2: sentenced to the wife without parole. Name is Nathan.
Speaker 4: So and part of what was interesting about the process
Speaker 4: of writing this book with Rick was at the time
Speaker 4: that we started, that was where that was the lay
Speaker 4: of the land. Nathan and Duncan had both been convicted
Speaker 4: of the same offense and both had the same sentence,
Speaker 4: and so there was a certain symmetry in terms of
Speaker 4: even though they had different roles during the murder, they
Speaker 4: were judged by a jury in court to be equally
Speaker 4: culpable and that they should face the same sentence. So
Speaker 4: when Rick and I began writing this book. That's where
Speaker 4: we thought the story would end. Things didn't turn out
Speaker 4: that way.
Speaker 2: No, for sure.
Speaker 3: You had been in correspondence with Patty Baker Ron's sister. Yes,
Speaker 3: and then she contacts you a little while after this
Speaker 3: and to your surprise some startling information regarding Duncan Martinez.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. I think it was twenty twenty. I
Speaker 2: got a called fairly late at night, so and she
Speaker 2: left to voice me. I didn't know who it was,
Speaker 2: and I didn't listen. I did listen to it that night,
Speaker 2: but I didn't call her back because I wanted to
Speaker 2: check some things. Basically, she said she heard that Duncan
Speaker 2: had his sentence conmuted via the clemency process by Governor Newsom,
Speaker 2: along with twenty four to twenty five other people, and
Speaker 2: I verified that online and called her the next day.
Speaker 2: She had read about it in the newspaper. Even though
Speaker 2: she was listed with the Victims' Rights situation. She was
Speaker 2: listed to be contacted if anything changed with his status,
Speaker 2: and she wasn't, so she had no idea. She just
Speaker 2: happened to come across in the newspaper, which is a
Speaker 2: pretty awful way of finding out something like that. Yes,
Speaker 2: and then so we started the investigation of how this
Speaker 2: could have happened, and he applied for clemency Governor Newsom
Speaker 2: for reasons we still don't know because they would not
Speaker 2: their investigation, they said, was the investigation that was done
Speaker 2: for Governor Newsom was considered not you not available to
Speaker 2: the public. How he came upon this weighty decision or
Speaker 2: the detectives or the DA's office, we had to be transparent,
Speaker 2: but basically they did not have to be. So we
Speaker 2: still don't know the full extent of what Governor Newsom saw.
Speaker 2: But some of the information he cited in his clemency
Speaker 2: was inaccurate or definitely incomplete, So we still have no idea.
Speaker 2: We were never consulted as the prosecution agency. The DA's
Speaker 2: office was never consulted as the prosecution agency. We do
Speaker 2: know that somebody interviewed Duncan Martinez and they got his
Speaker 2: side of the story, and that might be the only
Speaker 2: person that was interviewed. We don't know because they wouldn't
Speaker 2: share that with us. Yeah, it was it was a
Speaker 2: shock when we learned what it was seemingly based on
Speaker 2: and how easily.
Speaker 4: Well and it was also it was also a fair
Speaker 4: accomplay because by the time Patty even became aware of
Speaker 4: of of of what happened, the governor's signature was already
Speaker 4: on the piece of paper.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: It was done.
Speaker 4: There was no hey, we're thinking of doing this. You
Speaker 4: found out when the world found out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was pretty matter of fact. I
Speaker 2: think that chapter is called a shallow die for the truth,
Speaker 2: which I think really really catches it. It just there
Speaker 2: was no thoroughness in what was done to make, like
Speaker 2: I said, a very weighty decision, you know, on this
Speaker 2: brutal murder, but two guys that took advantage of a
Speaker 2: situation with Really it wasn't like it was a spontaneous thing,
Speaker 2: an argument or you know, you know got out of
Speaker 2: hand or you know. It's just it was crazy to
Speaker 2: premeditate something like that.
Speaker 4: So well, clemency is not a bad thing in and
Speaker 4: of itself, but the process should be fair. And so
Speaker 4: that I think is what animated me in trying to
Speaker 4: write about this, because there's still a lot of questions
Speaker 4: that the Ron's family has and that we have about
Speaker 4: how exactly this went down and why did it go
Speaker 4: down the way.
Speaker 3: That it did, and you really disagreed with these decisions
Speaker 3: and wrote to Governor Newsome and others just voicing your
Speaker 3: disagreement with this decision to parole Duncan.
Speaker 2: Martinez, Yeah, I did you know a jury hurt all
Speaker 2: the evidence. Duncan been offered a much less sentence, which
Speaker 2: didn't mean he might not still because it's fifteen years
Speaker 2: to life for a second degree murder. If he screwed
Speaker 2: up in prison, he could still be in just like
Speaker 2: an l WOP or life without parole, call an l WOP.
Speaker 2: You know, he rolled the dice and lost, and now
Speaker 2: he's getting the benefit of the governor who really had
Speaker 2: not the whole story, which is nonsensical. It's not like
Speaker 2: we're talking about the guy that a burglary or you know,
Speaker 2: stolen vehicle or something like that. I mean, he shattered
Speaker 2: a family's lives and took the ability for Ron Baker,
Speaker 2: who was a brilliant young man. You know, he was
Speaker 2: a straight A student at Ucileian. What was his astrophysics
Speaker 2: I think his major was. I mean, just it just
Speaker 2: it's strange. And again, clemency is okay in the right circumstances,
Speaker 2: but it needs to be well researched and it definitely
Speaker 2: was not anyway, So eventually he was paroled. He's living
Speaker 2: outside of a prison now. As matter of fact, he
Speaker 2: served parole. He was told they were told he was
Speaker 2: going to serve three to five years on parole where
Speaker 2: if he messed up he could go back, and they
Speaker 2: dismissed that after one year, so he walked out. He
Speaker 2: was on parole for a year and now he's totally
Speaker 2: a free man with no accountability to report to parole
Speaker 2: or anybody else. He's just living out there. So anyway, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Want to thank you both Matthew McGuff and Rick Jackson
Speaker 3: for coming on and talking about your extraordinary Black Tunnel,
Speaker 3: White Magic, a murder, a detective's obsession, and nineties Los
Speaker 3: Angeles at the brink. For those that might want to
Speaker 3: look at this case further, could you refer us to
Speaker 3: a website and do you do any social media at
Speaker 3: go ahead. Yes, we do have a website for the
Speaker 3: book where most importantly we have quite a few appearances
Speaker 3: at bookstores really all over the country. So people should
Speaker 3: visit Black Tunnel Whitemagic dot com and there's a full
Speaker 3: rundown of various events that we have not only here
Speaker 3: in LA, but elsewhere in California and on the East
Speaker 3: Coast and in the Midwest. So we hope some of
Speaker 3: your listeners will come out and see us in person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's going to be more added. There's still
Speaker 2: ending appearances we're going to be making at other cities
Speaker 2: throughout the country, and in particular I think there's going
Speaker 2: to be some in New England.
Speaker 3: Fantastic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all the information on that will be at Black
Speaker 4: Tunnel whitemagic dot com.
Speaker 3: Sounds fantastic. I want to thank you once again Matthew
Speaker 3: McGough and Rick Jackson for Black Tunnel, White Magic, a murder,
Speaker 3: a detective's obsession, and nineties Los Angeles at the Brink.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for this interview, and you have
Speaker 3: a great even and good night.
Speaker 2: All right. Thank you, Dan, Thank you Dan, Thank you
Speaker 2: so much. Bye bye.