Breaking Rank (11 page)

Kolender had been my rabbi. If it weren't for him I'd never have been promoted through the ranks. I'd been his speechwriter, and confidant. A Jew, he used to joke that while crime may be up in the city, “We're the only police department in the country showing a profit.” He had a self-deprecating sense of humor, an infectious, uncontrollable laugh. People, myself included, gravitated toward him, loved being in his company. For a Republican, he was one of the most progressive police executives around. And Burgreen? He could have picked anyone to be his assistant chief, including an able deputy, Manny Guaderrama, who was being pushed by prominent members of the Latino community. But he'd picked me, and had shown that he meant it when he said he would
lead
the department. And that I would
run
it.

Michaels seated me at the head of the table then slid the charts under my nose. “What you see in front of you is evidence not only of serial killings but of an especially disturbing pattern of official misconduct, behavior that may or may not be linked to prostitution activity.”

I shouldn't have been surprised. It's not uncommon, working prostitute killings, to hear from women on the streets that a certain victim seemed to have been a little
too
cozy with a certain cop. Or that a certain cop seemed to have it in for hookers.

It's also common to find in a prostitute's little black book the names of prominent locals—businessmen, elected officials, judges, athletes. Cops.

Michaels spent five minutes on the prostitute killings, two and a half hours on the “official misconduct.” Kolender, it turned out, was on the list because someone thought they'd seen him, or someone who “looks an awful lot like him,” dining in some upscale Tijuana restaurant in the company of nefarious characters who'd been linked to other names on Chart No. 2. Also, a “source” had intimated that the former chief had a personal if not intimate relationship with Karen Wilkening. Burgreen? He was on the list because, well, “It's well known that he and Kolender are ‘tight.'” I wasn't sure about Kolender—I didn't believe it, but Michaels seemed so confident. I
knew
Burgreen's name did not belong on that sheet.

“We've thrown a lot at you,” said Michaels when he finished tracing events, personal bios, rap sheets, relationships. Links. “It's got to be a little mind-boggling. Do you have any questions at this point?” Everyone in the
room was poised to hear the interloper's reaction to what they'd been secretly working on for years.

“Yeah. You're talking about a man I used to work for, another I'm now working for. What makes you think I'm not ‘tight' with them?”

“We've checked,” said Michaels. “You've got a reputation for putting integrity first.” I wasn't flattered.

Miller said, “You can see why we're careful to keep this information absolutely confidential.” I understood, but what did they want from me? Miller answered before I could ask. “We need more investigators from the PD, Norm. We figured if you knew
why
they're needed you'd be more willing to cough them up.”

“What kind of people, Internal Affairs?” It had occurred to me that the task force had become hopelessly entangled in the “misconduct” cases, with their real or imagined “linkages.” This would account for the lack of tangible progress in solving the serial murders. Burgreen and I had discussed the subject several times. My deputy chiefs were agitating to take our guys out of Mission Valley. They wanted them back in Homicide and Vice. Now it was clear: several of the task force cops, under-equipped by training and experience, had wound up handling high-level Internal Affairs cases—at the expense of the prostitute murder cases.

Michaels answered. “Well, IA types would help. And we do need more detectives to work the homicides.”

“Let me think about it.” I was responsible for allocating and distributing cops throughout the department. I needed a lot more information about the structure and operating methods of the task force to even consider adding more people at that point.

Sitting in the corner this whole time was Bonnie Dumanis, a deputy DA who, I learned that morning, was preparing to take over the day-to-day lead from Michaels (who would soon be presenting information from Chart No. 2 to the county grand jury—either as criminal matters or in keeping with the grand jury's role in California as protector of “good government”). Dumanis approached me as soon as the meeting adjourned. “Let's go to lunch.”

“Well, I'm really . . .”

“We
have
to talk. Today. Before you make any decisions.”

We took separate cars, met at a downtown restaurant. “The guys may trust you,” she said, as soon as the waiter walked off with our order. “But I don't. Not as far as I can toss you.”

“Why not?” As the PD's second in command, I wasn't used to being addressed so bluntly.

“Because I don't know you. Simple as that. You've got to earn my trust.”

As soon as I got back to my office I called Miller. “I can't justify adding a single body until I'm satisfied the task force is properly and efficiently organized. And staffed with the right people. I just don't have that feeling at the moment.”

“I'm glad to hear you say that. I've got similar concerns.”

“How about I go down there, spend some time looking at the operation?” We were being eaten alive in the press. We had to get to the bottom of things, find out whether our cops were killing hookers. And whether police officials, past or present, were involved in shady practices. “I'll read the cases, interview the detectives, your lawyers, see what kind of changes are needed.” I especially wanted to talk with Chuck Rogers, who was by then a municipal court judge. As a deputy DA he'd preceded Michaels on the task force.

“Sounds like a plan,” said Miller. I pictured Dumanis, smiled at her reaction to my presence in the thick of her task force's clandestine operations.

“Good. But I need to talk to Burgreen. Today, Ed. Right now.” It was absurd that his name was on that chart. “Unless you have an official objection, I'm going to tell him everything. Everything.”

He paused. “Yeah, do it. Please do.”

The afternoon of the day I'd been instructed to talk to no one about my visit to Mission Valley, “not even Bobby,” I walked into Burgreen's office and talked. If it had been
me
on the receiving end of the news I would have been apoplectic. But if my boss was the slightest bit upset, he didn't let on. He blessed my “management audit” of the San Diego Metropolitan Homicide Task Force.

Within a week, I'd interviewed about a quarter of the task force personnel, and had read through maybe a tenth of the case files. This initial examination confirmed that the task force was indeed poorly organized, especially in light of its “mission creep” into official misconduct, and badly understaffed.

We made a decision to call on the attorney general for help with the “misconduct” cases, effectively taking them out of the hands of local government. California's AG dispatched a crackerjack attorney, Gary Schons, to oversee these investigations—including any bleed-over onto Chart No. 1.

Next, we needed to select additional bona fide homicide pros to complement those already working the serial killings. I interviewed a dozen or so current and former members of SDPD Homicide, including some aces who had retired in recent years. Known for their expertise in scene reconstruction, forensic trace-evidence (especially blood, DNA, and fibers), suspect interrogation, and analytical reasoning, these experts provided names of individuals who'd be able to help our overworked charges in Mission Valley. In vetting potential new members, I realized that a couple of the experts I had consulted would, themselves, make excellent additions to the task force, even though they were now ranking officers. I assigned them to detective work. A total of six new people.

At that point in the investigation we were pretty sure we had several, separate series. The most common modus operandi: Suspects would hook up with a prostitute on El Cajon Boulevard, a six-lane artery stretching from north of Balboa Park east to the La Mesa city limits. They'd drive their unsuspecting prey to an outlying area, have sex, or not, strangle them to death (the most common method of prostitute killings), then dump their bodies in the mountains or foothills of East County.

It was the case of Donna Gentile, seven years earlier, that had aroused suspicions of police officer involvement. Gentile, an attractive, well-spoken twenty-two-year-old who worked the Boulevard, had spoken to the press in 1985. Her picture had appeared on the front page of the newspaper, she'd been interviewed on TV. Michaels had presented her to the grand jury where she testified that certain vice cops and patrol officers were “overly friendly” with several of the “girls,” and that some of them had extorted prostitutes for sex. At least one of those prostitutes had turned up dead, and another had gone missing.

With an internal investigation of Gentile's assertions underway, a nude body was found at dawn, June 23, 1985, just off the Sunrise Highway east of Pine Valley. The victim had been beaten and strangled. Pea gravel had
been shoved down her throat while she was still alive (her lungs contained aspirated gravel). A warning, perhaps by a police officer to other prostitutes to keep their mouths shut? The body was that of Donna Gentile.

Even though cops were eventually cleared of that murder, several officers, the result of IA findings, had been disciplined or constructively terminated (meaning they quit before they could be fired) for “inappropriate” behavior with prostitutes. Still, the original task force members couldn't shake the feeling that police officers might be involved in other cases. Murder cases.

It was not an unreasonable assumption, given the rabid anti-prostitute attitudes of a few twisted cops.

I've heard some police officers refer to prostitute slayings (or to the slayings of blacks) as “misdemeanor murders,” employing an unofficial code for them: NHI, no humans involved.

“Sex workers,” as many in the trade prefer to be called, are vilified, stigmatized, and written off. They're immoral. They engage in sinful, illegal activity. They have no self-esteem, no self-discipline. They don't really “work,” yet they haul in tax-free dollars. They're dirty. They use drugs (wouldn't you?).

Dehumanizing or demonizing sex workers makes it easier to ignore them when they go missing or are found dead. I wonder how these officers of the law would respond to the murders of forty teachers? Forty homemakers? Forty ER nurses?

Judge Rogers told me in his chambers that the original task force members felt their own PD “just didn't care about the deaths of hookers.” Kolender had been chief when Ed Miller approached him with a proposal to put together the prostitute-killer task force. (It was, in fact, the DA who first discerned, or at least acted upon, a pattern of serial homicides in our city.)
Kolender, urged by his deputy chiefs to reject Miller's proposal, stalled the DA for some time.
*
When he finally agreed to assign people, he limited the commitment to the four detectives.

I spent two months in the hermetically sealed headquarters of the task force. Not once did I hear an “NHI” reference or an anti—sex worker sentiment. These officers genuinely cared about the victims, and their anguished friends and family members. From conversations with true crime writer Ann Rule, the same can be said for those detectives who worked the Green River killings. (Rule's book on the subject,
Green River, Running Red
[2004] has been praised, aptly so, for rendering the stories of each and every one of Gary Ridgway's known victims with respect and sensitivity.)