Digging Up Clues in Notorious Hand-Me-Down Cases

No matter how high-profile or notorious a murder case might have been back in its day, it can quickly fade into the pages of a weathered police murder book.

As the urgency of old cases diminishes under the sheer volume of the new -- about 680 killings handled annually by the Los Angeles Police Department -- police are forced to turn to the crime of the moment.

But while so-called “old unsolveds” are out of sight, they are hardly out of mind.

The LAPD has a “cold case” homicide unit that reviews thousands of unsolved crimes that occurred between 1960 and 1997. But some of the most high-profile cases from that period stay in-house at the Robbery-Homicide Division, where they are distributed among the two dozen robbery-homicide detectives when a veteran retires from the force.

“It’s kind of like you’re handling the archives,” Robbery-Homicide Capt. Al Michelena said of the hand-me-downs. “You’re like a curator of the museum. And you’re around to answer questions when they come up.”

Working old cases can often be a matter of just baby-sitting files. But a phone tip, a technological advance or the discovery of new evidence can breathe new life into a dormant investigation.

LAPD Det. Brian Carr was reminded of that earlier this year, when he was asked to revisit a case inherited from his predecessors. It also happened to be one of the most infamous slayings in Los Angeles history.

The Black Dahlia

The body of Elizabeth Short, 22, was found in a vacant lot in Leimert Park, cut in half, mutilated, neatly scrubbed and drained of blood.

The 1947 killing intrigued generations of true-crime aficionados and has been the subject of a slew of films and books, including a recent bestseller about the case written by former LAPD Det. Steve Hodel. He implicates his father in the slaying.

Though the book was in part responsible for convincing the LAPD to reopen the investigation, Michelena said that after receiving a complete report on the case, detectives still lack the physical evidence, including DNA, to conclusively resolve it.

Hit-and-Run Deaths

In July, Det. John Garcia received a tip on the department’s website about an unsolved case that involved the hit-and-run deaths of two LAPD gang detectives in the Chinatown area 20 years ago.

Police in Northern California arrested Faustino Villareal, 42, one of two men who fled the scene of a high-speed traffic collision that killed LAPD officers Arthur Soo Hoo and William Wong.

Villareal has pleaded not guilty to being an accessory after the fact and his trial is pending, prosecutors said.

The case was worked periodically but broke wide open with the arrest. Detectives now are seeking two other men, including the driver, who they say were responsible for killing the lawmen.

Couple, Children Killed

Even by the standards of Los Angeles crime, the slaying of the Yoo family in the northern San Fernando Valley suburb of Granada Hills gave pause.

On Nov. 21, 1991, relatives discovered the bodies of Hee Wan (Keith) and Kyungjin (Jeanie) Yoo along with their children, 7-year-old Pauline and 5-year-old Kenneth, in their home.

An autopsy concluded that each family member was stabbed with a sharp weapon, and investigators said there was no evidence of forced entry into the house.

Police have conducted hundreds of interviews on the case and employed a team of Korean-speaking officers in hopes of drawing information from the city’s Korean community.

Michelena said detectives revisited the case after the recent slaying of a Korean family in the Mid-Wilshire district.

Catering-Truck Murders

Five members of a food-catering crew were killed and the corpses scattered along a remote San Fernando Valley canyon road where they were found stabbed, shot and beaten to death in 1991.

Police believe that the five, all relatives, were killed a short time after their Mexican food truck was hijacked from the North Hollywood street where they usually worked.

The hands of the victims were bound behind their backs with tape and their bodies were left just beyond a guardrail along La Tuna Canyon Road.

Though early theories included a rivalry over the lunch-truck business, detectives said there have been no recent new leads.

Attorney Gunned Down

In 1981, attorney Nathan Markowitz, 45, suspected of laundering millions of dollars for narcotics dealers, was found in a Century City underground parking lot shot in the head, chest and armpit at point-blank range. At the time, police said they believed Markowitz’s killing was arranged by people who feared that the attorney would cooperate with the government.

Markowitz was believed to have named drug traffickers and at least one well-known organized crime figure.

Michelena noted that when detectives revisit such hand-me-down cases, they generally find that the murders were thoroughly worked at the time they occurred.

But there are times when a fresh look can make a difference, such as when the original detectives had to put down a case because of overwork, or when 21st century science can assist in new ways.