Roommate Charged in Swindler’s Death

After positively identifying a headless body found last week in the Angeles National Forest as that of Cowans Heights loan broker and multimillion-dollar swindler Arthur Lee Evans, authorities on Monday charged his roommate with murder.

Philip Dean Fry, 34, is accused in a complaint filed in Central Municipal Court in Santa Ana with robbing and fatally shooting Evans, who pleaded guilty last year to theft charges stemming from the collapse of an insurance company and had been missing since July 29.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Goethels said prosecutors have not yet decided whether to ask for a special circumstances determination, which could mean the death penalty if Fry is convicted.

Lt. Dick Olson, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, announced meanwhile that a body found last Tuesday in Angeles National Forest had been positively identified as that of Evans.

The body was found about four miles above San Antonio Dam near Mt. Baldy Road, said Bob Dambacher, a spokesman for the Los Angeles county coroner’s office. Evans apparently died of multiple gunshot wounds to the torso, he said.

The body was mutilated after death, Dambacher said. “We still haven’t found the head, the hands or the feet,” he added, saying the body had been identified with chest X-rays.

Olson said property belonging to Evans had been found “somewhere” in Orange County, prompting investigators to suspect robbery as well as murder. Olson declined to elaborate, saying that doing so would hamper the investigation.

Fry, who lived with Evans at 10492 Ridgeway Drive, was arrested Wednesday evening after he went to the Sheriff’s Office for questioning in connection with his roommate’s disappearance, Olson said.

The suspect was scheduled to be arraigned today, but he pleaded indigence, forcing postponement of the proceeding till Aug. 12. He is being held on $250,000 bail.

Fry apparently worked for Evans, Olson said. The two seemed to have met in jail last year, said Orange County prosecutor Guy Ormes.

Evans pleaded guilty in January, 1984, to grand theft in connection with close to $2 million missing from the now defunct Republic Insurance Brokers Inc, at one time the largest brokerage in Orange County. Ormes said Evans had swindled about $11 million from more than a hundred investors, and that very little was repaid.

After his guilty plea, his bail was revoked and he spent about two months in jail. He posted bail again, was eventually sentenced to a year in prison in January, 1985, but has not returned to jail because of repeated legal maneuvers.

Several of Evans’ former associates said they were not surprised by his disappearance. “I think he got in pretty bad company sometimes,” said Al Leatherby, who sold Republic Insurance to Evans and personally lost $600,000 when the company folded in May, 1982.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Office began its investigation Wednesday when a call was received from Evans’ friends who said they had last seen him the afternoon of July 29.