Aftermath of Belushi Case : Drug Deaths Turning Into Homicide Cases

Roberta Creamer and Dawn Vazquez had been close for more than 10 years and, according to friends and relatives, they at least occasionally used heroin. So it wasn’t unusual for the women to share some Mexican “brown” when they got together at Creamer’s North Hollywood apartment on the evening of March 22.

They took turns shooting each other up with the drug before they became drowsy, police said. Creamer then went to her bedroom and Vazquez dozed off on the couch. Sometime later Vazquez woke up, walked into the bedroom and discovered her 36-year-old friend dead of a drug overdose.

Vazquez--who had no arrest record for even a misdemeanor offense--was taken into custody two days later and brought before a San Fernando Municipal Court judge Tuesday for arraignment on a murder charge. She pleaded not guilty and is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail at the Sybil Brand Institute for Women in Los Angeles.

The 26-year-old Reseda woman is one of several San Fernando Valley heroin users and addicts who recently have been charged with murder in drug overdose deaths. North Hollywood Lt. Ron Larue said his division has made three homicide arrests in drug overdose cases so far this year, and West Valley Lt. Bill Gaida said his division has made two.

Like the others, Vazquez discovered that heroin users who help get their friends high face the risk of being charged with murder.

“People who do heroin do that (inject each other) all the time,” Michelle Gonzales, a friend of Vazquez’s, said last week. “You don’t think of that as killing somebody. Dawn’s never been in jail before. She’s scared. She’s not a murderer.”

Statistics do not provide a breakout of homicide arrests in drug overdose cases. But detectives and prosecutors say they believe the number is increasing as drug use continues to rise.

One of the most publicized cases of a homicide charge stemming from a drug overdose involved the 1982 death of comedian John Belushi and the eventual arrest of Cathy Evelyn Smith, who is awaiting trial on a murder charge.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael J. Montagna, who is prosecuting Smith, said he believes the celebrated case may have prompted an increase in homicide arrests.

“I haven’t got the figures, but it seems to me that the answer is probably yes, there has been an increase,” Montagna said. “I can think of three specific calls, and probably more that have slipped my mind, from prosecutors running similar factual situations by me, both in and outside Los Angeles County.”

North Hollywood police Detective Phil Sowers, who is assigned to the Creamer case, agreed with Montagna’s assessment.

“I think in times prior to John Belushi these things weren’t filed on,” Sowers said. “The (district attorney) thought they would fail.” But other prosecutors and homicide investigators disagree about the impact of the Belushi case.

“We’ve filed on cases of that nature long before John Belushi and we’ve filed on them since,” said San Fernando Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Knight.

Police and prosecutors say conducting a homicide investigation in a drug death is difficult and the chances for a conviction of a crime any more serious than manslaughter is unlikely. Unless the victim was a non-user forcibly injected with an overdose of heroin, cocaine or other narcotics, it would be difficult, they say, to get a jury to show any sympathy for the victim.

Virtually all drug overdose deaths involve heavy users or addicts, police say, and friends who may have been using drugs with the victims often leave the scene for fear they will be arrested, meaning investigators are most often left without witnesses.

Gaida said one overdose victim was left by his friends in the driveway leading to the emergency room at Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills. And a woman who died of a drug overdose last year in Orange County was found in a trash dumpster.

“Without a witness or a person copping out to what happened, you haven’t got a case,” Sowers said.

Because most victims voluntarily take the fatal overdose, the cases are a low priority for homicide investigators, Montagna said.

“Drug overdoses are essentially accidental acts,” Montagna said. “Not much was ever done in the way of police work. Especially for the dirt-bag who shoots up and dies and doesn’t make the paper.”

‘Wild Goose Chase’

When Smith was quoted in the National Enquirer as admitting that she gave Belushi the fatal overdose of heroin and cocaine, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said a homicide investigation would be nothing more than a “wild goose chase.” Homicide detectives noted that Belushi was a notorious drug user and scoffed at the idea of a lengthy criminal investigation into Smith’s role in the entertainer’s death.

Los Angeles Municipal Judge James F. Nelson, who presided at Smith’s preliminary hearing, acknowledged that the comedian took the drugs willingly. “Surely Mr. Belushi issued the invitation to this dance,” the judge said.

But the judge noted that the state Supreme Court in 1985 ruled that providing narcotics was an inherently dangerous act and second-degree murder would apply even if the provider did not intend to kill. He ordered that Smith stand trial for murder.

Still, defense attorneys argue that because most drug overdoses are accidental it is improper to file murder charges. The issue becomes a moot point, however, because so few of those arrested are convicted of either first- or second-degree murder. If there is a conviction at all, it usually is for a lesser crime, such as manslaughter or selling narcotics.

“It would be (controversial) if they were getting convicted for murder,” said San Fernando Deputy Public Defender Dan Harrington. “It would be outrageous. But that hasn’t been the case.”

Homicide investigators say an important element in filing charges is evidence that the accused assisted in injecting or administering the drug to the victim. Such evidence exists in the Smith and Vazquez cases.

But Orange County prosecutors are even more aggressive in interpreting state statutes. Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Borris is prosecuting a murder case against Philip Gerald Alviso, 28, of Stanton, based primarily on a wiretapped telephone conversation in 1983 during which Alviso allegedly admitted selling cocaine to an overdose victim.

Alviso allegedly told the officer that he sold the drug to 22-year-old Edward Mikolajek, who died of an overdose in 1980, according to documents on file in Orange County Superior Court. Alviso, who at the time of the conversation was living with Mikolajek’s widow, is quoted in court documents as telling the officer: “I sold her husband an eighth (of a ounce of cocaine). . . . and he OD’d. He’s dead.”

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Ed Freeman said he sent a memo to police chiefs about two years ago asking that they gather whatever evidence they can in investigating drug deaths to support a murder charge.

Since the memo was drafted, at least five murder charges in overdose deaths have been filed, Freeman said. One case was dismissed by a judge, another resulted in a conviction for the sale of narcotics and three suspects, including Alviso, are awaiting trial.

“It’s an uphill battle, because the cops have so much to do,” Freeman said. “But at least it might get word to the sellers that they’ve got to watch out.

“We don’t do it because of the Belushi thing. We do it because the dead guy’s got a family like everybody else. You look at the accidental overdose cases in Orange County: deaths by injection or ingestion of drugs. One hundred and six deaths. That’s a lot of bodies. A lot of families.”