‘This Case Will Never Be Closed’ : New Reward Offered in Slaying of Agent

“This case will never be closed,” said Garry M. Jenkins, special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service office in Los Angeles.

He was discussing the unsolved 6-year-old murder of Julie Cross, an agent shotgunned to death while on a stakeout near Los Angeles International Airport. Cross, 26, was the first female Secret Service agent to be killed in the line of duty.

Wednesday, on the sixth anniversary of the murder, the Secret Service will point to a billboard in Westchester offering a new $100,000 reward for information leading to a conviction. A similar reward was offered four years ago but nothing tangible turned up.

“Our whole thrust is one more time,” Jenkins said of the frustrating investigation.

Police homicide detective Mike Thies, in charge of the Cross case, believes there are witnesses who have not yet contacted the police. “We hope the reward would be an incentive for them to come forward,” he said.

Cross, a former San Diego policewoman, had been transferred to the Secret Service’s Los Angeles office only a few days before she was assigned to a counterfeiting case with her partner, Lloyd Bulman.

As she and Bulman sat in their unmarked car shortly after 9 p.m. near the Westchester intersection of Belford Avenue and Interceptor Street, two men approached from the rear. The two suspects declared themselves to be police officers.

Then, suddenly, one of the suspects put a pistol to Bulman’s head in a robbery attempt. A struggle ensued and one of the men grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun from the agents’ car and fired two blasts at Cross. Another shotgun blast fired at Bulman somehow missed.

Both assailants then fled, carrying with them the shotgun and Cross’ .357 revolver, in what was described as a two-tone brown 1971 Buick or Pontiac.

Jenkins said the Remington shotgun could lead them to the killers. “That shotgun is still around,” he said. “We will continue to look for these characters until we get them.”