Man Says He Helped Suspect Dispose of Body After Murder

Murder suspect Robert Martin Gray Jr. told an employee of his Garden Grove stereo shop that he wanted to kill 24-year-old Debbie Ann Lee because she had given him AIDS, according to a police officer who interviewed the ex-employee.

Garden Grove police investigator Ronald D. Shave also said in a sworn statement filed in Orange County Superior Court that Robert Estrada told him he had helped Gray dispose of the body of the Garden Grove woman, who has been missing since Aug. 1.

Gray pleaded not guilty Wednesday in West Orange County Municipal Court to a charge of murder and faces a preliminary hearing Sept. 16.

Estrada, who worked at Gray’s shop for seven months, told police his former employer was convinced that he had contracted AIDS from Lee, “even though he has been to doctors and they have told him that he does not have the disease,” Shave said.

Shave’s statement was made Aug. 2 to Orange County Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey, who then authorized a warrant allowing police to search Gray’s trailer. A transcript of the statement was filed with the court Tuesday.

In a detailed account to Shave, Estrada told how he was forced to help Gray dispose of Lee’s body at a grave site in a remote area of Orange County. But Gray became nervous and dumped her body near a freeway ramp and left Estrada by the roadside, he said. When Estrada returned later with police, the body was gone, according to the court documents.

No body has been found.

Gray, 30, gave conflicting statements about his role in her disappearance in an interview with The Times after his surrender last Thursday. While he denied shooting her, Gray also said he didn’t “intend to murder her.”

Estrada said Gray told him that if police didn’t have a body, “they didn’t have a case against him,” according to Shave’s statement.

According to the court documents, Estrada told police he saw Lee alive in Gray’s trailer about 3:30 a.m. Aug. 2, the day her parents reported her missing. At the time, Gray was living in the trailer, parked behind his shop in the 12700 block of Brookhurst Street.

Estrada saw Lee, who was wearing only a ruffled white blouse, lying face down on Gray’s bed, “bleeding about the right side of her face while she was laying on the bed” and “her right eye was swollen,” Shave said.

According to Shave’s sworn statement, Estrada went into a bathroom, and when he returned Gray told him Lee was dead and he needed Estrada’s help to bury her body. After Gray threatened to kill him if he wouldn’t help, Estrada said, they wrapped Lee’s body in blankets, put her body in the back of Gray’s pickup and drove to a remote area in northeast Orange County.

They first dug a grave near Gypsum Canyon Road just south of the 91 Freeway but left after Gray thought they had been seen, Estrada said. Gray drove further east, and they dumped the body behind some bushes alongside the 91 Freeway near the Green River exit. Gray left Estrada there and told him he’d return shortly, according to the statement. Ten minutes later, Estrada decided that Gray was not returning and hitchhiked from the site to call his parents from a phone booth for a ride.

Estrada’s parents picked him up and then telephoned police about 7:40 a.m. to report the incident.

When police returned with Estrada, they did not find Lee’s body. Estrada suspected that Gray had returned to pick up the body because he knew that Estrada was scared and would probably notify the authorities, police said.

Estrada has been sent away to an undisclosed location, although he is not in protective custody, Sgt. Phil Mason said Wednesday.

Police have declined to give specific information regarding their investigation, but the documents filed with the court provided a revealing synopsis of the police evidence.

Based on Estrada’s statements, police found a blood-stained white cloth belt that was later identified as belonging to Lee, the documents said.

Inside Gray’s trailer, crime lab investigators found bloodstains on the bedroom walls, on a coiled telephone cord and in a bathroom sink, according to the documents.

Investigators also found a loaded .38-caliber handgun in a holster, ammunition and a police baton. In addition, they found handcuffs and police and sheriff’s badges. It was not immediately known who owned the gun or whether the badges were in Gray’s name.

The documents also reveal that Lee had telephoned police about 1:30 a.m. Aug. 2, apparently to file a complaint against Gray an hour after she and Gray had an argument. During a police interview with Patricia Gonsalves, identified as a friend of Lee, Gonsalves said she accompanied Lee to visit Gray at his trailer about 12:30 a.m. on Aug. 2.

Gonsalves, who remained outside the trailer, said she overheard an argument between Lee and Gray. Lee then came out bleeding on the right hip and left arm and yelled at Gray, saying she was going to have him arrested for assault and battery.

Gonsalves then drove Lee home, where she apparently telephoned police at 1:37 a.m. But when an officer went to the home of Lee’s parents about 2 a.m., they said their daughter was not home.

Police later found that Lee’s window screen had been pried open and that her purse had been emptied on the floor. Lee’s parents also told police that a back door was left open.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoff Robinson said the lack of a body does not prevent a murder prosecution and added that murder convictions have been obtained in the past without a body.

“We’ve got evidence from the trailer and from interviews with people who knew Gray. We just don’t have a body,” Robinson said.

In a recent jailhouse interview, Gray denied shooting Lee.

“I didn’t shoot her,” he said. “I was out of town when I found out that the whole story (about Lee’s disappearance) got turned around. I decided to talk to my attorney and the police.

“She wasn’t shot.”

Thus far, Gray has refused to talk with police investigators. In police interviews with people who spoke to Gray, police say, they have received differing versions of what occurred.

“We’ve heard everything from there was a gun to she fell and hit her head then bled to death, to him punching her and then bleeding to death,” Robinson said.

Estrada told police that Gray told him Lee entered the trailer pointing a gun and it discharged in her face as he slapped it away.

Gray remains in custody at the Orange County Jail on $250,000 bail.