Arrest Solves ’83 Slaying in Costa Mesa, Police Claim

Costa Mesa police said Thursday they have solved a 4-year-old mystery surrounding the fatal shooting of a murder suspect who was gunned down two days before he was to stand trial for the beating death of a San Francisco socialite.

They have arrested the socialite’s fiancee on charges he carried out a revenge killing.

Police initially closed the case in 1983 after concluding that Jeffrey Molloy Parker, 36, of Manhattan Beach, had been slain in Costa Mesa by professional killers. But on Wednesday police arrested Richard Dale Wilson, 45, a San Francisco accountant, on suspicion of murder.

Wilson was in Orange County Jail Thursday in lieu of $250,000 bail. Accompanied by an attorney, Wilson had surrendered in Orange County Superior Count the previous day, a week after he had been secretly indicted by the Orange County Grand Jury.

Meeting at Party

He is accused of shooting Parker to death in front of the home of Parker’s mother in Costa Mesa on Aug. 2, 1983. Parker’s preliminary hearing on charges he killed Wilson’s fiancee, Joan Mills of San Francisco, was to have been Aug. 4.

Mills, then 33, a socially prominent businesswoman in San Francisco, had traveled with a business partner to Beverly Hills and on April 30, 1983, met Parker at a party, according to Beverly Hills investigators.

The two went to Mills’ room at the Beverly Crest Hotel, where Parker later was found standing over her dead, badly bruised body, investigators said.

Officers quoted Parker as saying the two had engaged in sex and taken drugs, that Mills had collapsed and that he had tried to resuscitate her. An autopsy showed that while Mills had cocaine and alcohol in her blood, she had died of blunt-force injuries to her chest and abdomen. Parker eventually was charged with her murder.

Mills, described by friends as attractive and flamboyant, at times socialized with prominent San Franciscans. She was a partner in a fashion import business and known as a successful, aggressive businesswoman.

Court officials at Parker’s pretrial hearings reported that Wilson attended them and became upset, particularly at Parker’s release on $150,000 bail. After Parker’s death, Wilson was questioned by Costa Mesa police but not charged. The case was closed, and one Costa Mesa investigator said he thought the killer would never be found.

Last May, however, Costa Mesa police received an anonymous telephone call telling them that Wilson himself had done the killing, according to Costa Mesa Police Lt. Rick Johnson.

The caller provided no new information, but he did revive interest in the 4-year-old murder because last May “we were blessed with the time to reopen the case,” Johnson said. Investigators were able to trace the anonymous call to the person who placed it, Johnson said, and other interviews were then conducted.

Johnson said no new information or physical evidence was uncovered. “We didn’t come up with anything we didn’t have before,” he said. This time, however, “the pieces just seem to fit together.”

Joel W. Baruch of Newport Beach, Wilson’s defense attorney, said Thursday he believes the prosecution case is based on the statements from two of Wilson’s relatives. He said the statements were made “under duress” and by people “with tremendous psychiatric problems” who since “have recanted what they’ve told to other people.”

“He’s absolutely innocent,” Baruch said.

Parker, who had been living with his mother in Costa Mesa, was shot in the chest and back of the head with a large-caliber handgun.