Police Feared Suspect in Slaying Would Kill Witnesses, Then Flee

Police believed they had to quickly arrest a San Francisco accountant suspected of an execution-style killing in Costa Mesa because they feared he would kill the witnesses against him and flee the country, according to court documents unsealed Friday.

The suspect, Richard Dale Wilson, described by police as “dangerous and violent,” pleaded not guilty Friday to the 1983 murder of Jeffrey Malloy Parker, 36, who was killed two days before he was to go to trial for killing Wilson’s fiancee, Joan McShane Mills, 33, a socially prominent San Francisco businesswoman.

“If Richard Wilson is not quickly taken into custody, we fear for the witnesses involved in the case,” Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Dennis Cost and Detective Dan Hogue wrote in an April 23 affidavit arguing that an Orange County grand jury indictment of Wilson should be kept secret.

After pursuing the case actively for the last year, the Costa Mesa officers wrote that “fear of Richard Wilson was a common denominator in the witnesses we have contacted.”

According to the affidavit, a San Francisco attorney questioned in the case said “four names had been mentioned as potential victims. . . .” According to investigators, the attorney said her client “was terrified and that her ‘knees turned to jelly.’ ”

Parker, who lived in Manhattan Beach, had been charged with killing the flamboyant Mills in a Beverly Hills hotel room after they had returned from a party and a night of drugs and sex.

Four months after Mills’ death, Parker was cut down outside his mother’s home in Costa Mesa. Initially, Costa Mesa police said Parker’s shooting looked like a professional assassination. The case was closed when investigative leads dried up.

Then in May, 1986, an anonymous telephone caller to police blamed Wilson for the murder and rekindled the investigation.

Feared He Might Flee

Last week, an Orange County Grand Jury returned a secret indictment. Police had said in their affidavit that there was a “strong likelihood that Richard Wilson will flee once he is aware of an indictment.” They feared he might flee to Europe.

On Friday, Wilson remained in custody on $250,000 bail.

Joan Mills was known as a successful, aggressive businesswoman. She was a partner in a fashion import business and had owned a public relations firm, an executive search service and was co-author of a book on women executives titled “Equal to the Task.”

She met Wilson in 1977, while she was married. After her divorce, Mills moved in with Wilson and led a somewhat cloistered life.

Wilson’s attorney, Joel W. Baruch of Newport Beach, said Wilson and Mills were engaged to be married. But Mills’ sister-in-law, A. J. McShane of San Francisco, said Friday that Mills had talked of breaking off the relationship.

The Mills family had little contact with Wilson, McShane said.

“She was secretive about her private life to her family,” McShane said. “Joan kept him from the family. They didn’t know the party girl side of her.”

McShane said her sister-in-law had purchased a $250,000 life insurance policy, with Wilson as the beneficiary, shortly before her death.

McShane recalled that Mills was troubled in the months before her death.

‘She Had Problems’

“She came over to the house and she wanted a straight vodka, and I thought that was kind of surprising,” McShane said. “That indicated to me that she had problems. But she wouldn’t tell the family her private life because I think they wouldn’t have approved. Her family was strait-laced, three generations San Francisco. She knew they wouldn’t approve of her behavior.”

In April, 1983, Mills and Anita Lococo, her business partner, traveled to Beverly Hills, where Mills took a room at the Beverly Crest Hotel, according to Beverly Hills police. She had met Parker at a bar April 30, and the two then went to a party, then to her room.

Parker was on probation at the time for battery of a West Los Angeles woman who was assaulted in 1981 after she ingested drugs he allegedly had supplied her. Parker also was facing trial on charges of possessing and furnishing cocaine in another case.

When police found Mills, Parker was in her room standing over her dead, badly bruised body. Officers quoted Parker as saying the two had engaged in drugs and sex, that Mills had collapsed and that he had tried to resuscitate her. Parker said he had been the one who called for help.

Following Mills’ death, investigators at the time said they had found “numerous instances of threats by Mr. Richard Wilson” directed at Parker and others, the Costa Mesa police said in the affidavit they prepared last month.

Threatened to Kill Him

“Wilson made threats to kill Jeffrey Parker or have him killed in front of several individuals,” the officers wrote.

The affidavit said San Francisco district attorney’s investigator Len Wollard was told by former Wilson employee Carolyn Ryan “that Wilson had gone to Europe after the death of Parker to make contact with a cocaine dealer named Alister Honeywell.”

According to the affidavit, Wollard’s investigation also found numerous threats allegedly made by Wilson against Mills’ friends and relatives.

After receiving the anonymous call that resulted in reopening the investigation, police interviewed a man they identified as Robert Hale, who eventually testified before the grand jury.

“He withheld considerable information that he had originally given us over the phone when he felt that we would be unable to identify him as the caller,” the investigators wrote.

In court Friday, Baruch referred to Hale and two other grand jury witnesses as Wilson’s relatives.

Cousin Threatened

Among specific threats allegedly made by Wilson was one against Anthony Sanchez-Corea of San Francisco, Joan Mills’ cousin.

“After Joan Mills’ death, Richard Wilson told Mr. Sanchez-Corea that they would be killed if they ever tried to interfere with Richard Wilson’s handling of Joan Mills’ funeral, or other matters,” the affidavit said.

According to the affidavit, in October, 1983, Anne Cummings, a San Francisco attorney, told Wollard that a client of hers had told her about death threats made by Wilson.

“She reported that Wilson wanted to seek revenge against persons for their actions subsequent to Joan Mills’ death,” the affidavit said. The client said “that four names had been mentioned as potential victims . .

Murphy is a San Francisco lawyer who represented the Mills family and Miller is Mills’ sister.

“This client indicated she was afraid for her safety and she was afraid that if any of the potential victims were warned that Wilson would assume that she warned them,” Cummings told the investigator.

Turned Himself In

When Wilson learned of his indictment, he turned himself in to Orange County authorities on Wednesday, accompanied by Baruch.

Baruch said the statements made by Wilson’s relatives 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’s attorney, Leonard Levine, said Friday that he is “overjoyed that the case is broken. I always believed he (Parker) was innocent of the charges filed against him. We could have proven the death of this young lady was an accident. . . .”

The initial coroner’s autopsy was consistent with Parker’s story that Mills had died from inadvertent injuries suffered when Parker tried to apply cardiopulmonary resuscitation. However, a subsequent report by the coroner’s office found that Mills had died from a brutal beating, Levine said.

Shot at Close Range

Levine said he had intended to prove during preliminary hearing that Mills’ death was accidental.

On Aug. 2, 1983, Parker was shot at close range in the chest and back of the head with a large-caliber handgun in front of his mother’s home on Aliso Avenue in Costa Mesa, where he was living.

Other than neighbors saying they saw a car driving away immediately after the sounds of gunfire, no physical clues or witnesses were found, police said.

Investigators said at the time that they suspected Parker of being a drug dealer and that the attack on him might have stemmed from drug dealings.

Marsh Goldstein, Parker’s prosecutor, said Friday that Wilson had attended Parker’s arraignment, and complained bitterly about Parker’s being released on $150,000 bail.

Said Mass for Sister

As news of Wilson’s arrest spread this week among those who knew the people touched by the crimes, it reached Mills’ brother, John B. McShane, a Catholic priest.

John McShane was 3,000 miles away saying Mass in New York City for his slain sister when, unknown to him, her former fiancee was been booked into Orange County jail.

“It was my sister’s anniversary of death yesterday,” McShane said Friday. “Being a priest, I offered my mass for her . . . “

McShane said Friday that he was surprised to learn of Wilson’s arrest but that “my sister’s anniversary was my concern. Yesterday I thought about her particularly.”