Wife Testifies That She Paid Ex-Officers to Kill Husband

A Canoga Park woman testified Thursday that two Los Angeles police officers agreed to kill her ex-husband for $20,000, with one of them vowing: “They’re never going to find him.”

Janie E. Ogilvie, 45, identified Robert Anthony Von Villas and Richard Herman Ford as the men who came to her home in January, 1983, after she told a friend she wanted to hire someone to kill her ex-husband, Thomas Weed.

“We can help you with the problem. We can take care of this guy for you,” Ogilvie quoted Von Villas as saying. Von Villas said “taking care” of Weed would cost between $8,500 and $35,000, but later agreed to do it for $20,000 when Ogilvie said that was all the money she had, she testified.

Ogilvie’s testimony in the Van Nuys Superior Court trial of the two former police officers came five years to the day after they were arrested on suspicion of murdering Weed, 52, who disappeared from his Northridge apartment Feb. 23, 1983. Prosecutors allege that the two men killed Weed and buried him in the desert.

If convicted, Ford, 47, and Von Villas, 44, could be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Ogilvie, the key prosecution witness, said she sought the hit man after a series of physical and verbal altercations with Weed, with whom she owned and operated a Northridge allergy-testing clinic.

Under questioning from Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert P. O’Neill, Ogilvie accused Weed, a former debt collector, of stealing funds from the clinic.

In October, 1982, Weed was arrested after he struck her in the chest, kicked her and shut the door on her arm, she said. Two months later, she complained bitterly about Weed to several employees.

One of them, Julie Rabold, advised her to hire a hit man and said she knew someone to do the job, Ogilvie testified. Soon after, Rabold’s mother, Joyce Reynolds, with whom Ogilvie also was friendly, made a similar offer, Ogilvie said.

She testified that Reynolds then said “Bob” would call and would use the name “Mr. Ory.”

Ford and Von Villas unexpectedly showed up at her home one night in January, 1983, wearing wigs and makeup, Ogilvie testified.

Von Villas, identifying himself only as “Vic,” said he and the other man were police officers and told her to get in touch with Reynolds if she wanted to “do something” about her husband, whom she was in the process of divorcing, Ogilvie testified. Ogilvie said she called Reynolds two weeks later. The next night, a man identifying himself as Mr. Ory called and asked for a description of Weed and his car and for his address and schedule, Ogilvie said.

“He said he’d have to find out how difficult it would be to take care of him and he’d get back to me with a price,” she said. A few days later, the man called back and directed Ogilvie to take $7,500 as a first installment and push it through the open window of a burgundy car parked behind a gas station at Roscoe and Reseda boulevards, she said. The bills were to be in $50 and $100 denominations, and she paid as instructed, she testified.

“I asked, ‘What’s going to happen to him?’ ” Ogilvie testified. “He said ‘They’re never going to find him. Let’s just say there’s a lot of desert between here and Las Vegas,’ ” Ogilvie said.

Ogilvie, who originally faced charges of murder that could have brought her the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole, was allowed to plead guilty to the lesser offense of second-degree murder because of her cooperation with prosecutors.

Rabold was given immunity from prosecution in return for her agreement to testify against the former officers.

In exchange for her testimony, Reynolds, who had been charged with murder, was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of helping to solicit murder. She has been guaranteed probation.