Kill-for-Pay Trial : Ex-Officer Wore Disguises to Hunt Rapist, Wife Says

The wife of a former Los Angeles police officer accused of a contract killing testified Thursday that her husband frequently went out disguised in wigs and makeup to search for a man who beat, robbed and raped her on the RTD bus she drove.

Lillian Ford’s testimony provided the defense with an alternative explanation why evidence of those disguises was found at the home she shared with Richard Herman Ford.

A key prosecution witness testified earlier in the trial that Richard Ford and co-defendant Robert Von Villas came to her house disguised in wigs and makeup and offered to kill the woman’s ex-husband shortly before he disappeared on Feb. 23, 1983.

The man, Thomas Weed, 52, of Northridge, has never been found, and Ford, 48, and Von Villas, 44, are being tried before separate juries in Van Nuys Superior Court for his murder.

Face Death Penalty

Authorities contend that the two officers murdered him and buried his body in the desert. They face the death penalty if convicted.

Testifying during the defense portion of her husband’s trial, Lillian Ford said she asked her husband to personally search for her attacker after the Police Department failed to arrest a suspect in the brutal 1980 attack. No one was ever arrested.

Ford subsequently made repeated trips to Hollywood to search for the rapist, wearing a wig, fake beard and makeup as disguise, she said.

Under questioning from defense attorney Rickard Santwier, Lillian Ford quietly said she has received psychiatric counseling since the attack, which she said became an obsession that destroyed her relationship with her husband. She said she blamed her husband for the Police Department’s failure to find her attacker.

Prosecution witness Janie E. Ogilvie testified earlier that the two officers came to her house wearing disguises and offered to kill Weed, her former husband, for $20,000.

According to evidence introduced at the trial, police found wigs and cosmetics when they served a search warrant at Ford’s Northridge home in December, 1983. A makeup artist testified earlier that Ford and Von Villas came to him shortly before Weed disappeared seeking advice about applying makeup.

Weed References Denied

In other testimony Thursday, Lillian Ford denied that her husband was referring to Weed in comments he made to her during a jailhouse conversation that was secretly recorded by police. In that conversation, Ford said, “There’s no way to tie me to it. What worries me is the shotgun and shells. There’s no body.”

The recording, made as Ford and his wife talked over visiting room telephones at the County Jail on Dec. 20, 1983, was introduced as evidence last week by Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert P. O’Neill. The prosecutor contends the couple were discussing Weed’s murder, but a malfunction in the jail phone system made Lillian Ford’s side of the conversation mostly unintelligible.

The conversation occurred shortly after police had searched Ford’s home seeking evidence linking him to Weed’s disappearance.

Lillian Ford said her husband feared police were seeking to frame him for Weed’s murder.

Foreshadowing an apparent Ford defense strategy to blame the murder on Robert Von Villas, Lillian Ford testified several times that she asked “if Bob had done it” or was involved.

“I asked him, ‘You don’t think Bob would try to incriminate you, do you?’ ” she said.