Pieces of Puzzle Fell Together in Triple Execution

The legal journey that could lead Greg Sturm to the gas chamber started with a tip that was ominous in its overtones: The 20-year-old man borrowed a .38 Special from a friend and, just hours after three of his former co-workers were found shot to death in an auto parts store last week, returned it--fired and wiped clean.

Investigators moved quickly. From there, according to an 89-page police report that gives intricate details of one of Tustin’s worst killings, the pieces seemed to fit together.

Eyewitness descriptions of a man at the store just before the killings appeared to match Sturm. A fingerprint from Sturm was found at the scene. An alibi about a Mel Gibson movie was contradicted by the suspect’s girlfriend. And Sturm’s own statement to police was described by them as “incriminating.”

“Based on all the evidence,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis R. Rosenblum said Monday, “we think we have our man.”

Sturm is due to be arraigned Sept. 7 in Santa Ana on three counts of murder, plus additional charges of robbery and burglary. In the meantime, he is being held in Orange County Jail, accused of a crime that his own lawyer says appears at face value to be as confused as it was brutal.

Deputy Public Defender William G. Kelley said Monday that he has not yet seen police reports on the case or the “incriminating statements” that police say Sturm made around the time of his arrest last Thursday.

But pointing to police claims that Sturm robbed a store where he was easily recognized by former co-workers, Kelley said: “If this is true, it was a very unsophisticated crime.”

Authorities said they believe that Sturm never intended to let the witnesses to his robbery live to tell about it.

“This is a clear robbery-homicide,” Rosenblum said in an interview. “Sturm didn’t want to leave any witnesses, so he executed them.”

Killed in the Aug. 19 robbery at the Super Shops store were employees Chad Chadwick, 22, of Orange; Darrell Esgar, 22, of Huntington Beach, and Russel B. Williams, 21, of Seal Beach. Each was bound and shot in the head at close range. The assailant also took about $1,100 from a safe.

Described by a manager as a “hothead” and a cocaine addict, Sturm had worked with all three victims until early August, when he was fired on suspicion of theft, tardiness, and other work problems, according to the police report.

But by his own admission, he was back on the day of the killings, according to the police report.

Sturm told investigators that he stopped by the store around 5:30 p.m. that day and talked briefly with Esgar, then went to see a Mel Gibson movie with his live-in girlfriend, an assertion that she would later unwittingly contradict when questioned by investigators.

Police didn’t have to look far to talk with Sturm the day after the murders: He returned to the scene with another Super Shop employee who wanted to “say a prayer for the victims,” according to the police report.

Sturm was released after being brought into the police station for an interview, but the police report indicates that evidence quickly began to mount against him.

Working on a tip from John Orr, a police reserve officer, Tustin investigators talked to a Super Shops salesman who said he had loaned a roommate’s Taurus .38-caliber revolver to Sturm on the day of the killings and had gotten it back the next day.

Investigators said the salesman, Rick LaBare, one of two employees to discover the bodies, told them that the gun was clean when he loaned it to Sturm. LaBare said that he hadn’t cleaned the gun since he got it back and that it was now dirty as though it had been fired. However, there were no fingerprints on the gun, police said.

Orange County Sheriff’s Department lab tests later concluded that the .38-caliber slugs recovered from the victims were fired from the borrowed gun, the police report said.

LaBare said in an interview that Sturm told him that he wanted to borrow the gun for target practice. He said he considered Sturm a friend. “That’s what makes this even worse, thinking he could do something like this,” LaBare said.

In a search last Wednesday of the Tustin apartment that Sturm shared with his girlfriend, Renee Dusseau, police recovered a yellow, blood-stained Super Shops shirt. They also seized a large batch of coins that investigators believe was among the rolled-up coins that the assailant took from the store, according to the report.

Dusseau told investigators that she last spoke to Sturm by phone on Wednesday, informing him that police wanted to talk to him.

According to police reports, Sturm fled to a friend’s house in Riverside and was discovered Thursday morning by Dusseau’s father, sleeping in the back yard. He was questioned by investigators and later booked on suspicion of murder, robbery and burglary.

Times staff writer Jerry Hicks contributed to this report.