Parole Urged for Ex-Officer Guilty of Youth’s Murder

A former San Gabriel police officer, who argued that his murder conviction 13 years ago was the result of perjured testimony from jailhouse informants, has been recommended for parole and could be freed within 60 days, prison officials said.

Billy Joe McIlvain, 46, who was convicted of abducting and executing a teen-age gang member in 1977, was approved for release following a hearing late last week. It was his sixth appearance before the state Board of Prison Terms since he became eligible for parole in 1983.

“I’ve been up for three days straight,” McIlvain said in a telephone interview Monday from the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad. “I’ve been afraid to wake up and find it was all a dream.”

Before McIlvain can be released, the board’s recommendation must undergo a review by other state prison officials and the governor. They could block his parole but those involved in the case said that was unlikely.

McIlvain’s lawyers believe his claims of innocence were bolstered by a grand jury report last summer that sharply criticized the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office for tolerating suspected perjury from informants.

Although the report does not name McIlvain, it deals extensively with the testimony of Leslie Vernon White, an informant who contended that a fellow snitch confessed to him that he lied at McIlvain’s trial.

“With that report, McIlvain is suddenly no longer this voice crying out in the wilderness . . . but a person who very possibly might have been a victim of a miscarriage of justice,” said his attorney, John J. Reed.

Parole board members, who interrupted their deliberations at one point to request a copy of the grand jury’s findings, would say only that the report was considered.

“Everything is relevant,” said David E. Brown, chairman of the three-member parole panel. “It was considered, like a lot of other information that was submitted.”

The original prosecutor, who has traveled 300 miles up the California coast to argue against McIlvain’s release at each hearing, accused the parole board of re-litigating a case that has already been decided.

“The evidence in this case was overwhelming and for them to set themselves up as some super appellate court is not the best way to operate,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. John F. Hayes. “The crime was a bizarre one . . . and I didn’t think 13 years was nearly enough.”

McIlvain, who is still fighting for a new trial in hopes of clearing his name, has contended from the beginning that he was a dedicated patrolman who became the target of gang attacks because of his crime-busting exploits.

His last stand occurred Feb. 28, 1977. As he was driving home, McIlvain said, 18-year-old, shotgun-wielding David Dominguez, known to friends as “Lil’ Loco,” pulled alongside him and demanded that he pull over.

After driving around for several hours, they ended up at McIlvain’s West Covina home, where, the former officer said, Dominguez held him hostage for two hours while firing at a SWAT team outside. When the gun was turned on him, McIlvain said, he pulled a .357-magnum pistol concealed in his boot and shot Dominguez in the chest.

Detectives, who arrested McIlvain minutes later, decided that he had staged the incident. They were troubled by the fact that blood spattered on the walls and on Dominguez already appeared to be dry. Earlier that morning, Dominguez’s family had filed a report of him being falsely arrested by a San Gabriel officer.

During the trial, prosecutors described McIlvain as a spotlight-hungry vigilante. They called him “Crazy Hutch,” a reference to his hero in the 1970s TV series, “Starsky and Hutch,” whose name was emblazoned on his belt.

“This man is sick,” said Josie Escarcega, Dominguez’s mother, in an interview Monday. “I hope (the memory of) David torments him and never lets him live in peace.”

McIlvain, who remarried in 1987 after his first wife filed for divorce, said peace is all he wants.

He said he has several job offers awaiting him, including invitations to be a deputy sheriff in South Carolina, to represent a bullet-proof vest company and to work on a film production crew with newly found confidant David Soul, the actor who played Hutch.

“I just want to cleanse myself of this prison and start a new life,” he said. “I can see that big huge light at the end of the tunnel now.”