Raymond Cameron, Top Criminal Investigator, Dies

Raymond M. Cameron, who combined a police officer’s passion for solving crimes with a doctorate in psychology and built a reputation as one of the state’s foremost criminal investigators, has died. He was 57.

Cameron, who became the first forensic psychologist in California on a prosecution payroll, died Monday at his home in San Diego of complications from lung cancer.

An expert in murder cases involving the defense of mental capacity or sanity and in death penalty cases involving sensitive questions of jury selection, Cameron helped San Diego prosecutors convict killers Robert Alton Harris, Bernard Hamilton, Joselito Cinco and David Allen Lucas, among others, of murder.

“Outside my immediate family, he was my best friend,” said Richard D. Huffman, a former prosecutor and now a judge on the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego. “It’s a terrible loss, personally and professionally.”

Before coming to San Diego, Cameron worked for 10 years as a police officer in San Leandro, where he was assigned to the vice squad, and for five years in San Francisco as a special agent of the state Department of Justice, where he specialized in investigations of organized crime.

He moved to San Diego in 1973. While working as a district attorney’s investigator, he earned his doctorate in clinical psychology and began to specialize in crimes involving issues of mental capacity or cases involving jury selection.

Dist. Atty. Edwin L. Miller Jr., who called Cameron an “invaluable resource,” appointed him “forensic consultant,” a role designed to expand the influence of psychologists in the selection of juries. “He was the forerunner,” Miller said Tuesday.

Cameron’s first high-profile case as a consultant was Harris’ 1978-79 double murder trial. Huffman prosecuted Harris, who was convicted of killing two Mira Mesa teen-age boys. Harris was executed last April, the first prisoner put to death in California in 25 years.

As his reputation grew, Cameron was retained as a consultant by prosecutors up and down California and in Arizona, Florida and Hawaii.

He also did extensive consulting work on civil lawsuits and maintained a private practice as a therapist, Huffman said.

Cameron retired from the district attorney’s office about two years ago.

He is survived by his wife, June; two sons, Raymond of San Diego and Chris of El Cajon, and one grandchild.

A memorial service is set for Thursday at First Lutheran Church in El Cajon.