Rewards Are a Lure, but Few Come Forward : Law enforcement: Most cash offerings are never claimed. Fear of reprisal, among other factors, may play a role.

The brutal slayings of Hee Wan Yoo, his wife and two children in their Granada Hills home over two years ago left investigators struggling to solve a crime without suspects, witnesses or motives.

Hoping to generate leads, the Los Angeles City Council offered a $25,000 reward for information that would help solve the slayings. Although the reward was doubled by Yoo family relatives and then renewed last month after it expired, it has remained unclaimed. Concrete leads have yet to come in.

But unclaimed rewards are not unique. About 80% of the rewards offered by Los Angeles city and county officials over the past two years expired without being claimed, according to city and county records, begging the question: Why don’t rewards work more often?

Despite the low success rate, most law enforcement officials still believe in the concept, saying rewards provide a valuable incentive.

“We often have someone who is wavering about whether they want to share their information, and (rewards) are just an added incentive,” said Los Angeles Police Lt. Al Moen, head of the department’s major crimes division.

But some police and government officials say privately that rewards are not a reliable crime-fighting tool. Instead, they are seen as a tool of the politicians and a way for the grieving families to feel they are helping to solve the crime.

“Many times it means something to the family,” said one local homicide investigator. “They feel more is being done if a reward is being offered.”

Rewards have been a staple of the American justice system as far back as the 1800s, when posters pinned to saloon doors offered rewards for the capture of train robbers and cattle rustlers--dead or alive.

Today most rewards are offered by government agencies or relatives of the victims for particularly heinous crimes. Television has even gotten into the act with a slew of programs that re-enact crimes and offer rewards for callers with information.

Some reward programs, such as the city of Los Angeles’ graffiti reward program, are highly successful. Since 1991, the city’s program has paid out $85,500 in rewards to more than 100 people who have helped capture graffiti vandals.

But because such rewards are offered on an ongoing basis, it is difficult to compare their success rate with programs that offer rewards for a particular crime and for a limited time.

In the past 24 months, the Los Angeles City Council paid out 10 rewards, totaling $190,000, according to city records. But during the same period, 63 rewards, totaling $1.5 million, expired without being claimed, the records show.

Rewards offered by the county Board of Supervisors don’t fare much better. Five rewards, totaling $55,000, have been paid out by the county in the past two years, while 20 rewards, totaling about $206,000, expired without being collected, according to county records.

“For the most part, they are never claimed,” said Georgette Dame, a supervisor of the county reward program.

Rewards offered by the city normally expire 60 days after they are offered; county rewards expire after 90 days. But the rewards can be extended or renewed at the request of a county supervisor or City Council member.

Law enforcement officials say there are many explanations for the low collection rate of such rewards. The main reason, they say, may be that witnesses or other sources of information are afraid of reprisals if they call police.

Police say the best sources of information are often accomplices in a crime or friends and family of the criminals--people who have much to lose by providing police with information.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Frank Merriman said rewards often don’t work because “you are trying to entice the shady person, the associate of the criminal.”

Another reason may be that rewards are often only offered for the most difficult crimes to solve, such as murders. According to the most recent statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the percentage of homicides solved throughout the nation dropped from 90% in 1960 to 65% in 1992.

Gary Auer, head of the FBI’s office in Ventura County, said no amount of reward will help if no one has information about the crime except for the criminals themselves.

“It can be that a crime is committed by one or two people and they have kept their mouths shut,” he said.

Most often, Auer said, law-abiding citizens with information do call police, regardless of whether a reward is offered. He said the FBI gets dozens of tips daily on bank robberies but “not more than one in 20 asks if there is a reward.”

“Generally, we have not seen that rewards have been a significant motivating concern,” he said.

Another reason for the low success rate, law enforcement officials say, is that the news of the rewards may never get to the people most likely to have information.

Often the people with information on crimes seldom read newspapers or watch television news to learn about the rewards, said Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation, a research and support agency for law enforcement officials in Washington, D.C.

“If you were to go from bar to bar, for example, and passed around information, you would get better results,” he said.

When the Board of Supervisors or the City Council offers a reward, a small, standardized ad is placed in at least one local newspaper, but usually for only one day. One county official described the ads as “tiny . . . very small.”

On occasion, an elected official will issue a news release about the reward or will hold a press conference to generate more interest.

Recent rewards that were successful include $10,000 given last month by the county Board of Supervisors to a teen-age boy who helped authorities identify a woman who set a blaze during the April, 1992, riots.

In January, the supervisors paid out $12,500 each to two men who helped police identify the man who shot and killed Deputy Sheriff Nelson Yamamoto during a gun battle in Walnut Park.

And last week, police cracked a 2-year-old murder case of a Taft High School student who was attacked by a group of youths as he waited for a bus. A suspect was arrested after he began bragging that he committed the crime and that he had a $25,000 price on his head.

The $25,000 was a reward posted by the Los Angeles City Council shortly after the slaying.

In April, the Los Angeles City Council handed out a $25,000 reward to a person who provided information that resulted in a successful prosecution in the murder of 7-year-old Kanita Haily, who was gunned down in a drive-by shooting while playing baseball in the Imperial Courts housing project in Watts in 1989.

But for the most part, rewards go unclaimed. The list of crimes for which rewards are offered reads like an obituary listing for mothers, fathers, children, police officers and civic leaders whose lives ended in violence and mystery.

For example, county supervisors voted three times to renew a $10,000 reward for information on the slaying of Sheriff’s Sgt. George Arthur, who was shot and killed in 1985 as he left work at the Men’s Central Jail. The crime is still unsolved.

On Wednesday, City Councilman Hal Bernson asked the council to renew a $25,000 reward for information to help identify the killer of Laurie Myles, who was slain in September, 1993, as she headed to a Bible study class in Northridge to pick up her teen-age daughter.

Despite extensive publicity and an additional $7,500 in private contributions to the reward offer, Myles’ killer has yet to be found.

The murders of the Yoo family--Hee Wan Yoo, his wife, Gyung Jin, and their children Pauline, 6, and Kenneth, 4--generated a great deal of fear and puzzlement in the residential community of Granada Hills.

As recently as this month, investigators on the case held a news conference to urge the public for information to help solve the crime.

Cash for Information

Los Angeles city and county governments regularly offer cash rewards for information that can solve particularly troubling crimes. But the offers usually expire within two to three months. The following data for the past 24 months shows how many rewards were offered, how many were collected and how many expired without being collected.

Los Angeles City Council:

Rewards offered: 77; total: $1.7 million

Rewards collected: 10; total: $190,000

Rewards that have expired: 63; total: $1.5 million

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors:

Rewards offered: 28; total: $236,000

Rewards collected: 5; total: $55,000

Rewards that have expired (including some offered prior to May, 1991): 20; total: $206,000

Source: Los Angeles city clerk and county clerk of the board.