Detectives Used to High Profile, High Pressure

Detectives Philip L. Vannatter and Tom Lange have slipped comfortably into the witness stand in the O.J. Simpson case, appearing unflappable, hardened and a bit nonchalant--as though they’ve been through all this before.

And they have.

Vannatter and Lange, the lead detectives in the Simpson case, have a combined 51 years of police experience and have investigated as many as 500 homicide cases--from gang shootings to serial killings. Most of those years have been spent in the specialized robbery-homicide division, where the city’s most high-profile cases land.

The Robert Kennedy assassination. The Hillside Strangler case. The Night Stalker killings. Any case that involves prominent people, multiple victims or is particularly sensitive will most likely be transferred from the local police station to the detectives at Parker Center headquarters.

Detectives there must be able to build airtight cases, sometimes with an anxious public watching over their shoulder, then defend them during intense cross-examination by some of the most skilled defense attorneys.

“They are the best of the best,” one retired detective said of the robbery-homicide squad. “Someone just doesn’t join robbery-homicide. It takes years to get there. You need experience and a high clearance rate.”

Detectives also need the stomach to immerse themselves in the goriest of crimes, and the doggedness to sometimes pursue a whodunit for years.

“They have to ask why all the time and not let go of an investigation,” said Capt. William O. Gartland, a 39-year veteran who is the commanding officer of robbery-homicide. “You never become used to all the blood. You face it constantly and build up defense mechanisms but, in that way, we’re just like everybody else.”

The jobs in robbery-homicide are highly coveted. The LAPD seeks candidates who are meticulous, well-spoken and have proven over the years that they are not easily frazzled.

“We deal with the loss of life--whether it’s a drive-by shooting or a serial killing,” Gartland said. “That means there are certain pressures. You have the pressures of finding the suspect and putting all the facts together. Then in a case like this, you have the pressure of the press watching every move you make.”

That pressure--combined with the long and unpredictable hours--has ruined many marriages in the unit, officers say.

“You have to give up a normal family life and be a very intense person,” said a former detective. “It’s not everybody’s cup of tea.”

The division was created to free up detectives in the outlying police stations and focus on cases that cross divisional boundaries, such as serial killings. It was made famous in later episodes of television’s “Dragnet.” Sgt. Joe Friday, whose trademark line was “Just the facts, ma’am,” would introduce himself as a member of robbery-homicide.

There are 75 investigators in “RHD,” as the division is known, and a dozen of them specialize in homicides. The others handle cases ranging from officer-involved shootings and bank robberies to serial rapes and the protection of heads of state.

The robbery-homicide division is frequently described as an elite unit.

But attorney Stephen Yagman, an outspoken critic of the LAPD, says he has not been impressed.

“There are so many units of the LAPD that are billed as elite units that the word is a self-stroking word,” Yagman said. “It seems that the word ‘elite’ is used by the LAPD to describe all units that are not patrol. It has nothing to do with excellence.”

Yagman criticized the officer-involved shooting section, where Vannatter used to work, for consistently supporting officers’ versions of events. And he said he once unsuccessfully sued Vannatter and other detectives for an incident in the mid-1980s in which they pursued Yagman’s private investigator in a high-speed chase to issue a subpoena.

Others, however, praised Vannatter, a grandfather who is known as Dutch among friends and who enjoys horseback riding near his Santa Clarita home.

“He’s one of the few people I’ve ever called a super-cop,” said one 25-year veteran who has worked with Vannatter. “He’s very thorough and very conscientious--and he’s very strong.”

One colleague describes him as a bear of a man who once kicked in a door while arresting a robbery suspect on the Westside and knocked the door off the hinges. When Vannatter worked as a detective in Venice in the 1970s, he would have contests with co-workers to see how long they could hold a sledgehammer outstretched in front of them with one arm.

Vannatter has shown his feisty side, getting testy at times during some of Shapiro’s questioning on Wednesday. In seeking to show that Vannatter illegally entered Simpson’s property to seize evidence, Shapiro questioned every detail of his account of events. But the detective stood firm, and on Thursday, Municipal Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell ruled that the police had acted appropriately.

Lange, on the other hand, has projected a more unassuming quality on the witness stand. Bald with wire-rimmed glasses, he has played the humble cop.

When asked by Shapiro on Thursday if he is an expert in homicide investigations, he replied: “I guess that’s open to interpretation.”

What do his colleagues think of his work? “You’ll have to ask them,” he said.

Vannatter and Lange have been teamed up for the last four years. In addition to the Simpson case, they are currently handling the case of a Culver City police sergeant accused of murdering his wife and the 1982 murder of actor Frank Christi.

“I don’t know if they are considered the best at the LAPD, but I do know that they are aggressive, tenacious and experienced,” said Joel Isaacson, a criminal defense attorney who has two pending murder cases that the pair is investigating. “They don’t take no for an answer.”

It was about 3 a.m. on June 13 when Vannatter and Lange were rousted from their beds to investigate the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Hours before that call was made, the detectives from the West Los Angeles division had already arrived at the scene, surrounded it with police tape and begun the search for clues.

But the fact that two people were dead and one of them was the ex-wife of O.J. Simpson made this murder a good candidate for robbery-homicide.

First, Capt. Gartland was awakened at home by the detective on the scene.

After Gartland decided to take the case, he called the lieutenant in charge of the unit’s homicide section, who in turn called Vannatter and Lange.

It was the luck of the draw that won them the case. The pair was on call that weekend and was scheduled to receive whatever murder came along next.

The fact that robbery-homicide takes over jurisdiction of cases from the police divisions sometimes creates some hard feelings among divisional detectives trying to work their way up the chain of command themselves.

“It’s a human emotion,” one former robbery-homicide detective said. “A big case comes along, you want it. You don’t want some hotshot coming in from outside.”