Murder Mystery Reopened

Nearly 15 years after Beth Field Silver was slain in her hillside home, prosecutors are again considering filing charges against the man who police have believed for more than a decade is responsible for her death.

Twice before, the Los Angeles district attorney’s office has refused to prosecute Michael Flores--although police say the convicted serial rapist has a distinct pattern that matches the slaying of Silver, a 26-year-old newlywed. Flores knew Silver, was apparently the last person seen with her, pawned what police said was her stolen jewelry and was found carrying the gun that ballistics tests show was the murder weapon.

But the district attorney’s office balked at filing charges, saying each time that the case was not strong enough.

Now prosecutors have decided to take a third look at the case, following Flores’ arrest last October on suspicion of killing another woman, strenuous lobbying by Silver’s father and a Times story detailing how Flores apparently slipped through cracks in the legal system. LAPD detectives on May 17 submitted a new file of evidence they believe justifies a murder prosecution.

“We’re not sure if there is going to be any change,” said Phil Wynn, head of the Van Nuys district attorney’s office, who asked detectives to resubmit the case after the Times report. “But we are indeed looking at it.”

That heartens George Field, a Malibu businessman who has spent much of the past two months lobbying the district attorney’s office to charge Flores with his daughter’s death. But he says he won’t be satisfied until charges are filed.

“This has been preying on our minds,” said Field, 71. “I want a final closure.”

“If they [the district attorney’s office] represent the people, and someone dropped the ball, it’s forgivable,” he added. “Why don’t they right it?”

On Oct. 2, 1981, Silver was found dead in her bedroom of a gunshot wound to the head. She was bound with a sweater and telephone cord and wore an open robe. Rape tests were inconclusive.

Police arrested an employee of her husband, but the suspect was acquitted of the killing by a Superior Court jury 18 months later. During the trial, the detectives--Bob Horowitz and Howard Landgren--discovered that another man, bearing a distinctive “Eddie” tattoo on his right biceps, had been seen with Silver hours before she died.

As the detectives tell it, they tracked down that tattooed suspect and identified him as Edward Perreira, a drifter from Brooklyn, N.Y., with a history of raping women bound in their own clothes and switching identities when necessary.

The investigators found Perreira serving time under the name Michael Flores in Folsom State Prison for a rape in San Mateo County. But, after losing the case against the first suspect arrested for Silver’s death, prosecutors would not bring a murder charge against Flores, the name Perreira has used since.

In 1993, Flores’ parole officer alerted the LAPD’s Van Nuys homicide detectives about the murder suspect’s imminent release from prison. Horowitz and Landgren had long since retired, but the current homicide squad dug out the file, reopened the investigation and again asked the district attorney to bring a murder charge.

But prosecutors once again refused to charge Flores. They said there were problems with the evidence--including the witness who said he saw Flores and Silver together the day of Silver’s death. The witness recalled the sighting only after being hypnotized, which was admissible in court at the time, but not now, prosecutors noted.

Flores was paroled. About two years later, he was arrested in San Mateo County on suspicion of killing Michelle Redmond, 29, by beating her with a hammer. He remains in custody on that murder charge, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

San Mateo County Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Foiles said a decision on whether to seek the death penalty against Flores will be made sometime after his preliminary hearing, scheduled for June.

Foiles said that even if no charges are lodged against Flores in the Sherman Oaks case, he could introduce the Sherman Oaks case as evidence in the upcoming San Mateo trial.

Flores’ criminal record, which stretches from New York to Florida to Los Angeles, establishes a pattern of assaults on women which could link him to the Redmond killing, Foiles said.

He is especially interested in the Los Angeles case, Foiles said, because, “We could use that in a penalty phase”--the portion of a trial following a conviction, at which the jury decides whether to sentence the defendant to death or life in prison. With the looser rules of evidence that apply once guilt has been established, he could introduce the LAPD’s case linking Flores to the Silver slaying to show a history of violent criminality, Foiles said.

The file now before prosecutors in Van Nuys contains little new information on the killing, LAPD Det. Stephen Fisk said. Instead, detectives tried to elaborate the existing case against Flores, who is now 41.

“I think it’s a very good case, and I think the right man is in custody,” Fisk said. “I would like to see justice done.”

Wynn said he may ask for additional police evidence and that a decision will take some time.

With a murder trial pending, he noted, “We know he is not going anywhere.”

But Field and his wife, Donovan--Silver’s stepmother--say it’s taken long enough.

“The [system] failed us 15 years ago,” Donovan Field said. “It failed us in ’93. We just don’t want it to fail again.”

The Fields are trying to find their daughter’s old friends to help dig up new evidence and pressure the district attorney’s office into charging Flores. They also think that with an election runoff against a challenger looming, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti should take a special interest in the case.

“I think it’s a good issue,” Donovan Field said. “People could say, ‘He’s such a wonderful man, he’s helping this family get justice for their daughter.’ ”