Portraits of the Human Toll of Homicides

By RICH CONNELL and VICTOR MERINA

Dec. 7, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The mother was reluctant to let her daughter go. But after listening to the pleas of her daughter’s companions, she told the 13-year-old she could attend a friend’s quinceanera--if she returned in an hour, after having some birthday cake.

Claudia Urrutia never got that far.

As friends drove her to the party, a bullet crashed through the car’s rear window and lodged in her head. The teenager died in surgery--one of 32 people slain in Los Angeles County during a single week.

The year was 1994. The Dodgers were in first place and preparing to go on strike. Local bus drivers were embroiled in their own walkout. O.J. Simpson was in jail. And Los Angeles was turning the corner to the peak, hot weather murder season.

The death toll--from July 31 through Aug. 6--was grimly typical, capturing the modern face and pace of murder in America’s most populous and heterogenous county.

On average, someone died in a willful homicide every five hours--very close to the rate in recent years. The slayings were scattered from the desert town of Lancaster to the coastal city of Long Beach.

But like Claudia, most victims were concentrated--as they usually are--in a vast urban killing field stretching from the poor neighborhoods near Hollywood through immigrant tenements of Westlake and Pico-Union to the impoverished single-family residential neighborhoods of South Los Angeles.

No arrests were made in nearly half the cases. A fifth of the cases where suspects were apprehended ended in the release of suspects, dismissals or acquittals. In other words, killers were not punished in about two-thirds of the slayings, mirroring what The Times found in a study of homicides from 1990 through 1994.

During that week, most of the victims were Latino and black males. Gang members were blamed for nearly half of the slayings, while nearly a third of the homicides resulted from arguments and brawls. More than two-thirds of the deaths took place outdoors or on the street. The deadliest periods were weekends between dusk and dawn.

Although the homicides can be cloaked in cold statistics, those numbers only hint at the tragedy of the county’s murder toll, the anguish of a victim’s family and friends. Some are still waiting for one case to wend its way through the legal system; others have little hope of the killers being caught.

“We tend to forget how much impact there is when someone is murdered,” said Sheriff’s Det. Sgt. Joe Purcell. “The effect of murder ripples and goes far beyond what you first believe, the lives it affects. In fact, it tears a little bit out of our society.”

Purcell, a homicide investigator, worked for more than two years to solve a slaying from that week in 1994. He recently asked prosecutors to file charges against a suspect in the death of Richard Truong. But many other detectives have been unable to make arrests.

In the span of a few hours, a young man in Los Angeles, another in East L.A. and a 15-year-old boy in Gardena were gunned down in separate incidents--slayings that remain unsolved.

Later in that week, an 18-year-old driver was shot--allegedly by gang members--as he paused at a stop sign in Bell. His assailants have never been found either.

A Parent’s Crusade

Carol Bien is on the line every week from Chicago, pushing, prodding--a self-described thorn in the side of the North Hollywood detectives investigating her son’s death. She knows her boy’s killer roams free. And she fears how easily the slaying of 28-year-old John Black, a floor installer who moved here to be near his children, could settle in the vast morass of Los Angeles’ unsolved homicide cases.

“We are not going to let this go,” said Bien, a publishing company employee. “It’s statistics to [police]. If it’s not an easy catch, I think they just put it on the back burner.”

So Bien continues to stir the case, trying to generate new leads and sustain police interest. She peppers detectives with long-distance suggestions, including stakeouts that might nab the elusive suspect--an ex-boyfriend of a woman Black befriended.

The killing was largely ignored by local media. But Bien’s persistence led to an “America’s Most Wanted” television series segment--one that dramatized the San Fernando Valley car chase in which the infuriated ex-boyfriend allegedly shot Bien’s son in the back of the head.

Bien’s crusade has kept the case alive for more than two years, detectives say. “All the credit’s to [her],” said LAPD Det. Mike Coffey. “She just doesn’t accept no for an answer.”

A warrant has been issued for 28-year-old Marco Antonio Radillo, who investigators believe moves between friends and relatives in Los Angeles, San Diego and Mexico. With the help of cross-country truckers, Bien has distributed tens of thousands of fliers with Radillo’s picture along the border.

“I can’t see how this guy can go [free] like this,” said Bien, who is planning a trip to hand out fliers in Mexico. “I’m 2,000 miles away. If I was in California, I would be sitting in that [detective] office every day.”

A Puzzling Investigation

The daybreak shooting of factory worker Luis Olivo outside his Compton residence came in a misty blanket of morning low clouds. The probe of the killing seems to have proceeded in a fog of miscommunication.

All along, Compton Det. Stone Jackson, the lead detective on the case, had the impression that there was only one, vague description of the gunman: a lone, 6-foot black man on foot. Police theorized that the attacker intended to rob 56-year-old Olivo and his brother-in-law as they emerged from the family home to head for work.

But Alberto De La Mora, the brother-in-law who survived the attack and says he caught a glimpse of the man, maintains that the intruder never demanded anything, was Latino, spoke Spanish and had an accomplice. He also describes in some detail a car used by the suspects.

“I’m sure it was not a black man,” insisted De La Mora, 50, who said he gave his account to a Spanish-speaking Compton detective after leaving the hospital, but never heard more.

Three months and numerous phone calls after the killing, frustrated family members wrote Compton City Council members to complain that the “very minimum” was being done on the case. They said they felt “very disregarded.” They received no reply and gave up inquiring, they say.

Given the intense demands on their time and limited information they had in the Olivo case, investigators did the best they could, said detective Jackson. He noted that the lone-black description came from Olivo’s sister, who was in the frontyard at the time of the shooting. Family members now say the sister was distraught and did not have a clear view of the gunman.

Jackson, who does not speak Spanish, said he was unaware of the details De La Mora had to offer until a reporter inquired. He also did not know that a Spanish-speaking detective, who assisted on the case, had been given identities of possible suspects. Jackson did not know that the other detective had interviewed the witnesses several months after the slaying.

Olivo’s relatives, who moved from Compton after the shootings, have largely abandoned hope that the case will be solved. Fearing that the mysterious gunman will return, they asked that their whereabouts not be disclosed.

“I don’t know if it would have made a difference,” said Gloria Borja, Olivo’s niece. “[But] I feel sorry [the detectives] were following the wrong leads.”

A Gang Case Lost

As gang murder investigations generally go, the midday, double homicide on Willow Avenue in Compton seemed to offer a rich vein of witnesses and leads.

Nearly a dozen people saw the bloody attack, which left reported gang member Benjamin Rodriguez and bystander Juan Vega dead, as well as a third man wounded. One witness said the fleeing gunman was shot, leading detectives to a rival gang associate who was treated for a pistol wound at a nearby hospital.

The case looked better yet when the 21-year-old gang member was picked from photographs by two witnesses, including a woman who said, “I’ll never forget his face.”

But months later, the case was dismissed by Compton prosecutors, having dissolved into a mush of contradictory witness identifications.

“It was like taking a handful of spaghetti and throwing it against the wall,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Janet Moore, who made the decision to drop the case after the accused man spent nine months in jail.

The woman who would never forget the suspect’s face picked two other men during a lineup. Other witnesses either couldn’t identify the suspect or picked the wrong men. Two witnesses did identify him at the lineup, although one had wavered.

Deputy Public Defender Carol Telfer insisted that prosecutors had the wrong man, and gathered witness statements, as well as circumstantial evidence, to bolster her client’s alibi. Amid cutbacks and reassignments in the district attorney’s office, the case was passed among four prosecutors. Telfer complained that no one at the district attorney’s office would focus on the weaknesses of the case.

Prosecutor Moore said the shuffling of the case was a problem, but insists that it did not add materially to delays and difficulties.

Both sides agree that the tortured trail of the case underscores the pitfalls of growing numbers of witness-dependent, gang-related street killings seen in the Compton courthouse and elsewhere.

“Every witness had a different perspective, [and] finding consistency was problematic,” Moore said. “That’s not unusual.”

An Innocent’s Death

Why did Claudia Urrutia die? According to the LAPD, it was a tragedy of timing.

Homicide detectives concluded that the teenager was shot on her way to her friend’s 15th birthday celebration because she was in a car targeted by gang members. The burgundy Buick Regal that picked up Claudia in her neighborhood near Koreatown resembled a sedan used hours earlier in a separate drive-up killing of a gang member on her block. When Claudia and her friends happened by, an 18th Street gang member opened fire.

Claudia and her Salvadoran family had tried to steer clear of the knot of gangsters down the block. “She was just an innocent victim,” said LAPD Det. Ricky Ramos. “She had no affiliation with them at all.”

Police have no suspects in the killing that led to the retaliatory shooting. Claudia’s killer, 19-year-old Jose Alvarez, was convicted of second-degree murder after admitting at his trial that he shot at the car carrying Claudia. Although the earlier shooting had left him fearful, the gang member said, he felt an obligation to be with his homeboys that night.

In a memorial tribute to Claudia in the Virgil Middle School yearbook, a classmate wrote: “Claudia Urrutia was more than a friend to us all. . . . No one will ever forget her. May she rest in peace.”

ON THE WEB: This series, complete with graphics and photos, will be available Monday on The Times’ World Wide Web site: www.latimes.com/homicide

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About This Series

Sunday: A System Overwhelmed

With almost 2,000 homicides a year in Los Angeles County, the criminal justice system is overwhelmed. Charges are filed in only one in two cases, and someone is convicted in one in three.

Monday: Police Battle Odds

Homicide detectives face mounting obstacles, including scant physical evidence and deteriorating support services. From crime scenes to crime labs, they struggle with limited resources.

Tuesday: The Role of Race

Justice is not always even-handed: Harshest punishments go to killers of whites and Asians, and in publicized cases. Police agency and courthouse make a difference, too.

Wednesday: Wrongly Accused

Innocent people are wrongly arrested and charged with murder. Some are jailed for weeks and months, often because of shoddy police work.

Thursday: Toughest Cases of All

Gangster killers roam the streets because intimidation and witness killings make gang slayings toughest to solve. Terrorism forces adjustments, from station houses to courthouses.

Today: A Question of Truth

When cases are haunted by allegations of police misconduct, questions often linger about whether the actions were intentional or were innocent mistakes.

Today: A Week of Tragedy

In a typical week, 32 people were slain in the county. Who were they? How and why were they killed? Where and when were the killings? And what has happened since?

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L.A. COUNTY / Portrait of Murder

Almost nine in 10 homicide victims in Los Angeles County were minorities, and the murder rate was highest among black males, according to a Times study of willful homicides from 1990 through 1994. More than half of all slayings occurred outdoors, a reversal from past decades. Gang activity and arguments were the most frequent precipitating events.

Chances of Becoming a Victim

Black male adults were killed at an annual rate that translates to one out of 650. They were more than twice as likely to be victimized as Latino males, and nearly 15 times more likely to be killed than white and Asian males. Among females, blacks were killed most frequently.

Annual homicides per 100,000 people

White male: 11

White female: 4

Black male: 154

Black female: 23

Latino male: 62

Latino female: 6

Asian male: 14

Asian female: 4

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Who the Victims Are

Stranger: 26%

Friend/acquaintance: 25%

Relationship undetermined: 29%

Gang member: 12%

Family/spouse/partner: 8%

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Why It Happens

Gang related: 39%

Arguments/brawls: 23%

Robbery: 9%

Drugs: 5%

Domestic: 4%

Undetermined: 13%

Other: 7%

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Where It Happens

Street/outdoors: 55%

Any residence: 26%

Vehicle: 11%

Business: 7%

Schools: 0.3%

Other: 0.6%

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Victims by Race or Ethnic Group

Latino: 48.8%

Black: 33.9%

White: 13.1%

Asian: 3.9%

Other: 0.3%

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Who Kills Whom

Most victims were killed by someone of their own race. This was especially true among blacks and Latinos. Whites and Asians had a lower likelihood of being killed by someone of their own race.

ASIAN VICTIMS

Asian: 44%

Latino: 29%

Black: 22%

White: 5%

BLACK VICTIMS

Black: 87%

Latino: 11%

White: 2%

Asian: 0.2%

LATINO VICTIMS

Latino: 80%