Investigator in Missing-Girl Case Dies in Crash

The sad case of a missing Culver City girl took a tragic turn when a prominent Los Angeles private detective searching for her in Georgia was killed in a car crash, authorities said Saturday.

Investigator Ted Woolsey, 60, of Altadena died late Wednesday when his rental car smashed into a concrete median divider and flipped over, officials in Augusta, Ga., said.

Woolsey--a veteran private investigator who worked on some of Los Angeles’ highest-profile murder cases--was in Georgia searching for clues to the disappearance of 13-year-old Ariane Miyasaki, who vanished almost 15 months ago.

He was working for the girl’s father, UCLA dentistry professor Ken Miyasaki, who has alleged that Culver City police botched their investigation of the case and failed to interview two key witnesses to his daughter’s Jan. 5, 1999, disappearance.

Culver City police deny that they did anything wrong.

Miyasaki’s frustration with police was detailed in a March 12 report in The Times. Woolsey was quoted in that story explaining that Georgia was one of the focal points of his own search.

Woolsey was there last week looking for Jesse James Williams, a 26-year-old ex-felon who was seen with another man driving off in a van with Ariane and a 14-year-old girl on the day of her disappearance.

Williams, who calls himself “Jester,” was arrested in Seattle last fall on a parole violation charge and extradited to Los Angeles. But Culver City police did not interrogate him before a Santa Monica judge released him and he again disappeared.

Woolsey later learned that Williams had indicated to a probation department worker that he intended to return to his family’s home in Georgia. Woolsey hoped to track down Williams and question him about Ariane’s whereabouts.

Woolsey died from head injuries suffered in the crash when he lost control of his car on the Bobby Jones Expressway, said Georgia’s Richmond County Coroner Leroy Sims.

Ken Miyasaki was stunned Saturday by news of Woolsey’s death.

“I’m in shock. He had become almost a father to me,” Miyasaki said. “This did not have to happen. If the police had done their job, he would not have had to be back there.”

Associates of Woolsey said he mounted an all-out search for Miyasaki’s daughter because he related to Miyasaki’s grief. They said Woolsey’s son, a troubled 15-year-old living with Woolsey’s ex-wife, took his own life several years ago.

Woolsey was a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy for 10 years before becoming a stockbroker. Later he turned to private detective work, specializing in fraud investigation before turning to murder case defense work.

During the past decade, Woolsey earned a reputation among Los Angeles criminal defense lawyers as a dogged investigator whose cases often seemed like lost causes when he joined them. They included 28 murder trials, 16 of which were death penalty cases.

He worked for attorneys for Eddie Nash in the infamous “Laurel Canyon Massacre” case, Lyle Menendez in the Menendez brothers case, Jeremy Strohmeyer in the Nevada casino murder case, and Glendale Fire Capt. John Orr, who was accused of four arson deaths. Other high-profile cases he investigated included the Billionaire Boys Club, the Asian Boyz and the Cotton Club murder.

“In his business a victory was not getting the death penalty,” Stacy Woolsey said Saturday of her husband’s work. “None of his people got the death penalty.”

Stacy Woolsey said her husband set aside his own personal feelings when investigating murder cases for defense lawyers. But his memory of his own troubled teenage son prompted him to work extra hard on the Miyasaki case, she said.

Ariane Miyasaki had remained distraught over the 1994 death of her mother and grandmother in a car crash caused by a drunk driver.

Woolsey said he was perplexed by the actions of Culver City police after Ariane’s disappearance.

During a crucial period shortly after she vanished, police deleted Ariane’s name from a national computer database that logs missing children. And when the 14-year-old girl who vanished with Ariane returned home, police refused to interview her, explaining that the girl’s mother didn’t want them to.

“I met with the investigating officer several times and he said they weren’t looking at the case as anything other than a runaway and it’s not against the law for a kid to run away,” Woolsey told The Times earlier this year. “I said, ‘Look, detective, this girl is 13; she got into a van with two men 10 and 15 years older--Manson-type guys.’ I said if it was your kid who got in, you’d have done something.”

Services for Woolsey, who is survived by a 9-year-old son, Baily, in addition to his wife, are set for 10 a.m. Monday at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena.