Boy’s Killing Linked to Drug Debt, Police Say

A 15-year-old West Hills boy was shot execution style as he lay bound and gagged in a shallow grave near here because his older brother allegedly had not paid a $36,000 debt to a drug dealer, authorities said Thursday.

Santa Barbara County sheriff’s investigators arrested four people Wednesday and are seeking a fifth in the slaying of Nicholas Markowitz, who was shot nine times in the head and torso last week in the mountains north of Santa Barbara.

Four of the five suspects--ages 17 to 21--had played together in the Westhills Baseball league years ago, and allegedly kidnapped Nicholas from their old neighborhood Aug. 6 to pressure the boy’s older half-brother, Benjamin, 22, to pay money he owed for marijuana.

The boy was killed, authorities said, after Benjamin--who did not know his sibling was a hostage--went into hiding because of repeated death threats and did not return phone calls.

The assailants, officials said, concluded they would face long prison sentences for kidnapping if the younger brother survived.

“This is one of those [things] that you just shake your head at,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Jim Thomas told reporters. “The fact that these young people were involved in this kind of violence always amazes me . . . They were all boyhood friends who used to play ball [together].”

Investigators suggested that the boy’s death might have been avoided if five teenagers who saw him over two days while he was held hostage at a Santa Barbara home had called police.

“A parade of juveniles . . . saw the captive child,” Det. Fred Olguin said. “I believe they never thought it would end like this.”

Detectives broke the case after one of the teenagers, a girl, saw news reports of the death and called an attorney, who notified police.

Arrested and jailed without bail pending arraignment on kidnapping, murder and conspiracy charges were Ryan James Hoyt, 21, of Pacoima; William R. Skidmore, 20, of Simi Valley; Jesse Taylor Rugge, 20, of Santa Barbara and a 17-year-old juvenile from Goleta. A fifth suspect, Jesse James Hollywood, 20, of West Hills, is at large.

Barron Rugge, the father of one of the suspects, told The Times that the Markowitz boy stayed in his Santa Barbara home for two days and nights before his death, and said Nicholas appeared to be there willingly, and in need of a place to stay.

“I thought Nick was up here visiting,” said Rugge, 49, who manages a biological science greenhouse at UC Santa Barbara. “When I saw him, I saw him to just say ‘Hi,’ and ‘Yeah, you can stay here if you want.’ ”

The next day, Barron Rugge saw the boy again, just hanging out with his son, Jesse, watching television. “There was no threat. If the kid felt he was in danger he would have said so.”

But it became clear after Jesse Rugge’s arrest, Barron Rugge said, that his son had witnessed a murder. “It is a nightmare,” the father said. “Hoyt did it, from what Jesse said. He was flipping out and said [to Hoyt], ‘What are you doing?’ And [Hoyt] just plugged him. It was Hoyt, and Hollywood put him up to it.”

Authorities said they, too, think Hoyt fired the fatal shots in rapid succession from a 9-millimeter semiautomatic Tech-9 handgun. They said Hoyt, Rugge and the juvenile suspect were alone in taking Nicholas to the mountain campsite where he was killed, and that Hoyt and the juvenile dug the grave. But they said all five suspects were involved in the crime.

Authorities said Benjamin Markowitz told them that Hollywood was the dealer he owed for drugs. The older Markowitz is cooperating with authorities, they said, and is not in custody.

Authorities also said Skidmore was with Rugge and Hollywood when they rented a van and went hunting for Benjamin Markowitz--who was already in hiding because of death threats--on the afternoon of Sunday, Aug. 6.

In midafternoon, they saw the younger brother not far from his home, authorities said. So they took him to the Rugge house in Santa Barbara and kept him calm by giving him marijuana and Valium, Thomas said. Juveniles who saw Nicholas said he took the drugs willingly, according to the sheriff.

It’s not clear whether the boy was ever bound or physically held at the home. During the day he walked freely around the house, but was never alone, investigators said.

“[Rugge’s] parents were in and out of the home during that time,” Thomas said. “They just didn’t pay any attention to the kid or the other kids.”

By the morning of Aug. 8, Nicholas’ parents had reported their son missing to Los Angeles police. He had disappeared for one night before, but not for two, authorities said.

The same day, Rugge and the juvenile suspect took the boy to the Lemon Tree hotel on State Street in Santa Barbara, where Hoyt joined them. Hoyt and the 17-year-old suspect drove alone to the Lizard’s Mouth campground 12 miles north of Santa Barbara to dig the grave, Thomas said.

They returned to the hotel to pick up Rugge and the boy, who, the sheriff said, was gagged with duct tape and had his hands bound behind him at the campground. Then they laid the boy in his grave, shot him and buried the handgun and shell casings with him.

Hoyt later told others that killing wasn’t so hard, Thomas said. “Rugge got physically ill after the shooting,” the sheriff said. But “Hoyt thought it wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be.” The juvenile, meanwhile, waited in the car, and heard the rapid-fire gunshots, according to the sheriff.

Neither Skidmore nor Hollywood was there, authorities said.

Hikers, noticing a stench, found the body three days later. And this Tuesday, the attorney contacted by the girl who saw Nicholas at the Rugge house tipped off the sheriff, leading to the four arrests Wednesday.

Meanwhile, relatives of the suspects said they don’t know what to make of the situation.

Florinda Skidmore, who neighbors said lived near Nicholas Markowitz in West Hills until five years ago, said she could hardly speak she was so upset.

“We are in shock, just in shock,” she said. “It’s all very, very upsetting. We love our son. I’m still in a daze.”

Barron Rugge said he’d spoken to his son three times since he was arrested Wednesday morning.

“I’m a little emotionally crushed,” he said. “He’s been a great kid. He just got messed up with the wrong people. . . . I knew them all. They all played baseball together in West Hills when they were 12 or 13. Jesse Hollywood’s dad was the Little League coach and they were pretty much all on the same team.”

Jesse Rugge had dropped out of San Marcos High School, and lived part time with his mother in West Hills, Barron Rugge said. The youth had been living with his father and stepmother, Melissa, an office worker, for the last six months.

Neighbors of both the Rugges and the Skidmores described them as good families.

There are always teenagers around the Rugge house, neighbors said, but they are pretty clean cut and don’t even play their music loud.

“[Jesse] looked like a normal kid,” said Donny Cram, who lives next door.

In West Hills, the mother of the slain boy was trying to make sense of the loss of her son and the alleged drug troubles of her stepson. Susan Markowitz said there were no signs of trouble with either child.

On Thursday night, she sat in her garage, surrounded by a shrine of pictures and mementos of Nicholas. A large group of family and friends gathered for the fourth night in a row to remember the boy. A memorial service is scheduled today at 2 p.m. at Groman Eden Mortuary in Mission Hills.

Susan Markowitz said she had no idea Benjamin was involved with drugs, but she did not dispute police accounts of his involvement in drug trafficking. “I trust that the investigators know what they are talking about,” she said.

She said she did not know the young men suspected of killing Nicholas, adding that she felt badly for their parents.

“I wouldn’t want to be the parents of the person that took my baby’s life,” she said. “I would not be able to live with myself. My situation is better than theirs.”

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Times staff writers Anna Gorman, Zanto Peabody, Sue Fox, Lee Condon and Times Community News reporters Catherine Blake and Katie Cooper contributed to this story.