Authorities Follow Slaying Suspect’s Trail to Colorado

Jesse James Hollywood, who is wanted in connection with the slaying of a 15-year-old West Hills boy, has been tracked to Colorado, where he may be staying with friends, police said Tuesday.

Driving a luxury car and staying at swanky hotels, Hollywood, 20, also of West Hills, stopped in Palm Springs, Las Vegas and Colorado Springs as he fled east, according to investigators in the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department.

Authorities said Hollywood is wanted for his role in the kidnapping and grisly slaying of Nicholas Markowitz, whose body was found Aug. 12 in a shallow grave north of Santa Barbara.

Investigators said Hollywood was not at the makeshift grave site when Markowitz was shot numerous times after being bound and gagged. But investigators suspect that Hollywood was somehow involved with the death.

Detectives recovered Hollywood’s new Lincoln sedan Friday at a friend’s house in Woodland Park, Colo., a bedroom community in the Rocky Mountains about 15 miles from Colorado Springs, said Sgt. Rod Walker of the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Police also recovered a 12-gauge shotgun and an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle that they say Hollywood left with another friend in Colorado Springs.

“It’s pretty obvious that he’s making contact with some people that he used to be acquaintances with here,” Walker said. “Now, whether he stays after the media stories hit is anybody’s guess.”

The last reported sighting of Hollywood was in the Colorado Springs area Sunday, but he managed to elude authorities.

“There may be a situation where individuals may be charged with harboring a fugitive,” Walker said, “although no one in Colorado has been arrested yet.”

Detectives said Markowitz was killed because his half brother, 22-year-old Benjamin Markowitz, allegedly owed Hollywood $36,000 for marijuana.

Three of Hollywood’s boyhood friends have been charged with murder, conspiracy and kidnapping in the case: Ryan James Hoyt, 21, of Pacoima; William R. Skidmore, 20, of Simi Valley; and Jesse Taylor Rugge, 20, of Santa Barbara. Also charged was 17-year-old Graham Pressley of Goleta.

They are scheduled to be arraigned Friday.

Hollywood used cash--believed to be proceeds from drug transactions--to finance his trip, authorities said.

He left Los Angeles on Aug. 15 after seeing a news article about Markowitz’s death, said Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Burridge. He spent his first night as a fugitive resting at the opulent Bellagio Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, authorities said.

“Not many people off the street just walk up and get a room there,” Burridge said.

The next day, Hollywood left Las Vegas and drove to Colorado, where he checked in at the Loft House Inn in Woodland Park and then the Ramada Hotel in Colorado Springs, investigators said. He left the Ramada on Aug. 19.

Police said Hollywood has been taking some precautions to avoid detection, such as paying for purchases with cash.

Albert Kosela, manager of the Loft House, said no one at the hotel remembered seeing Hollywood. “He wasn’t registered under his name,” Kosela said.

Hollywood, who detectives said attended high school in Colorado Springs in the mid-1990s, has apparently tapped an old circle of friends. Burridge said Hollywood gave one former high school buddy the two guns, saying: “Hold on to this because the cops are after me.” Authorities believe that Hollywood is carrying a .40-caliber handgun.

Santa Barbara detectives are being assisted by the Colorado Springs Police Department and the FBI, which issued a federal arrest warrant Monday for Hollywood. The case has also attracted the attention of “America’s Most Wanted,” a television show that helps authorities locate suspected criminals, Burridge said. Hollywood’s mug shot is scheduled to be shown on the Sept. 2 episode.

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Fox is a Times staff writer and Risling is a correspondent with Times Community News.