Jockey’s Brushes With Police Are Recounted

In the months before renowned jockey Chris Antley was killed, Pasadena police twice visited his home, once finding methamphetamine equipment and later taking a report that he had threatened to kill his pregnant wife, police records show.

As detectives continue to hunt for the killer of the two-time Kentucky Derby winner, they released reports Wednesday detailing police contacts with Antley since last summer.

Antley, 34, was found dead in his Pasadena home Saturday with severe head trauma. An autopsy was inconclusive, and further tests were expected to take six to eight weeks.

Cmdr. Mary Schander said Wednesday that Antley’s death was not the result of a burglary gone wrong or “a random act of violence.” Antley, she said, had been targeted.

The reports show that Pasadena police arrested him for drunk driving shortly before 4 p.m. July 26 on Colorado Boulevard. A breath test showed his blood alcohol level was 0.26%, more than three times the legal limit.

In September, Antley’s wife Natalie telephoned Pasadena police from New York, where she worked for ABC Sports, and asked officers to check on his welfare because he hadn’t returned her calls. Natalie Antley warned the dispatcher that her husband had a substance abuse problem, a police report shows.

Antley told officers who went to the house that he was mad at his wife. The officers, the report says, noticed that he seemed to be under the influence of drugs.

Antley admitted he had used drugs “a couple of hours ago,” the report said. Asked if the man with him at the house, Timothy Wylie Tyler Jr., 24, was under the influence, Antley responded: “Yes. Tyler brought the bag of meth and we were both doing it.”

Antley “then opened a drawer located to the left of the stove and retrieved a clear plastic sandwich baggie with an off-white crystalline powder inside,” the officer reported. Antley also retrieved a baggie of what appeared to be marijuana.

“The meth and the marijuana is not mine,” Antley reportedly said. “The other guy brought it.”

Antley told police that “he had just met Tyler while trying to obtain dope, and that he had invited him to his home.” He said Tyler was living in his back room “without consent.”

In that room, the report says, the officers found a propane fuel tank and other things typically used to make methamphetamine, police said. Antley said they weren’t his.

Officers arrested both men. Antley was never prosecuted because the district attorney’s office deemed it an “inadmissible search and seizure,” but Tyler was charged with a misdemeanor.

Tyler failed to appear in court and was arrested by police on that warrant shortly after Antley’s body was found Saturday night. Police said he is not a suspect in the slaying.

Police reports also show that on Oct. 7, police received a 911 call from Antley’s house near the Rose Bowl. Two officers found Antley gone, and Tyler and Tyler’s girlfriend in the home.

The girlfriend, Elizabeth Carlson, told police that the previous night, Antley had acted bizarrely, breaking glasses and other things.

She said Antley “kept saying he had a gun and would use it.”

On the day of the officers’ visit, Carlson said Antley had left the house at 10 a.m. for Los Angeles International Airport, where his wife was expected to arrive at 3 p.m. from Newark, N.J., where she lives. Carlson said Antley told her and Tyler, “She’s gone . . . . I’m going to do away with her.” Carlson thought he had taken a gun, according to the report, although she never saw one. Antley, police noted, did not have a registered firearm.

Pasadena police contacted Los Angeles police. It is not clear what the LAPD did.

Antley’s body was scheduled to be flown Wednesday night from Los Angeles to South Carolina, where services will be held Saturday in the town of Elloree.