Man’s Antidote to Grim Duty

There are no signs of murder in this office at the Sheriff’s Department homicide bureau. No crime stats, no wanted posters, no department commendations, not a hint of death anywhere.

Instead, the space is adorned with memorabilia: a 1955 Magnavox television set, an antique record player, an old slot machine, several 1950s movie posters, a couple of framed Elvis Presley recordings, a selection of children’s books and a collection of metal lunchboxes with cartoon characters: the Flintstones, Jetsons and Scooby Doo.

“I’m reminded enough about death every day in my work,” said Capt. Raymond H. Peavy, the bureau’s commander. “I’d like to be reminded of the more innocent times in my life. I wanted my office to be alive, to put people at ease. I love having people come in and just look around.”

The collection affords Peavy a second identity, but step outside his office and reality shifts. Here, in an industrial park in Commerce, the 59-year-old commander oversees a bureau of 110 full- and part-time investigators who juggled nearly 450 new cases last year on top of a backlog of thousands of old ones. As a lieutenant and now captain, Peavy has assisted in more than 1,500 homicide cases over the last 13 years.

He investigated the disappearance of Jana Carpenter-Koklich, the daughter of the late Democratic state Sen. Paul Carpenter, who vanished one weekend in August 2000 and whose body has not been found. He was the first investigator to arrive at the scene of the brutal 2002 slayings of a South Whittier family of four in which an 8-year-old girl was sexually assaulted before her death. He flew to South Carolina to help make an arrest in a cold case, the slaying of two El Segundo police officers 50 years ago. And last month he worked toward the apprehension of the mother who abandoned her infant to die in a trash bin outside a Santa Clarita mobile home park.

At this stage of his career, much of Peavy’s work entails the day-to-day management of a busy bureau. But he still rushes to crime scenes at all hours of the night. And he still struggles with emotions: the anger, the desire to escape.

“You walk into the kitchen,” he said, referring to the South Whittier crime scene, “and look at the refrigerator and see the notes attached with a ‘Mommy I love you.’ Then you look at the school papers with gold stars on them. You see how much love there was in the house and then you walk into the next room, and it’s all gone.”

As a child in Ocala, Fla., where he was born, and later in Norfolk, Va., Peavy sought to escape the hardships of poverty and a broken home by collecting things. He started with matchbook covers, then baseball cards. Yankee sluggers Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris were his favorites.

Eventually, he embraced the music that was sweeping the nation. He knew Ricky Nelson’s “Be-Bop Baby” by heart but couldn’t buy the record. Money was scarce, his parents divorced and he lived in a series of foster homes before moving to California in 1961. He married his high school sweetheart in 1965 and joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department three years later.

During his early years with the department, Peavy moonlighted as a disc jockey at weddings and backyard parties until late-night calls to homicide scenes put an end to that pastime. He shed his choppy sideburns and turned his attention to vinyl, buying and selling enough albums to amass a collection of some 40,000 records, mostly movie and television soundtracks.

“It’s an obsession,” he acknowledges.

Diane Peavy said her husband searches the Internet for bargains and rummages through record bins at local swap meets and conventions for rare finds.

“It wasn’t just two or three records at a time,” she said. “He was bringing home truckloads.”

Peavy said his wife forbids him to expand his collectibles in the house beyond the garage and a guest bedroom, where he has a 1947 Wurlitzer jukebox and 1936 Philco radio, more lunch boxes, framed Hanna-Barbera cartoon pictures from the “Huckleberry Hound” and “Yogi Bear” shows and well-organized stacks of recordings from shows including “Dennis the Menace,” “Mr. Ed,” Clint Eastwood’s “Rawhide” and a rare recording of a 1958 Beverly Hills roast of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Diane said her husband has found a new identity in all he’s managed to accumulate in the house, the office and three rented storage garages.

“When he comes home, he’s no longer a cop; he’s a record collector,” she said. “The only time he is a cop again is when the phone rings.”

Peavy has built a reputation in collecting circles.

“Everyone knows what a Ray Peavy record is,” said Steve Brunner, who holds a monthly show for collectors in Buena Park. “Everybody knows him as the soundtrack guy.”

“He has a record collection that won’t quit, probably one of the best I’ve heard of,” said Jim Philbrook, editor and publisher of Record Convention News, a collector magazine. Peavy was featured on the cover in 2004 after he paid $5,000 to purchase the soundtrack, with music and some dialogue, from the 1954 movie “The Caine Mutiny,” a recording so rare that it is considered by many experts to be a crown jewel of movie soundtracks.

Peavy said most copies of the album are believed to have been destroyed by movie executives who worried that the recording would compete with ticket sales.

With record collecting, as with homicide investigations, the thrill of the chase cannot be denied.

“When you’re looking for records, it’s like looking for clues in a homicide investigation,” Peavy said. “You are looking for things out of the ordinary,” that inkling that raises suspicion and forces you to dig deeper.

Six years ago, Peavy was called to the home of Long Beach real estate businessman Bruce Koklich, whose wife, Jana Carpenter-Koklich, had disappeared. Her sport utility vehicle was found later in a crime-plagued neighborhood with blood in the cargo area; her purse and a gun were visible.

While Peavy was at the Koklich house, the television satellite trucks pulled up.

“I’m doing a press conference,” Peavy recalled the husband saying. “Then, on the way out, he turned to me and asked: ‘How do I look?’ I said ‘fine.’ ”

As they approached the television reporters, Peavy said, he suddenly noticed Koklich was crying.

“He just turned it on.”

Koklich was eventually charged with murder and, after a second trial, was convicted of killing his wife and sentenced to 15 years to life.

Peavy felt a similar uneasiness during a trip to South Carolina in 2003 to arrest a suspect in the 1957 murders of two El Segundo police officers, a cold case that was revived through modern fingerprint technology.

“One of the officers said, ‘We’re here to arrest you for the murder of two El Segundo police officers.’ And he said: ‘You’re here about that!’ “ Peavy recalled. “We looked at each other and said, “That’s a good reaction.’ It’s not like he said: ‘What? You’re crazy!’ ”

In the South Whittier case, Peavy noted that the family had owned a loud dog but that neighbors hadn’t heard barking the night of the killings. He mentioned it to investigators. The home had been ransacked to make the murders look like the work of a cult, but a 23-year-old family acquaintance who had raised the dog was eventually convicted of murder and was sentenced to the death penalty.

Most days, the cases that flow into Peavy’s office don’t attract much attention. On one recent day, it was business as usual.

His investigators had arrested the young mother accused of dumping her newborn in a trash bin. Four suspects were being sought in the stabbing death of a La Puente security guard, who had a wife and was working two jobs to send one of his two daughters to college. Investigations were also underway into the deaths of a teacher whose body was dumped in a grassy area near the 710 freeway and a Lynwood man shot to death for giving the wrong answer to the question: What neighborhood are you from?

“We’re getting into the big season” for killings, said Lt. Dave Smith, before turning his attention to his captain. “He handles things calmly. I’m not sure how he blows his steam off.”

Sometimes, late at night, Peavy likes to close his office door and surround himself in memorabilia.

“I can visualize myself sitting on front of a black-and-white television set watching cartoon characters, the fun things, happy things,” he said. “I’ll get some distressing news, talk to a family member who is very distraught. But when I get off the phone, look around and take a deep breath, I remember we are doing the best we can.”