Yeardley:  Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. I want to remind you that if you want access to bonus episodes and regular episodes a day early and ad free, and our community forum and other behind-the-scenes goodies, you got to go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam, and then in the top righthand corner, hit that little tab that says join, do it.

Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. How are you guys? I hope you’re all well on this fine day. I am so glad you’re here because we have a fast-moving case for you today from returning fan favorite lieutenant John. John has been a homicide detective for 25 years, so he’s seen a lot of the worst of people, and this case is no exception. The motive in this case is as old as time, but the means are modern and extreme, a nod to the many modes of destruction that are available to just about anyone these days.

And while my jaw was on the ground listening to the lengths that the suspect in this story goes to exact his revenge, my cohosts and John himself, may have shaken their heads in sadness at the wreckage of so many lives that were affected in this case, but they weren’t surprised. And I always wonder, what’s that like? to no longer be astonished by the worst in people. I mean, even if you’re not ridiculously naive, I think most of us, or at least, speaking for myself, I am still flabbergasted by much of the cruelty in the world. But I imagine the lack of astonishment that my cohosts feel, which eventually becomes a cop’s new normal, even a necessity, is just one of the many things they stash in that box that we’ve heard so many of the guests on this podcast talk about.

When someone like me asks, “Where do these experiences live inside you?” Because without that box, I don’t know how you could go to work every day. I don’t know how you could cope. I just don’t know. So, here is Retribution.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

 Hi, there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan:  I’m Dan.

Dave:  I’m Dave.

Paul:  And I’m Paul.

Yeardley:  And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan:  Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave: –And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul:  And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan:  Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

Dave:  Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul:  Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan:  And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave:  -out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]:  Thank you.

Yeardley:  Hey, Small Town Fam. Hey, it’s me, its Yeardley. I know. I don’t usually introduce like that. Guess what? We have the usual suspects. We have Paul Holes.

Paul:  Hi. All.

Yeardley:  What?

Paul:  What?

Yeardley:  Totally caught him off guard.

Paul:  [laughs] Hey, hey was just not. I couldn’t get it off the tongue. [laughs]

Yeardley:  He was looking down and he looked up and he was like, “Ah what?”

Paul:  What? [laughs]

Yeardley:  My favorite thing. I live for the tiny victories. We have Detective Dan.

Dan:  Hello.

Yeardley:  Hello, hello darling husband.

Dan:  Wife.

Yeardley:  [laughs] We have detective Dave.

Dave:  Get a room.

[laughter]

Yeardley  Can always count on Dave for the wit and wisdom of the usual suspects. And Small Town Fam, we are so excited to welcome back a new fan favorite, homicide lieutenant John.

John:  Thanks for having me, everybody. I’m excited to be here.

Yeardley:  Oh, it’s so great to see you. Now, John, before we get started, I just want to remind our listeners that you led off Season 14 with a two-part case we called Signs of a Serial Killer, which Small Town Fam if you haven’t heard it, you should definitely put it in your queue because it’s a whopper. And also, to remind our listeners, John, that we have the great good fortune of sitting down with you today because of Paul Holes. You guys worked together for years back when Paul was still a criminalist. And John, I remember you said Paul was your go-to guy when you needed the A Team to come out and process a crime scene.

John:  That’s exactly right.

Yeardley:  I love it. Like I said, we’re so happy to see you. We’re so happy that you’re back. So, let’s get to it. John, please tell us how this case came to you.

John:  So, this was a case that came about as a result of a call out, which a lot of them are. And so, this was on a Friday night, late September of 2006. And so, it’s still warm. It’s like summertime in California. And my phone rang and I think it was probably 7 o’clock in the evening. Sun was still up, but it was starting to go down. And the watch commander phoned me and said that they had a shooting at the Nation’s hamburger restaurant in town and that an individual had been shot and killed in the back parking lot, that not necessarily the actual act, but there was an audio track related to that because Nation’s had surveillance cameras and microphones.

 Although this particular area where the shooting occurred wasn’t covered by the surveillance cameras and said that there was one down, that it was particularly horrific, murder, because it was apparently committed with a shotgun. And it appeared that the individual had been shot four times with rifled slugs from a 12-gauge shotgun.

Yeardley:  What does that mean?

John:  The standard load for a patrol shotgun is what’s called double-aught buckshot. That’s the size of the pellets in the actual shotgun. And there’s a certain number of pellets in each shotgun shell, all the same caliber. I believe they’re .32-caliber. And when the weapon’s fired, it disperses spray pattern of pellets. So, it’s very effective at relatively short distances because it packs a lot of power. And so, if you’re engaging somebody in close quarters combat, it’s very effective. The farther the target is out, the more it disperses. But a rifled slug is one very large blob of lead that comes out and is used for doing things like penetrating particularly difficult armament where maybe somebody has secreted themselves, they could behind a door, car door. So, it has a tremendous amount of power.

 So, you can imagine how devastating the injury would be from being struck with one of those.

Paul:  To give you an idea of size, you think about almost the size of your standard marble. So, nine of those marbles come out of the shotgun with the rifled slug, you’re dealing with one solid mass that’s about three quarters of an inch in diameter for a projectile for typical civilian use, not military stuff. This is about the largest round that is being fired out there.

Yeardley:  That’s insane. So, what you hear is this shooting has taken place at a fast-food joint, and it seems to be this huge bullet.

John:  Correct. And the individual was pronounced dead at the scene that he, according to the watch commander, was almost literally cut in half as a result of the multiple impacts that he took in generally the same area of his torso. And so, it was a grisly scene, very violent. And from what they were able to determine at that point, the watch commander told me that it was a patron who had just left the restaurant.

Yeardley:  Who got shot.

John:  Correct. It was somebody who had been in the restaurant presumably eating, and then left and was shot. They had located a witness. The witness was a friend. His name was Tim. And Tim had been eating with the victim, and they had gone their separate ways. They had parked in different areas. Tim had parked across the street. And so, Tim went to his vehicle, and the victim, Luis, went to his vehicle that was actually in the parking lot of the Nation’s restaurant. And the only thing Tim could say was that heard a series of gunshots, very loud, but didn’t actually see what happened and had no idea what this was all about. That’s how we were alerted to it, and that’s how we got involved. So, I scrambled a group of investigators together. The lead homicide guy, which was ultimately my partner later on, I was the supervisor of investigations at that time.

Yeardley:  And what’s his name?

John:  His name’s Adam. And so, Adam and I believe I called in probably four other detectives, and so a total of five, and a crime scene investigator. And we responded to the Nation’s restaurant.

Yeardley:  Was the restaurant crowded at this time? Was it like rush-hour dinner kind of thing?

John:  When we got there, everything was quiet and silent, and this crime scene had been maintained. But I looked at the videotape, and the place is packed. We all looked at the surveillance video together, and the restaurant was absolutely packed. There was no place to sit. We could see the victim and Tim sitting together having a hamburger. Every booth, every seat was occupied. The line was actually out the door to the front of the restaurant. It was hot. It’s hot inside Nation’s because they’ve got the grill going so the doors are open. And in this particular case, the backdoor that opened to the parking lot where the homicide actually occurred had a security screen door on it, but the regular door was open. So, when we got there, the first thing we did was watch the video.

 The video showed the victim, Luis and Tim leaving, going their separate ways, going out separate doors. And then, as we continue to watch, the crowd is still there. They’re eating. They’re ordering food. It’s very noisy, very chaotic in there. The microphones were crazy good quality. And so, you could hear little low conversations going on. You could hear the grill sizzling. And so, there’s people that, “Okay, now what do you want? You want pie with that?” And there’s all these conversations going. [Yeardley laughs] And suddenly you hear, boom, boom, boom, boom. Everybody freezes. And at that point, the restaurant is completely quiet. The only sound on the audio track is the grill sizzling. And watching the video, everybody’s turning their heads, looking at each other. Now, it’s clear that the gunshots came from outside.

 Witnesses said we could tell it happened in the back. There’s a pause of probably 10 seconds, which is quite a while. Everybody just stands and then went right back into mode. And, “Okay, I want fries. Double fries. I want that.” Nobody even went outside, really, to see what was going on. That part was a little crazy. That was a little disheartening to be honest with you.

Paul:  Well, but this is also the town that you worked in. It’s kind of common occurrence to hear gunshots.

John:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  So, was this a rough part of town, as in, we are not sure those were gunshots. We don’t want to check it out or we’re pretty sure those are gunshots? None of my business.

John:  A little bit of both. And so, I think it was, like Paul said, “It wasn’t a completely unusual occurrence.” And I think there’s also people that the only response to hearing gunshots is to get down, not go outside to see what’s going on.” That would be a poor decision. And then you hear some yelling, and Tim is yelling outside. “Somebody call an ambulance, my friend’s been shot.” And then people trickle out. The problem is, by the time the officers got there, a lot of those people had left. We potentially lost some witnesses. But you could see most of them had no idea what had happened out into the parking lot. So that’s what it is, kind of a whodunit.

Yeardley:  So, the shooter just shot Luis and took off?

John:  Correct. There doesn’t appear to be robbery. Doesn’t appear to be a motive. He’s got his wallet on him. His car keys are there. His door is open. It appears that he was getting into his car, which is consistent with what Tim told us, that he had just left. They were both going to their cars. And so, we started to figure out who this particular individual was. So, we figured out that it was Luis. We got a most recent address. The problem with Luis was he was between houses at that point, didn’t have a solid address, but we did figure out that he had a previous address where his then wife, Karen lived. And so, we go to Luis’ last address, and they were presumably married. He listed her as a wife, although that doesn’t always mean they’re legally married.

 So, we made contact with her, and she confirmed that they were husband and wife and that they had not divorced yet.

Yeardley:  Were Karen and Luis separated, though? Were they planning on divorce?

John:  So, we interviewed her, and it’s very difficult. It’s one of those situations where you have to really approach that carefully, because the minute you tell someone that their loved one has been killed, they’re not going to be able to provide you any information. So, you have to tell them, “Hey, we’re conducting an investigation. It involves Luis. What’s the status with Luis? Are you his wife?” Sounds cold hearted, but you want to get as much info as you can.

Dan:  And I think what John is saying is Karen is going to break down, and she’s going to get so emotional that for a while there, you’re not going to be able to talk to her. She’s going to be inconsolable. And that’s the hurdle that you have to confront at some point during that contact with Karen is, “I’m going to have to break the news to her, but I need to get some basic info from her before I break this terrible news to Karen.”

John:  That’s exactly right. She’s not going to be able to be of any assistance to us because she’s going to be so emotionally upset.

Yeardley:  So you’re talking to Karen, not yet divulging to her that Luis is dead.

John:  Correct.

Yeardley:  And what do you find out?

John:  So, she says that they are estranged, that they have a couple kids together, and that they are separated, and that Luis was involved with another woman and he has a child with her. And so, she said, “I wanted him to be happy.” So, I said, “Go be with your new girlfriend and we’ll get a divorce.” And so, they had not yet divorced, but they were estranged, and he had been with this new girl.

Yeardley:  So, Luis had moved out, even though Karen’s address was the last known?

John:  Correct. And that happens all the time. Addresses are frequently not reliable. So, in this particular case, we said, “Well, who’s the girlfriend? Does she live locally?” Trying to get as much background information. And she mentioned some interesting points that became pretty important later on. She said, “Well, she and Luis do have a child together, but now they’ve broken up.” The girlfriend and Luis have broken up. And now Karen says, “I heard from someone– because she’s keeping tabs on her ex-husband and what’s going on in his life. She doesn’t want to say that, but that’s clearly evident. She says, “I heard that his girlfriend, and the girlfriend’s name was Laura.”

 She said, “I heard Laura actually married another guy. She has a kid with Luis, but she married another guy, and they are now split up as well,” meaning Luis and Laura. So, I thought, okay, that’s interesting, all right, and Laura doesn’t live in town. She lives, I think, somewhere in San Francisco. And said, “Okay,” So that’s the information that we had from her. Her husband, Luis, wasn’t keeping her up to speed on everything in his personal life now that they were separated and thinking about getting a divorce. So, I said, “Do you know where he’s staying now? Do we know where Luis is staying?” And she said, “Last I heard, he was staying on and off with friends. Sometimes he might stay with his sister.” And I said, “Okay, what friends? She didn’t know.”

 I said, “What about his sister? Do you know where she lives?” And she gave me an address in another part of town. Said, “Yeah, she lives there.” I don’t know how frequently he stays there, but that’s a possibility. So that’s what we were left with. And we had no clear motive. The motive was not robbery. It looked like some kind of revenge. Luis was shot from a distance. It wasn’t he didn’t give up the wallet and was shot as a result of resisting a robbery. This was an intentional killing, and there had to be a motive out there somewhere. It was clear to me that Karen’s not the one that went into the parking lot with a 12-gauge shotgun and shot him. I didn’t get that kind of vibe. She had no idea what was going on with them.

 And you just get the ability to feel that stuff out because she did exactly what you would expect. Every time she answered a question, she’d say, “So what’s Luis done? Is he in some trouble?”

Yeardley:  Still Karen you’re talking about.

John:  Still Karen, yes. So now, we said, “Here’s what happened, and we have to break the news to her that Luis is deceased.” It doesn’t change her story a bit. She doesn’t add anything. She wasn’t holding anything back. Sometimes that news will shake something loose. But we do ask questions that we didn’t ask before, or we repeat questions we asked before. “Is he dealing drugs? Has he got problems with anybody?” And she said, “I don’t know of anybody who would want to hurt him.” He was an apprentice electrician. He was working every day. He was just a normal guy.

Yeardley:  And how old was Luis when he died?

John:  Luis was 32, 33. And so we left her house, and we started to go down to the sister’s house.

Yeardley:  You’re going to Luis’ sister’s house?

John:  Yes.

[Break 1]

John:  Here’s where the oddity creeps in. So, this is on a Friday night during the week, I think on that Tuesday or Wednesday, I was only loosely aware of an incident that happened in the late afternoon out in this other part of town. And this was not first on my mind. It did not come to investigations. Patrol was doing the follow up on it because there was nobody injured. There were no injuries, but it was a crazy case. And I talked to one of the patrol officers, and he said that originally neighbors were calling in for this particular part of town, saying, “There’s two guys in a car down here in the neighborhood. They just firebombed two houses.”

 And as soon as the fire bombs really erupted and burned up, they got a couple of houses on fire and a couple cars on fire. And these are these duplexes that are in this particular area. He said, “Now they’re driving out of the area, and they’re shooting the front of the houses up with a shotgun.” So, I knew that information. So, we’re driving down to the sister’s house, Luis’ sister.

Yeardley:  What’s his sister’s name?

John:  Ann is the sister. So, we get down to Ann’s house, and now it’s nighttime, and we turn onto the street, and all of a sudden it hits me. I’m looking and there’s a burned-out hulk of a car. I can see there’s fire damage to two houses. And all of a sudden, I remember what I talked to the patrol officer about. He said it was like, “Turning onto the main street in the [unintelligible ] province in Afghanistan.” He said “It looked like combat had been going on down there.” And I said, “Well, what was it about?” He says, “Nobody knows” He said, “We talked to everybody. We had different owners of all the cars that were on fire. We had different owners or residents of the houses that caught fire.”

 He says, “And everybody we talked to said, “Nobody’s this mad at me. I don’t know who would have done this.” So, the problem is, there was no relationship between any of the people who were victimized in the firebombing or the drive by shooting. So, now we turn onto this street, and I’m looking at the addresses, and all of a sudden, we get to the part where the houses are charred, and we find the address. And this is Luis’ sister, Ann.

Yeardley:  And how many days between the firebombing and Luis being shot?

John:  Two or three.

Yeardley:  Okay. And is Ann’s house one of the ones that got charred or shot up?

John:  Well, it was hard to tell because all the numbers on the houses had burned off, but we finally figured that out. We said, “Okay, Ann’s house was one of the ones that had been targeted. I think we just found a connection here.” And so, we went in and we spoke to Ann. And so, Ann tells us, “We didn’t know what was going on here. How’s my brother factor into this?” And, well, we’re doing the same thing. We’re holding information back from her.

Yeardley:  So, you’re not telling Ann that her brother Luis is dead?

John:  No. So, she just said, “Hey, he’s been staying here on and off. He doesn’t stay here all the time. He’s just kind of flopping with friends. He’s got that girlfriend of his, Laura, who he shares a child with. Once in a while, he’ll come over here because he needs a stable place when he watches the baby. And then she’ll come and pick up the baby.” I said, “What’s going on with that relationship?” And she says, “Well, they were boyfriend or girlfriend, and Laura got pregnant. They separated and not seeing each other anymore, or at least they weren’t supposed to.” And she throws that little dangling bit of information on it. And I said, “What do you mean, not supposed to?” She goes, “Well, you know, Laura found a new boyfriend and they got married. I don’t know anything about him other than what people have told me, but they said, “He’s actually from the Bayview Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, and he’s actually supposed to be a big-time gangster over there in the Bayview.”

Yeardley:  What’s the significance of Bayview Hunter’s point? Everybody’s nodding except me.

John:  That’s probably one of the more crime-ridden gang, activity-ridden areas of San Francisco.

Yeardley:  So, Laura’s new husband hails from this particular hamlet.

John:  Correct. And apparently, according to rumor, he is somebody to be reckoned with. She said, “Well, everybody says he’s an OG, original gangster and that he runs a crew down there and that he’s a bad guy.”

Yeardley:  And that’s what Ann is relaying to you.

John:  Yes. Ann is relaying to us what has happened with Laura, she married this guy and so we think that’s very interesting information. Then we finally tell Ann, “Okay, your brother was killed tonight, and it was an unusual circumstance.” And she goes, “How did he die?” And we told her he was shot up at Nation’s. And the next words out of her mouth are, “If Laura didn’t do it, her husband definitely did it.” And I said, “What was the problem there? They don’t even live in the area anymore.” And Ann said, “My brother is still messing around with Laura. And there was some funk there because it sounded like Laura’s new husband found out that they were still sleeping together.”

Yeardley:  So Ann says, if Laura didn’t kill my brother Luis, then Laura’s husband killed him. What’s that guy’s name?

John:  That guy’s name is Eric.

Dave:  Does Ann know Eric’s name or do you guys have to figure that out?

John:  She knows his name because her brother has thrown the name out a few times. I said, “Did your brother ever confess to you that he was having an affair?” And she says, “Yeah.” She says, “He still has feelings for her. And she comes over here. They meet somewhere sometimes when they’re not supposed to, and they talk all the time, and then their child has visitation with Luis, and so she comes over to pick the kid up.” It sounded like there was times where Ann would see Laura and Luis talking when she was picking up the kid, and the conversations were very intimate and not like, “Hey, thanks for the kid,” like typical separated parents.

 She said, “I got the impression there was something going on, and my brother basically said there was.” I said, “Do you know for sure that her husband found out?” She says, “No, I don’t.” So, luckily, in talking to Ann, she knew a lot about what was going on over there as far as with the new husband, that he was a bad guy. And I said, “Have you seen the vehicles that she comes over to pick up the kid with?” And she said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Are they hers or are they his?” She goes, “She doesn’t have any vehicles. Any vehicles that she’s driving belong to the new husband.”

Yeardley:  So, Ann is saying, Laura doesn’t have a car of her own, and therefore, if Laura is in a car, it belongs to this new husband, gangster guy, Eric.

John:  Yeah. Laura does not have a car of her own. So, what Ann says is that “Laura is driving a silver station wagon.” And I said, “Okay, a station wagon.” I go, “Well, that’s unusual. They don’t even make station wagons, really anymore. But I say at that time, there were some vehicles that roughly resembled a station wagon.” Well, the interesting thing was, is that we have city cameras in town, and so the vehicle that was seen fleeing the parking lot immediately after the shooting is what was identified through the traffic guys, to me, a Chrysler Pacifica, which if I was going to describe it, looks like a station wagon. So that right there, that’s very interesting information. And so, we were able to do some research and pull up some information about where Eric and Laura might live, some previous addresses.

 The most recent one we found was in Brisbane, California. And so, we knew that vehicle matched a vehicle that Eric had access to. So, we went back to the station to do that research, and we also pulled reports that I had never laid eyes on before, which were the reports about the shooting and firebombing and the vehicle involved in that, which I had no information prior to that was a relatively bright blue Honda Civic, and it had black rims. By the time all this happens and we’re back and forth to the crime scene and making sure that that’s getting processed properly, it’s probably early morning hours now. It’s 2 o’clock in the morning. And I said, “Well, let’s do this. Let’s get ahold of Brisbane PD, and we have this address for them down there.

 Let’s have them do a flyby of that address and see if there’s any vehicles there at that time that matched the description, either the blue Honda or the silver Chrysler Pacifica.

Yeardley:  So, you’re planning on sending somebody to check out Laura and Eric’s house in Brisbane.

John:  Just to see if the vehicles are there? We’ll go down and handle the contact, but we just want to see if those vehicles are there. And lo and behold, one of the detectives is on the phone with Brisbane PD. He’s talking to patrol. He’s talking to the watch commander. He’s on the radio with a patrol unit, and I’m standing there with bated breath waiting for the results. He’s talked to a lieutenant, and he turns up to me and he goes, “Lieutenant, just so I understand, there’s a silver Chrysler Pacifica in front of the house, and there’s a blue Honda with black rims in front of the house.” I said, “Tell him we’re on our way.”

 He hung up the phone, and I said, “Okay, I know it’s 02:30 in the morning, and I know everybody’s had enough for one night, but saddle up. We’re going down to Brisbane.”

Yeardley:  [laughs] Oh, my God. To pay a visit to Laura and Eric.

John:  That’s what we did. Yeah. So, we went to Brisbane, and we made contact with Eric and with Laura. We asked them both to come back to the station, and they did. Laura was very vague about everything. She was wholly uncooperative. She didn’t want to cross her new husband. But she also honestly did not seem like she knew anything about any shooting that we were investigating. We never told her that. We told her we were investigating something. Her husband is a crook. I think she figured we were just investigating something in general that had to do with her husband. When she was finally told that Luis had been shot and killed, Laura was very visibly upset. It came as a complete shock to her. But she actually clammed up even more than she had before, because she’s scared of her husband. She knows what he’s capable of. And obviously, he’s done a great job of showing her exactly what he’s capable of.

Yeardley:  Right.

[Break 2]

John: . So, at that point, we are interrogating Eric. Hours and hours of interrogation with Eric, it goes into a custodial situation, and we end up getting him to admit, believe it or not, that he was the one who did the Molotov cocktail and shooting of the houses before. And he said he was mad at the boyfriend for kind of getting back and ruining his marriage, but he didn’t intend to hurt anybody.

Yeardley:  Eric was mad at Luis, so he shot up the block and firebombed houses.

John:  He thought that’s where Luis’ house was.

Yeardley:  And what does custodial mean? It’s become custodial?

John:  So, he came voluntarily to the station to talk with the detectives, but when they got there, the conversation ebbed more into confrontational. And so that whole, “Hey, I’m here voluntarily,” probably wasn’t going to hold up anymore. So, we needed to mirandize him, and we did. And we told him he wasn’t free to leave and that we were going to charge him with what had happened tonight. He goes, “If anybody hurt Luis, I don’t know anything about it, but I did do the drive by shooting and the bombing the other day, and it’s just a coincidence, man. Somebody else must be mad at him too.” And so, we were very pleased with having that information because we could charge him with that and hold him on that, and we could continue to investigate the homicide.

Dan:  Those are significant charges too. You’ve got a couple counts of arson. These are weighty charges. It’s not Eric spray painted Luis’ car, it’s yeah, wow.

John:  Explosive devices, yeah. And we have multiple victims. I think there was a total of seven or eight victims on that street, because you got two burned up houses and then four or five cars that were shot up. So, you got the cars shot up, and you got the houses shot up. And those are, like you said, “Very significant criminal acts.” So that’s where we’re stuck with. When we talk to Laura, she is, “I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t have anything to do with this. I would never hurt Luis.” And that’s kind of where we left it.

 So, at that point, we got into Eric’s phone and downloading his phone, and we found a couple of calls right before the homicide to this particular number. We wrote paper for that particular number, and that’s how we identified Marcel. And Marcel was a wannabe gangster. He was exactly who you would pick to drive the car, because he would do whatever he was asked by Eric. Eric would tell him, “Hey, I need your help.” And Marcel would be so thrilled that he was being asked to help with a homicide by an individual who was really seen as being the OG in that particular part of town. Marcel was also a little on the gullible, slow side, and so that was the name we had. We had no other information tying him to that other than a phone call to him.

Yeardley:  Oh, so you’re saying the only link tying Marcel to Luis; murder is this phone call from Eric to Marcel. Is that right?

John:  Yes. And so, we went and found Marcel, and we brought Marcel back to the station. Marcel, being the simpleton that he was, was somebody that we could say, “Hey, Eric’s already told us what happened. We understand that you weren’t there. It wasn’t your idea, those kinds of things.” And he ended up making some inculpatory statements about how he saw Eric, but he didn’t go with him. But Eric wanted him to go with him. Marcel agreed to take a polygraph, and he failed miserably. And so, I told him, “Hey, you’re not passing the test here. What really happened?” And Marcel gives up. He says, “Yeah, I drove the car and Eric did the shooting.” And so now Marcel gives us Eric. So, we have both of them for the two different crimes. So that’s how that one came together.

Yeardley:  Okay, so Eric admits to the fire-bombings, and then Marcel is giving himself up, as well as Eric for the murder of Luis.

John:  Yes.

Paul:  John, was the murder weapon, the 12-gauge shotgun, ever recovered?

John:  Well, we got a great statement from Marcel, who we said, “Hey, if you’re just a driver and you really didn’t have any part in the planning of this thing, to me, if I’m a juror, I’m much happier with you than I am with somebody who actually did the shooting. Don’t you agree, Marcel?” And he said, “Yeah.” And I said, “What happened to the gun?” And he said, “Well, Eric got back into the car, put it in the backseat, they drove towards San Francisco and then halfway across the bridge, he pulled over to the side and went off the side of the San Francisco Bay Bridge.”

Paul:  Yeah, we’ve always said if we could drain the bay, we would solve so many cases. [laughs]

John:  I think there was a couple of junior detectives that said, “Are we going to try to recover that?” I said, “Yeah, it’s going to be your job.”

[laughter]

 Good luck.

Yeardley:  So, if Marcel says, I wasn’t part of the planning, do you get any insight into how Eric chose to plan his crime, to shoot Luis?

John:  Yes, Marcel had a ton of information about what happened in the first crime, the two, three days earlier.

Yeardley:  That’s the Molotov cocktails in the houses.

John:  Correct, And I said, “Man, it sounds like you were there.” And he says, “No, no, Eric just told me about it.” I said, “I find that hard to believe” because Eric’s not a talker. I said, “I don’t think he’s going to be going around bragging to anybody, including you, about what he did during another crime.” But he knew all the details. And what he said was that Eric had driven Laura to pick up the baby one time, so he’d only seen the place once. And it’s one of those areas where all the duplexes look the same. It would be tough to tell one from another unless you knew the address, and they’re all on circuitous routes and courts and all that.

 Marcel said Eric realized that there was an affair going on, and he knew if he confronted Laura about it, that would be the end of their relationship. He just wanted Luis out of the picture. So, he roughly knew where the house was. But when he got there, he’s like, “It’s somewhere right in here.”

Yeardley:  You’re talking about Ann’s house. Eric is trying to spot Ann’s house. Cause at that time, Luis was staying with his sister.

John:  Correct. And not necessarily even staying there. That’s where they would do the exchange. Luis would take the baby over there sometimes just to have a stable place, to play with him. And there’s a park nearby, that kind of stuff. But he would do the exchange there.

Yeardley:  I see. So, Eric torches Ann’s house because he thinks that’s where Laura and Luis are conducting their affair.

John:  Correct.

Yeardley:  But he doesn’t end up torching Ann’s house or he tries, but he fails.

John:  Yes. Eric saw where Luis came out of, roughly, but it’s like an apartment complex. He was a little vague on exactly what unit was the one that he was staying in.

Dave:  Every city has these types of little pocket neighborhoods that every house looks to be the same. And as you were describing it, John, I could picture Eric going, “Well, I’m not sure which one it is. I’m pretty sure it’s that one. But everybody’s going to get some of my love tonight, so I’m just going to start spraying.”

John:  And he was pissed. And so, he said, “It’s either this one or this one or this one, according to Marcel. Marcel also added that Eric had said when he did that, the goal was, if I start the fires and shoot the place up, Luis is going to come outside to see what’s going on, then I can shoot him. But the problem with Luis wasn’t there. He was only there infrequently.

Yeardley:  Yeah. So, Luis was at Ann’s house when Eric did the rampage. So, then he decided to track him down at the Nation’s burger joint a few days later.

John:  Right. So, here’s the other little bit of information that gives you a little bit of stand-up the hair on the back of your neck. So, when we’re talking to Marcel, he’s talking about in detail, because we went down to a granular level with him about exactly how they planned the shooting up at Nation’s. And we had one witness who hung around and said, “They did see this silver car circling the building and then pulling in and backing out and then circling the building and then pulling in and backing out.” Marcel said that “At one point, they were backed into a spot, and this guy comes out of the restaurant carrying a bag of burgers.” And he said, “Eric thought that that was Luis.” He starts to get out of the car with the shotgun, and at the last second realizes, “Oh, it’s the wrong guy.”

 That guy has no idea how close he came to being shot to death. And if he had shot that guy, that probably would have gone unsolved, because there was absolutely no connection between that victim and-

Yeardley:  -Eric.

John:  Yeah.

Dan:  So, how did Eric figure out where Luis was going to be?

John:  So, we don’t know for sure, but what we think happened. We think they did a little surveillance down at the house where Ann lives and then followed him up there. Because they knew he was in there. They kept circling it. He was in there eating a burger with his buddy. So, I think they probably followed him from Ann’s house.

Yeardley:  Has Marcel actually told you this is what happened?

John:  No, he didn’t say anything about sitting in front of a house. That sounds terrible. Even Marcel is smart enough to figure out that that doesn’t sound great.

Yeardley:  Yeah, not so good. So, John, does Eric end up going to jail for all these crimes?

John:  Yes. We actually arrested him initially just for the arson and the fire, for the possession of explosive device and the drive-by shootings. And then when we got Marcel, who gives a statement against his own penal interests.

Dan:  Right. Because Marcel is not saying, Eric did it, and I just happen to know about it. Marcel is saying, Eric and I did this together.

John:  Correct. So, we can use that information. Otherwise, it would just be an uncorroborated statement from a codefendant. So, he says, “Yeah, I did it.” He makes statements against his own interests, saying, “I did it too.”

Dave:  And to button up Eric, I’m guessing Eric, although he admits to his involvement in the firebombing and drive by. I’m guessing he didn’t go too far on the Nation’s case because he knew that that was a big boy case.

John:  He said he didn’t know what we were talking about.

[Break 2]

Yeardley:  So, John, Eric isn’t owning up to Luis’ murder at all.

John:  Correct. But he ended up pleading guilty.

Yeardley:  He did end up pleading guilty.

John:  [laughs] Yeah. He took a voluntary manslaughter plea, and based on all the other charges, he got a sentence of 45 to life.

Yeardley:  Wow.

John:  Yeah. Eric got 45 to life and Marcel took a plea as well. And he took a quarter, 25 to life.

Paul:  Ooh.

Yeardley:  Wow. So, Marcel was still just the driver. He didn’t pull the trigger. But I know a number of states say basically, if you were the driver, you were on scene and you watch what happened, you’re as culpable as the person who pulled the trigger. Yes?

John:  Right. In California, he’s what’s considered an accomplice or a principal since he was in on the planning, although he doesn’t really admit to that. But circumstantially, there’s plenty of evidence that indicates that. And then he actually drives the car, circles the building. He’s an active participant, positions the vehicle in such a way that the shooter can get out and execute the plan and then actually flees from the scene with the shooter. He’s an active participant and becomes a principal. He’s just as guilty, at least at that time, as if he had pulled the trigger.

Dave:  Did Marcel ever give you any indication about when they’re in the parking lot and Luis finally exits the restaurant, how far away Eric was or if Eric, after the first shot, approaches and then dumps extra rounds into him?

John:  Yeah, he took a few steps away from the car. And Marcel, the weirdness with suspects in their confessions, he says “Eric takes a few steps away from the vehicle and opens fire,” allegedly. He says, “He didn’t know Eric had a shotgun with him,” but he said the first time he saw the shotgun was Eric got back into the car after the shooting was done. And so, I said, “Well, what are you circling the building for? And what did he have you drive for?” And he says, “Well, I thought we were going to maybe go get another car.” “What? What are you talking about?”

Yeardley:  But also, Marcel has said Eric thought he saw Luis come out of the restaurant, and it was the stranger guy, and he must have realized there’s danger because Eric was holding a shotgun. So, the idea that he didn’t see the shotgun until Eric got back in the car after shooting Luis is already a lie.

John:  There’s plenty of lies. He says that when Eric gets out of the car, when they see an individual who they thought was Luis. When he steps out of the car. he just gets the door open, starts to get out of, and then goes, “Oh, it’s wrong guy,” and close the door. He says, “At that point, I hadn’t seen the shotgun.”

Yeardley:  Oh, I see.

John:  Crazy.

Dave:  Yeah.

Paul:  Marcel is minimizing, anything that is going to put him in making incriminating statements with the homicide. He’s minimizing his role. He’s admitting to these accessory types of roles during the commission of the homicide. He’s at least savvy enough to know when he’s going to step over that line and basically step right into the homicide charge itself.

Dave:  And I think about Marcel has some things to consider for the next 25 years as well, is that he rolled on a guy that doesn’t sound like he’s to be trifled with. And so, when you roll on Eric, I imagine that there’s probably some consequences to that as well.

Yeardley:  Even in prison. I’m guessing you’re probably not safe in prison.

Dave:  No, that’s what I’m saying 100%.

Yeardley:  Yeah. John, do you know what became of Laura and Ann?

John:  No. The thing with Laura was, I think she was legitimately scared of her husband. But I think, she probably had an inkling. I mean, I think she knew that they got caught.

Yeardley:  You mean Laura knew that Eric knew that she and Luis were having an affair?

John:  Yes. And I think she was wondering when the shoe was going to drop. I don’t think it came as a complete shock that her husband went over there and killed Luis. He wasn’t the type to say, “Let’s go to counseling.” [laughs]

Yeardley:  Right. There’s a saying that says people commit crimes. In this case, murder for love, money, or pride. And, I don’t know, the fact that you would kill another guy because you’re now wife who has a child with that other guy. I mean, I don’t know.

Dave:  You’re talking about things from your perspective, and you’re a reasonable person. When you talk about manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, I mean, this is like the example. Eric just didn’t give a shit.

Paul:  This motive that Eric had, this is really. I mean, it just boils down to a lover’s triangle, which is one of the most common motives for homicides that aren’t related to your gang violence, your drug types of stuff, and I think something that John, when he started talking about the shooting, assessing the crime scene, how Luis was shot four times with the 12-gauge shotgun. No signs of robbery. Doesn’t look like the offender ever got close to Luis. I talk about. And I’m usually doing it in other types of cases. Fantasy motivated, sexually motivated types of crimes. But how assessing the dynamics that happened at the crime scene can be informative of motive can be informative of the relationship between the offender and the victim.

 So, early on, John is now recognizing, this looks like a targeted homicide. And then the next thing is well, victimology is huge. And the next step in the investigation that John took, well, I need to learn more about Luis. And as he’s finding out about the victimology of Luis now, the investigation starts to coalesce, and then the information drops. And sure enough, this was a targeted homicide. And the motive was really this jealousy lover’s triangle scenario. It just happened to be committed by a badass OG out of Bayview-Hunters Point, who’s not just walking up and using a 9 mm. He’s Molotov cocktails and rifled slugs and everything else and blowing up entire neighborhoods.

Yeardley:  I mean, so really two out of three for Eric’s motive, love and pride, love/jealousy and pride, you hurt my pride. You did me wrong. It seems like a really drastic solution.

John:  It’s funny, though, that all the cops say exactly the same thing because when I got to the crime scene that night, the patrol sergeant, the watch commander are standing there, and we come walking up, and I was like, “Wow. I mean, it was a gruesome scene.” And the watch commander said “Somebody was mad at him.” And that’s exactly correct. I mean, there was no robbery here.

Yeardley:  So, John, how many years you been on the job now?

John:  34.

Yeardley:  That’s a great many. And you spent a lot of it investigating homicides?

John:  Yeah, about 25 of it. Yeah.

Yeardley:  You’ve seen so much. So, what about this case sticks with you?

John:  It was honestly just the unusual nature of it. That’s the only thing that really jumped out at me. It’s one of the seven deadly sins, the lust or the greed whatever. It’s one of those, and there’s a lot of sayings that come out of the hood. And when something like this happens, they’ll say, “Well, he fucked with the wrong guy’s wife. And that’s true. You got to be cautious about some of the decisions you’re making, because some of these guys, there’s no worse offense than to dishonor them, disrespect them.

Yeardley:  It’s just a different set of rules.

John:  Yeah. And they look at almost everything as, if you rip them off in a drug deal, that’s disrespect. And if that trickles out to the neighborhood, they lose face. If somebody had found out that his wife, somebody he married, is messing around with her baby daddy on the side, that’s not going to go over well.

Yeardley:  Right. Thank you so much for spending this time with us, John. It’s always great to see you.

Dan:  Thank you, John.

Dave:  Nice work for sure.

[theme music]

John:  Thank you for having me. I appreciate it very much.

Yeardley:  Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith.Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editors are Christina Bracamontes and Erin Phelps. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Gary Scott is our executive producer and Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell.And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

 Oh, our groovy theme song was composed by John Forrest. Also, if you’d like to support the making of this podcast, hop on over to patreon.com/smalltowndickspodcast. There, for a small subscription fee, you’ll find exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else.

 The transcripts of this podcast are thanks to SpeechDocs and they can be found on our website, smalltowndicks.com. Thank you SpeechDocs for this wonderful service. Small Town Dicks is an Audio 99 Production. Small Town Fam, thanks for listening.Nobody is better than you.

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