Murder in the Hollywood Hills - Ep. 4: A Bad Actor
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Detective Virginia Obenshain had no idea what to expect. A police tip line can be a catch-all for every nut in town. Gives them an excuse to rant on, and a rant they will. And they certainly did call in. The public, that is. More than 500 callers those first two weeks, all with something to say about the disappearance of Christy Johnson.

And something like 200 of those callers were taken seriously enough that detectives followed up, particularly the women.

We interviewed all the girls that called in. Some women said they too had been approached by the man pictured in news reports. This is the guy I met at the mall. Others said they too had gotten the movie pitch. Then he started in on the whole James Bond thing. And one seemed to know when whatever happened to Christy Johnson actually happened. We were watching the news and her picture came up. We called the police.

to let them know that we had, you know, we had seen her. Yes, the pieces were beginning to fit. The man, the M.O., the timeline, and more. In this episode, the man who wanted a house. We also got a call from the realtor who had shown Mr. Paley Logos numerous houses. Just what was he looking for up there in the Hollywood Hills the week before Christy Johnson vanished?

It seems like he's not looking at the house, like he's looking at the things in the house. You'll hear from a woman who narrowly escaped an encounter with Victor Palaeologus more than a decade earlier. One of the detectives called me and said, this guy, he's been consistently doing this to women after your case.

And you'll hear from the man at the very center of this mystery, Victor Baleologos himself. I've never mistreated him. If anything, I've been overly generous with him. You're talking about some women who had some hidden agendas. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Murder in the Hollywood Hills, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 4, A Bad Actor. It was late on a Friday.

Too late to be showing anyone houses. But when Paul Cady saw a tall, slender man push through the door at Regal Real Estate little after six, he put on a welcoming smile and extended his hand. The date was February 7th, 2003, a week before Christy Johnson was last seen alive. Christy was, no doubt, happily planning to do whatever it is 21-year-olds do on Friday nights in the big city.

The meeting in the real estate office might have been on some other planet, for all she knew. But there it was, like a path marked out in chalk. This was the start of the trail that ended down to Soggy Ravine in the Hollywood Hills. Paul Cady's office on Santa Monica Boulevard. The tall man told Cady his name was Paleologus Victor. "Call me Victor," he said.

He'd just moved from New York, he said, was moving his computer business to the West Coast, said he wanted to look at something "high-end" in the Hollywood Hills. Katie liked the sound of that, so he gave Victor some forms to fill out and told him they could start the next day. Paul Katie told police that for the next week he took this Victor fellow all over the Hollywood Hills.

They looked at dozens of homes, including one with killer views, high up on Skyline Drive. Victor seemed nice enough, but after three or four days of house hunting, Katie began to feel something wasn't quite right about this guy. I told my roommate at the time, I said,

It seems like he's not looking at the house, like he's looking at the things in the house. Sometimes, Katie said, Victor would open desk drawers in the houses they visited. On occasion, he said Victor would ask him to step outside. Well, he screamed.

Victor said he wanted to see if sound inside the house could be heard outside. You know, I'd driven eccentric people. I used to be a chauffeur. And I'd driven people who had oddities and things, you know, people who would take such steps with both feet. But screaming inside to test a home's soundproofing? Well, that was a new one on Paul Cady. I told my boss, and he goes, oh, I think he's legit. I think he's legit.

There was only one day that Katie could recall not house hunting with Victor during that second week in February 2003, and that was Saturday, February 15th, the day Christy Johnson was last seen alive. On Sunday the 16th and Monday evening the 17th, they were at it again. That last time Katie told police, Victor said he was ready to make an offer on a house.

But first, he said, he wanted to buy a car. He asked if Paul knew of a Mercedes or BMW dealership near the Century Plaza. Well, yes, Katie said, there is. And then he dropped Victor off at a BMW dealership on Wilshire and told him, drop by the real estate office when he was done so they could write up an offer on the house. But Victor never showed up.

Only later did Paul Cady learn that Victor had been arrested for stealing a BMW right off the loft that night. Apparently, he posed as a buyer and offered stolen identification and financial information. Information taken from one of the homes they'd been looking at. Victor burglarized a few of them, taking checks and business cards and things of that nature.

That's Detective Virginia Obenshain. What can you tell me about stealing the BMW and how that played into it all? Well, he stole the BMW because he wanted to go to Mexico. And I don't remember now if it was during the test drive or if they hung the key to the BMW up and he went in to the showroom and took the key and took the car. Certainly a picture was emerging now. A theory, said Detective Obenshain.

The houses, the burglaries, the stolen car, seemed like they all fit in. Victor Palaeologus had a plan. He was setting it up well in advance of what he intended to do. We can't prove it, but that's our theory. He had seen that house on Skyline Drive. Oh yes, that house on Skyline Drive.

The one with a killer view. That was several hundred yards away from where her body was found. Okay, so what happened? I think he lured her up there for the purposes of raping her. He assaulted her. She fought back. He strangled her, went a little too far. She lost consciousness. He thought he had killed her and he dumped her over the hill. A tidy little theory, yes. But like she said, there was no evidence to support any of it.

Did you search that house? Yes. Did you find anything useful in there? Nothing. No DNA? No fingerprints? No DNA. No fingerprints. So if he was in that house, he didn't leave anything behind at all? Correct. Are you pretty sure that that's where the murder went down? No, we're not.

Investigators had spent days looking at store security videos from the Century City Mall for February the 15th, the day Christy was there. And sure enough, there she was, buying a miniskirt at Guess. But Paley Logus? For all their searching through the tapes, they saw not a trace of him. Nada. Nor could they find a single person who saw Paley Logus and Christy together.

So that tiny little theory of theirs might be all they'd ever get. We were all exhausted trying to find something from him. There were six of us working robbery homicide at the time, and every single one of us was dedicated to this case. Had this lanky ex-con and clumsy car thief somehow managed to commit the perfect crime? Obin Chayne doubted that. No such thing in her book. But with no physical or scientific evidence to build her case on,

She knew the investigation would have to take a new tack. This was one of the only cases that I handled that I had zero evidence. All I had were the witnesses and the same M.O. So that is what she and her colleagues decided to go with. They researched Victor Palaeologos' criminal record.

And they dug through court dockets and dusty criminal files looking for cases that either named paleologus or cold cases that seemed to match his M.O. You know, photographer, Bond movie, audition. And what they found? A guy who'd been playing the law for a chump for more than a decade. There are some football feelings you can only get with BetMGM Sportsbook. That's right. Not just the highs. The O's.

Or the no, no, no's. No! It's the feeling that comes with being taken care of every down of the football season. The feeling that comes with getting MGM rewards benefits or earning bonus bets. So, whether you're drawing up a same-game parlay in your playbook or betting the over on your favorite team. Cheers!

The BetMGM app is the best place to bet on football. You only get that feeling at BetMGM. The sportsbook born in Vegas, now live across the DMV. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only, DC only, subject to eligibility requirements. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

As Democrats unite around Vice President Harris, they'll gather in Chicago to endorse their presidential ticket. The new era is here. It is go time. Stay with MSNBC for insights and analysis. The race is going to be close. Everybody should prepare themselves for that. Plus reporting on the ground from the convention hall. Extraordinary levels of enthusiasm from Democrats for the fight ahead. The Democratic National Convention. Special coverage this week on MSNBC.

The man had a history, no doubt about that. When the police did a little digging, they discovered Victor's first recorded run-in with the law was 14 years earlier, back in the fall of 1989. It involved an aspiring actress named Christine Kludjian. I was having drinks with a friend of mine after work. That's Christine.

And as I was driving up to this location to have drinks, that there was some guy driving alongside of me sort of making eye contact. And I thought, that's interesting. Okay, well, you know. Christine was 21 the night she met her friend at a jazz lounge in Manhattan Beach. It was a hotspot for young singles at the time, about 10 miles down the coast from Santa Monica.

They had barely settled in, said Christine, when she saw that guy again. And lo and behold, the same guy appeared in this...

lounge as well and still making eye contact still making eye contact yeah so he he introduced himself and the three of us talked and later uh he said listen i'd like to get a hold of you give me your number let me give you my card etc etc but this sounded like a guy who just wanted to date yeah he sounded very just interested very interested in dating and and um you know

showing me the town that's kind of the way that he put it do you remember how he seemed that he was he was very charming he was very well spoken and he looked good yeah he looked good he had a nice suit on and he was very well groomed you know attractive the man said his name was John Marino said he was an executive with Columbia Records and a couple of weeks after that first meeting

They made a date for a Tuesday night. And he said, I'll pick you up in a limousine. We'll have dinner. And we would go to some music industry party and then so forth and so on. He mentioned Madonna. He mentioned a couple of other people. So that's fun. It's great. Why not? Did he suggest that he might have something, what you wanted to do there, like get a part or get...

Never suggested that. No, no. He just said this might be good for you. You could meet people. You can make some contacts. And of course, that's how you make movement in this business is by who you know and meeting people. So why not? That Tuesday night, John Marino was as good as his word. He picked Christine up at her parents' house. He showed up on Time 630 white limousine.

And we took off. White limousine. We took off. He really wanted to impress you. I guess so. We toured the local areas, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, and he had champagne and munchies and things like that. And so we had some of that. And finally, we went to the restaurant, La Dome.

And I remember going to the bathroom at LaDome and calling my mother from the bathroom, telling her everything is fine. It's great. The guy's fine. No worries, nothing, you know. Oh, yes, it was shaping up to be a dazzling evening. The wine flowed. The conversation sparkled. From what Christine could tell, this John Marino must really be somebody.

He spent money lavishly, paid with cash. He took me to a club near the Beverly Center or at the Beverly Center. And he flashed the guy either a card, his business card, and or a tip. And we bypassed the line and went into this club. Then around 11, they jumped back in the limo to head over to the Bonaventure Hotel for the party. It was raining by then.

And with the exception of one awkward moment when her date tried to steal a kiss in the limo, said Christine, the evening so far had been a smashing success. We then arrived at the Bonaventure Hotel and he said to the driver of the limousine, take Christine around the block a couple of times. I want to make sure we're at the right place and everything is set.

Did that seem odd to you? A little bit odd. But at that time I thought, it was raining. You can justify for anything. It was raining. Why should we get out if the party had been moved or something like that? Or maybe whatever, whatever. In other words, he had an answer for this. Absolutely. Anyway, after the limo made a few laps around the block, John Marino reappeared at the curb and escorted her into the hotel. Christine didn't know what to expect, really.

Maybe a glimpse of Madonna through a hedgerow of elegant tuxedos? No. Maybe casual groupings of hip-looking musician types? No, not that either. There was none of that. The lobby looked, well, empty. John Marino muttered something to Christine about the party being up on the 20th floor, so she followed him to the elevator. And when the doors opened on the 20th floor, said Christine...

She saw nothing but an empty hallway. I didn't hear noise. I didn't see security for a party. I didn't see people milling about as you would. You're just in a hotel hallway. Hallway, right, where the suites were. I had been to a couple of industry parties at the Bonaventure before. So it wasn't surprising to me that this is where this party was going to be. So I thought, all right, fine.

It wasn't until John Marino opened one of the sweet doors with a key card that Christine started to have second thoughts. And in that moment that he pulled out the key card, I thought, this guy is definitely conning me right now.

Why? And he may not even be who he says he is. Why? Because he had a key card. If he was just attending a party, you wouldn't have a key card. You would have some sort of an invitation, or you'd be on a list, or you would be checking in, you know, with somebody. Or you'd knock on the door. Knocking on the door, something like that. And then I thought, okay, so this guy just lured me here. He wants to have sex with me, and he's a creep. It only took a few seconds for that realization to take hold.

But by then, John Marino had already guided her through the door. She'd tried to think of a graceful exit, some way out that wouldn't embarrass the guy. And then she heard the door softly click shut. Within a matter of five seconds of the key card, the door, the realization he just wants me for sex, didn't think rape. I didn't think rape. I didn't think he was going to choke me. I didn't think he was going to hurt me. I just thought, all right, guy just wants to get it on.

And I thought, how do I get out of this? So from that, in that five seconds, I found myself in a fight. Ultimately, it was a fight for my life. What followed, said Christine, was nothing less than hand-to-hand combat. He threw me on the bed. He tried to rip my clothes off. And in that moment, he pulled ropes from behind the bed. There were ropes attached to something that

Behind by the headboard. I have no idea. You would have had to arrange those exactly So he pulled these ropes this rope out and he tried to tie my my arms With this rope and I had learned something in self-defense because I've been practicing martial arts and so forth so I had learned a technique to get out of amazingly a rope

you know, tying. And I used that technique, got out, it threw him completely off guard. They struggled like that off and on for the next hour and a half, she said. Episodes of intense physical battle interspersed with

Bizarre moments of contrition and calm. One moment he calmed down. He said, I'm so sorry. This is terrible. I know this is not the way to get a woman. It's just things are going so badly at Columbia Records and my brother has just died. And, you know, I'm just really, really stressed right now. And I'm really sorry. This is not. And then he would come and attack me. So it was Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. It was in one of those moments of calm that she almost escaped.

She had thrown the jam lock, had her hand on the knob, was about to open the door when the man she knew as John Marino heard her and attacked again. He grabbed me, pulled me by my hair, dragged me back to the bed, and I knew that this was it. He grabbed my neck with his arm and started to choke me. And in that moment, I thought, all right, I have to do something here. So I head-butted him.

I must have hit his nose because he let go just enough for me to release myself. I scrambled across the bed. He got on top of me and he dug his arms and his knees into my body. And I couldn't push him off. Obviously, I'm 123 pounds and he's 190 or two. And so...

Again, unbelievably, I moved my arms forward so that his own weight would fall on top of me. And then I bit him on his crotch, which was he was fully clothed. You bit him on his crotch? I bit him on his crotch. What happened? As hard as I possibly could. It works. He rolled over.

he rolled or he fell over he's yelping and screaming and and uh and then i thought you know victory and now he's screaming because he's in pain i'm now screaming help help rape help help help help and he grabbed his jacket and he ran out the door he ran out the door he ran out the door and i'm standing there crying and screaming and in complete disbelief that i have fought this monster

By the time hotel security arrived, John Marino had melted into the night. He might have gotten away with it, except for one thing. Christine's parents had smelled a rat when that big white limousine had come to pick up their daughter that night. So they had written down the license number. The next day, when we were talking to the police, we gave them the license plate. We told them all the information that I knew.

And what do you know? The man who flashed cash used a credit card to reserve the limo. A few days later, the police found him 20 miles away at the computer company where he worked. He saw the detectives coming and ran out the back and they ran around the back and they caught him and they inspected his parts and... Had you caused some damage? Turns out, apparently...

I did not cause him that much damage, but it was enough, enough for him to run away and for me to be safe. Thank God. So but then that's when we found out this guy is not at all who he says he is. He's Victor Paleologos and he's not Columbia Records executive and he's not all of these things. Paleologos was charged with attempted rape and false imprisonment.

When the case went to trial, Peleologos' attorney argued that Victor and Christine had a romantic relationship.

And that the Donnybrook in the hotel room had simply been a lover spat, not the dramatic life and death struggle Christine had described. The trial ended and he was not found guilty of any of the things that he was charged with. He was charged with attempted rape, not guilty, assault with attempt to rape, not guilty, and false imprisonment. There was a hung jury.

And ultimately what happened was there was some sort of a plea with the false imprisonment charge. So he had to do community service and pay a fine. Racine Kludjian was crestfallen after that, angry at the jury for not believing her, angry at the system for allowing a dangerous man to walk free. He probably, probably had done it before, but...

Because the crime was too well thought out. You know, the trap was too well set. And so I said it then to everyone involved in the case, the DA, the detectives, the police, everyone around me, my group. I said, this guy has done this before. He'll do it again. And he will kill someone because he almost killed me.

There are some football feelings you can only get with BetMGM Sportsbook. That's right. Not just the highs, the ohs, or the no, no, no's. It's the feeling that comes with being taken care of every down of the football season. The feeling that comes with getting MGM rewards benefits or earning bonus bets. So, whether you're drawing up a same-game parlay in your playbook or betting the over on your favorite team. Hey!

The BetMGM app is the best place to bet on football. You only get that feeling at BetMGM. The sportsbook born in Vegas, now live across the DMV. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only, DC only, subject to eligibility requirements. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

As Democrats unite around Vice President Harris, they'll gather in Chicago to endorse their presidential ticket. The new era is here. It is go time. Stay with MSNBC for insights and analysis. The race is going to be close. Everybody should prepare themselves for that. Plus reporting on the ground from the convention hall. Extraordinary levels of enthusiasm from Democrats for the fight ahead. The Democratic National Convention. Special coverage this week on MSNBC.

Christine Kludgeon's story had been easy to track down. After all, there was a court record. But when detectives started combing through cold cases, cases in which an assault was reported but a perpetrator never found, that was a goldmine. One of those cases turned out from back in 1991, 12 years before Kristie Johnson was killed.

It was a complaint from a 27-year-old actress who said she'd been approached at LAX by a man who offered her a chance to be in a Bond film. Well, she met him. He had said that he... I forgot the name he used, but he was from Disney. That's Detective Obenshain again. He took her to dinner. They had dinner. Then he went up and ordered drinks and brought her her drink and...

And she took a couple sips and started feeling kind of weird. So she asked if Victor would try it and he did not want to try it. And he walked out of the restaurant. Cops were called. The drink? Well, it could have been tossed, but it wasn't. Instead, the cops took it as evidence and put it in cold storage. The man was never found and the case never went anywhere. That is, not until Detective Obenshain found the old incident report

The sample of the drink was kept. Ten years later, when I stumbled on this, we had the drink sent out for lab work, and it came back with the Dramamine. Wait a minute. The drink is still hanging around in the police department after ten years? Yes. That must be one heck of a storage site that the police departments have if they're keeping drinks for ten years.

And then testing them all that time later. Yeah. Our property people make the best packers in the world. They can fit a lot of stuff into a little space. Naturally, detectives tracked down the woman. They showed her a photo lineup and asked her if any of the men in that six-pack was the man who'd spiked her drink way back then. And what do you know? She picked Victor Palaeologus.

Clearly he has some intentions for that woman. Did she feel as if she dodged a bullet? She did. In one particularly public 1996 case, seven years before Christy was killed, investigators learned he'd tried to strangle a woman after she broke up with him. In fact, he tried to strangle her twice. The first time at a vacant restaurant, the second time in her apartment.

According to court records, Peleologos had broken into the woman's apartment and hid in a spare bedroom. When she discovered him behind the bed, the reports say Peleologos jumped up and chased her around the bedroom with a ligature in his hands. When he couldn't subdue her, he ran away, taking some jewelry and a gun with him. It took police a month to track him down.

Peleologos was finally captured after he broke into a home in Malibu and barricaded himself with a young boy who'd simply been at home alone watching TV. He surrendered after a three-hour standoff with the SWAT team.

He's coming out. Police say the suspect was not armed. That 1996 incident was even covered on the local news, a live report. Los Angeles police tell us that following his capture, felony suspect Victor Lawrence Palaeologus refused to walk out of the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station, so they carried him to the waiting patrol car and his journey to jail. But the truly amazing bit was this.

When it came to the law and L.A.'s judicial system, the man was as slippery as an eel. Every time Paleologus seemed sure to wind up in a prison cell for some crime, his lawyers reached a plea deal with prosecutors. Charges were dropped or downgraded, and he would end up walking away with probation. The case with the ex-girlfriend, the one that resulted in the SWAT team standoff...

In exchange for pleading guilty to a single count of burglary, he got a six-year suspended sentence. Probation, not prison. Yeah, I mean, it was my impression that he was able to kind of skirt through somehow. That's former L.A. Times crime reporter Andrew Blankstein. As reporters, we talk about falling through the cracks. Other people are more cynical and say, it's just, you know, this is...

plea bargaining, a quick look at the criminal record really bore out this idea that he was somebody that seemed to just kind of skirt the law, get a plea bargain. It wasn't until 1998 that Victor Palaeologos finally committed a crime he couldn't plea bargain away.

In that case, Palaeologus lured a young woman to an empty restaurant on the promise that he would introduce her to a director who was allegedly making a Bond film. Once there, Palaeologus tried to rape her. Fortunately, the woman got away and called the police, who arrested Palaeologus and charged him with assault, attempted rape, and false imprisonment. Though the attempted rape and false imprisonment charges were dropped before trial,

He was convicted of felony assault, and it was while Palaeologus was out on bond in that case that he approached Cathy de Bono with the same old pitch: photographer, Bond film, audition, etc. Oh yes, those old files told quite a story. The story of an apparently incorrigible criminal. Alongside two reported cases of attempted sexual assault,

There were financial crimes, false statements, and forgeries. On top of that were Palaeologus' personal calamities. In the mid-to-late 90s, he opened a succession of restaurants, one in Marina del Rey, one in Brentwood, and then the last one in West Hollywood on La Cienega. All of them failed, as did a brief marriage.

By May 2003, three months after the disappearance of Christy Johnson, Detective Obenshain still had no physical evidence implicating Victor Palaeologus. But she did have a pattern of past behavior. She figured that was as close to having a smoking gun as she would ever get. So she took it to the D.A. Did you get any pushback from the D.A. saying, come on, there's just not enough here? No, no. We took it downtown.

to their unit and they filed it right away. - They took a look at this, at what they suspected this guy had done and figured that was enough to go. - Yes, with all the priors, with all the women that came forward with the exact same story, they decided not only would they file the case, but they filed it as a capital case. - The death penalty

This time the stakes could not be higher for Victor Palaeologus. Prosecutors felt they had a strong circumstantial case, but Palaeologus' court-appointed attorney, Andrew Flyer,

disagreed. They just assume that because he has a past, he must have done the present. And I find that outrageous. I have to be quite frank with you. Based on my conversation with him and the way he speaks, I believe he's innocent. In fact, the lawyer felt so confident that he did something defense attorneys almost never do. He agreed to let Victor Palaeologos do a jailhouse interview with me.

cameras and all. Victor Palaeologus sat across from me, legs splayed apart in a chair that seemed too short for him. Palaeologus' lawyer, Andrew Flyer, sat to his side. Where'd you grow up? In New York, in Pennsylvania area. Big family? Yeah, we got a big family. Palaeologus came off as a

Gangly, soft-spoken man in our interview. His thick brown hair brushed straight back. He had a long, sad face, a dimpled chin and pale blue eyes that seemed to droop at the corners. Hardly the kind of man you'd have imagined doing all the things he'd been accused of. We weren't long into our conversation before he told me he'd recently gotten some bad news.

This is actually a hard time for me right now. My mother just passed away. I just learned about it. I've heard that. And it's been tough. But we had a wonderful childhood together. I'm very thankful for both my mother and father being in my life. I don't believe for any...

instant that this is a reflection of their teaching or love or anything else. You know, parents always blame themselves for whatever may happen to their children, however caused. But this has no reflection on them whatsoever. My parents have been outstanding people. They're aware of everything that's happened to you, all the charges, all the allegations. My father's quite old, but he's aware of what's going on.

At the time of this interview, Palaeologos had been locked up in the Men's Central Jail for more than a year. Largely because of the notoriety of his case, he told me, that year had been hard. There's been fights. There's been...

There's been a lot of name-calling. This has gained a lot of attention in the media. I'm not asking for anybody to take pity on me in this situation, okay? But at least let the facts come out before you make judgments, okay? Is that why you're doing this interview? Let the facts come out? You know, I've had a lot of issues that have happened in my past I'm not proud of, okay? They weren't the shining points in my life.

And I can't go back and correct them. I take responsibility for anything that I've done. But I'm not going to sit back, okay, and let myself be steamrolled over on something that I haven't done. Just what it was Victor Peleologos was willing to take responsibility for seemed to be a moving target. He denied ever assaulting women.

Let's clear up one thing. I never struggled with any woman or forced myself upon any woman whatsoever. But in the next breath, he admitted to assaulting the woman in the case that sent him to prison. I take responsibility for that. I did have some heavy influence in that whole issue. Paleologus admitted to stealing IDs from the Hollywood Hills homes he toured with the real estate agent.

But all that James Bond stuff, the showbiz come on so many women described. Well, he said, none of that ever happened. Did you, for example, ever portray yourself to a woman as being in the entertainment industry? No. Never once? No. And yet, women look at your picture and say, yeah, he's the guy. That's a lie. The old lie? Yes.

Let's get on to the heart of the matter, which is Christy Johnson. She met you in the mall. She met me in the mall. She did not meet me in the mall. You were never in the mall that day? I went to the mall later on that afternoon, yes. But I never met this young lady, no. Not that I had any expectation that Palaeologus would blurt out some sort of pre-trial confessional mea culpa. No, this was more about getting a sense of the guy. Arrogant?

Yes, maybe. Slippery? Perhaps. Like a man testing a brazen-it-out sort of defense. But what do I know? Anyway, two years would pass before a jury of twelve would hear several women say, under oath, that their encounters with Victor Palaeologus mirrored what investigators believed happened to Christy Johnson. Would those jurors believe it? Absent any other evidence...

Would a jury find that a man's past justifies a death sentence? Well, as I was about to leave that cramped little interview room inside the jail, I heard Paleologos' defense attorney say this. We'll see what happens in this case, but I think I'm going to win this case.

Next time on Murder in the Hollywood Hills. It is a very sketchy case. There's nothing to tie anybody to her body. No evidence. I sort of had this visual of these women just surrounding him and sort of looking at him and like, no, you don't. You're not going anywhere. You're not doing this again.

The only evidence they have on this case is that allegedly Miss Johnson tells her roommate that she might have some meeting with a gentleman who might put her in a movie role, i.e. a James Bond flick. That's it. And suddenly from that one issue, Mr. Paliologos is the killer. It's part of the big...

cogwheel that just keeps on turning. I mean, there's no solemn vow and taking pleas are done all the time. That's the way it works. I'm sorry to tell you, but that's the way it works. Murder in the Hollywood Hills is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Tim Beecham is the producer.

Brian Drew, Kelly Laudeen, and Marshall Hausfeld are audio editors. Carson Cummins and Keanu Reid are associate producers. Adam Gorfain is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Bob Mallory and Katherine Anderson. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.