3 – The Girl with the Hibiscus Tattoo
35:43 Share

Sometimes it's Better to be lucky and good, though of course it's always good to be both. That was never tour, perhaps, than in the case of that missing Young woman, Christie Johnson.

If SHE doesn't tell the .

roommate that she's going off to meet somebody and this is what she's wearing, this case never goes anywhere. If another woman who'd been recently propositioned by a photographable called a tip eline and provided police with a description of a possible suspect, detectives wouldn't have had a sketch to show the public.

This man approached me and he looked Normal.

If a parole of, as I hadn't noticed, the sketch looked a lot like one of her paroles. The detectors wouldn't have known who do not investigate. He'd only been released from prison on january twenty and two thousand and three.

So yes, one months later and the week after Christie vanished, the detectives got lucky. They had a suspect, but they still hadn't found cristy. And luck rarely holds for long. IT was .

extremely frustrating, especially since sometime had a lapsed. We weren't sure if he was alive. We were hoping that he was alive.

In this episode, you'll hear about disturbing similarities, the mall, the man bond film auditions and more women.

I was watching the news one morning, having a cup of coffee, and the story was on. And there was this drawing of someone, a composite, and I recognized him immediately.

You'll hear how a laptop computer discovered during a routine search turned up some chilling evidence.

There were shots of women with the long sleeve White shirt, a tie, short black mini skirt, nylons and student to black heels.

And you hear about the russian discovery, an exclusive neighborhood. l.

Her hands had been bound. Her body stopped in a sleeping bag. Police say she's been there a while.

I'm he's Morrison. And this is murder in the hollywood hills upon cash on deadline. Episode three, the girl with a hybiscus tattoo.

Twelve days after Christie Johnson disappeared, they held individual in SATA Monica as roughly two dozen heavy hearted souls gathered outside a big official church that thursday night, feelings you have, hope and dread, seemed to hang in the air like an unresolved coward. Twelve days, still no sign of Christie and though there was also no proof that he was dead, Christi's mom seemed somehow reconcile we wanted .

to do something as a memorial to Christy's life um at that church and sa Monica that's Terry hall, Christies mom, the chief of police in the captain of the sea onic police department to come to visit me and they said that they really felt that .

Christie was probably not alive well. Family, friends and supporters were lighting candles and singing in satin. Ica detective Virginia open chain was eleven miles away in west hollywood, searching an empty building later stop on a trail of leads.

IT was a trail that began with the sketch police released based on the description Susan Murphy had given them. Now the man who had met her red at the mall and invited her to a bond girl addition and then a parole officer catch resembled one of her parolees SHE said. His name was Victor paya logis, forty years old, White mae, about six two. In the enforcement jargon, the guy was a two ninety, which meant he was a convicted sex offender. So then detective dea computer search and discovered he was already in jail.

Mister pale logos happened to be in custody because beverly hills arrested him on unrelated charges to our case, but they arrested him for grand theft dota with a fragile application used to purchase A B, M, W. So he had been arrested on february seventeen, and he was in county jail awaiting charges on .

that federal s that was just two days after Christie Johnson disappeared. IT was possible that seemed unlikely that this pillock s would be their suspect. But when detectives showed the mug shot to Susan Murphy, he said he was one hundred percent shore.

That was the man who invited. And here's the thing. According to the parole officer, bailo logos had listed nine eighty last year and a on parole forms as his address.

Nine eighty losi antia was just steps away from where Susan mercy and her boyfriend said they confront at the man. The detectives figured if Susan muri had been asked to come to that location, so near to where pay illogical was supposed to be living. But maybe Christine had been taken there too.

IT was a two story, multi use complex. There was a restaurant downstairs, which once was on by pay leo logis, and his apartment was on the second floor. And IT was an old dance studio.

What do you find there?

Oh, he had different pallets and male in stationary from the century city hotel. And then downstairs, in a basement, we found his items, and among them with his laptop computer.

Kay, what was on that?

There were shots of women with the long sleep White shirt, a tie, a short black mini skirt, nylons and stead to black .

heels with, like porno shots, or or more glamour shots.

I would say they were kind of soft porn shots OK.

But the very same costume that he had to. And Murphy, where the very same costume that you're missing girl apparently was asked to wear.

Yes.

as urban chain conducted her own search, the forensics people picked away at every possible surface, looking for some kind of evidence that Richard Christie had been there. Even dogs were brought in. Maybe they could detect Christie, but no, there was nothing, nothing there. The tig Christie Johnson to Victor paya logue.

Do you have to realize that was twenty years ago, over twenty years ago, DNA was not what IT is today in place. The person wears gloves. You don't Normally get .

the fingerprints. And so the very next day, detective open chain decided IT was time her investigation at a chat with Victor biological, who at that moment was cooling as seals at the main central jail.

So we officers, are my feller detectives out there to go pick him up and bring him back to the station so we could dinner you.

But there was a problem. Somebody of the jail had definitely tipped off philly. Illogical to santoni a police were on their way to talk to him because once the detectives m sad Monica arrived at the jail, Victoria logis could not be found.

He was down in the laundry area and he asked a couple of the inmates to switch response with him and said he would give them five thousand dollars each IT was a matter of life or death, but we all know that there is no death .

penalty for auto theft no indeed but clearly there was something he wanted to avoid revealing .

um himself especially .

correct clearly an active desperation. One of the detainees from whom kill illegals tried to buy a risk band was a five foot five tips mail. Not someone that, anyone, whatever, confused with a six foot two paleologus. But desperate men sometimes do desperate things.

What i'm showing is a photograph mr. Pei logis and he wrote under the picture S S in so which also give me a Better though um meaning that this is the .

person I ask me what did you think what you're heard about that I was .

about probably about as good an admission of guilty I could get.

Well, true. Except that alone didn't prove anything, did not prove video, August ever met t. Christie did not prove he made her disappear. So when vict pila logis funny took a seat in the antimonial of relation of your room that night, detective open chain was hoping for another stroke of luck. Maybe he would confess or implicate himself in some way, but SHE was pretty sure he would not want to admit anything to a woman. So detective open chain has two male detectives to do with the owners, and he would watch the video of feed from another room.

I SAT back as my partners interviews him, I did not want to give Victor another opportunity to try to manipulate a female. And I wanted him to feel comfortable talking to a male, but I wanted my partner's to be able to control the situation of the interview or the interrogation, rather than vitor trying to control IT by me being in the room.

Do you really think he would try to do there with you? I think he would. An chain was in her late forties when I first met her, but SHE still had the blond hair, the blue eyes and Sunny disposition of the prototypical california curl. A career in law enforcement has always been her dream job, though the nzz parochial school told her IT was off limits for little girls.

I remember distinctly going at catholic school, and after summer, came back to school, and the nun asked, you know, john y, would you want to be when he, you grow up? And he said, I want to be a fire minute. And then the girls were, I want to be a nurse.

I want to be a teacher and then they asked me, and I said, I wants to be a policeman. And he said, you can't be a policeman. I said, guess I .

can't good for you. And then you did. Wasn't really. When I came time to choose a major in college, the genuine toyed with the idea of premiere before settling on business administration.

I was going to go into labor law. And at twenty six years old, I said it's now or never. So I quit my job and join the police force.

Well, so have been on your mind all that time. yes. In her nineteen years on the police force, first in patrol and arcos, the auto theft Virginia open chain had learned a lot about human beings. Some people were just not on the up and up and simply couldn't be trusted ever to do the right thing. And as SHE SAT watching the video feed of the interview with Victory lio logis, that conclusion never seen more true.

I could tell that he was lying. He had that attitude. I have no idea why you're talking to me. Where's Christie? We need to find out if we can help.

I can help you. You knew he knew something and he's not telling you. I speak hopeful ly frustrating.

IT was extremely frustrating, especially since some time had a lapsed. We knew that I was critical that we find that as soon as possible on on the chance that he was still alive, so that we can get in to our.

in one particularly telling exchange interrogators why you try to steal a bmw. Two days after Christie Johnson vanished.

Well, he had told my partners that we're interviewing them that he wanted to go to mexico.

As SHE watched pale logis slouched in the small interview room, non Shelly batting away her colleagues questions detective urban jane knew he was looking at a criminal. The question was killer.

M, S, N B C films presents a new four part series from nbc news studios that exposes the injustices of wrongful conventions, the things in critical first two episodes, premiere scarcity at nine P M. Turn on M S. The main central jail in downtown most Angeles is a sprawling concrete complex that has all the architectural charm of a stack of amazon boxes.

Left on the front steps is the largest jail and the nation's largest jail system, one of the oldest inside thousands of men crowd into the spaces meant for half as many. No one would want to go there if they didn't have to. But on the morning of march third, two thousand and three, a monday, that is where detective virginio open an chain, had to be meeting her there that day, where Susan Murphy, her boyfriend mark and the parking attended, who had seen a man park Christi sports car at the same region hotel the morning after SHE disappeared.

This was going to be uncomfortable. The three witnesses would be looking at a live lineup chore. Susan had I added a mug shot, but picking the right suspect out of a group of six men, all standing right in front of her and looking by intent, veg similar, this would be certainly a more definitive test.

But even before the six men were LED in detective, open change sense, trouble generally arranging a live line that is relatively straight forward proposition. But then nothing seemed to be straightforward. A Victor p. Logos was concerned. I anticipated .

there would be a problem with this because he was growing his hair and he was growing a beard. And that's not how he appeared when he approached the girls. So I got a warrant, a search form, basically forcing him to shave his beer and cut his hair .

um I bet he didn't feel too good about that daily.

No, he was not a real happy camper. And so they take you into a room where there's a big .

window that is.

that was terrified, I really was, and look like they .

can see you IT does.

And they explained that the way the lies shoot up and the way the light shoot down, that IT makes IT impossible for to see you.

IT was a big room. See you are sitting. The men in the lineups stood on a platform up front logo was third from the left, like golia. As he was wearing a yellow jail, they should sweatshirt with a big numeral three in his chest. His hair seemed to be mush up, pulled LED down over his forehead, different from composition and mug shot photos that had been used in previous photo erased. You can get up .

and walk right in front of IT to see. I didn't need to do that. I knew what was immediately, and he was like disguising him, like, like acting all where.

And I turned to instance, what is he doing? And I I was like, that's the guy for sure. He's like making weird face is and flying on his hair. He looks try to look so different. Remember that thing got like what .

shk s boyfriend mark, also dentist, says the man he had confronted in a solid wood, but the parking lot attended. Well, that was a different story.

He picked a completely different person.

He didn't pick Victory. Does that end up sent you in the wrong direction or holding you up? No.

no. We had an f. ds. From the other victims or potential victims.

Other victims? yes. But then several other women had called the police tip line. Some were responding to media reports of a men claiming to be a photographer who had approached women of the century city mall. Some of the composition sketch look familiar.

And if you had even picked paid ological picture out of a photo, china. But as detective urban change stood there in the lineup room saying her goodbye to the witnesses, he knew he had a problem without finding Christie either dead or alive. He was in the unenviable position of having a suspect, but no crime to charge him with.

IT was about three o'clock that afternoon when he and another detective walked out of the thick old jail. They were standing on the sidewalk when both their cellphone suddenly look up. For more than an hour, officers have been trying to reach them, but there was no phone reception inside the jail. Thing was that the college, there was action in the hollywood hills. A little afternoon that day, hikers had spotted what they thought was a body seventy five feet down a steep slope off of skyline drive.

Three hikers were up in the lookout mountains area, and one of them walked a little further down the hill, confirmed IT was a body, and then found a neighbor and asked the neighbor to call the police.

Back in the city room of the L. A times reporter Andrew blank team was watching the breaking news on TV.

so I remember very distinctly that the helicopter shot from above where the body was discovered.

Andrew black stein is now an investigative reporter for nbc news.

And then I remember having the conversation, getting a call, making calls with first talking about that. This is the body of Christie Johnson.

and then the suspect. But then that picture play a logis. So his name had not been reported yet.

Well, black team worked his sources within the L. A P. D. santillana. Detective open chain was trying to figure out how he would get down the side of that steep hill where the body.

I wanted to get a closer look, but IT was rather prettiest going down the side of the mountain. So they arrange to have the fire department sent out a latter truck, and they basically dangled me off the end of the latter as they extended IT.

What do you do when you're up at out on the end of the latter? I mean, that be terrified.

You hold IT together because I am terrified of heights. But at the bottom of the ravine and off to the side and neighbors yard were about thirty news vans. Can I say you're got, I can't show, I fear.

IT was dark by then and turning colder as the detector was slowly lowered down the slope to the place where a woman's body, they crumbled and partially wrapped up in a blue sleeping bag. Her hands were bound behind her back with a shoestring had to be her. But problems that months have been one of the west L.

A. February on record. The hillside was a sick, muddy slide saturated by rain that would almost certainly have washed away any forensic evidence that might have been found on the body and designs SHE .

was decomposed from the shoulders up, so was very hard to identify. But the body did have the same types of tattoo that Christi head on the small of her back.

the tattoo that's scrolling purpose bisk tattoo. And there was no doubt in that detect his mind as to who IT was lying in the mud on that cold, soggy hillside. You would take a while for the medical examiner to gather dental records and making official identification. So in the meantime, Christie Johnson was totaled jane doe twenty eight.

He was wearing zp party underwear, ny lands and the still leto shoes.

not the many skirt.

not the many skirt, and not the shirt.

Two days later, the autos seeded all too obvious. Christy's death had been violent, hands tied, ankles bound together. A scuffed one of the toledo s suggested her body if the dragging at some .

point her hio t bone was crushed in, and SHE also had a radiating fracture .

of the skull.

They couldn't really pinpoint how SHE got to radiating fractured, but we're surmising that SHE her body. Well, SHE was strangled and her body was dumped over the side of the hill. And SHE must have hit a rock or a log or something peery more.

They're important. That means Christie Johnson was likely on the brink of death, but still alive. And SHE was rolled down the hill.

There was no trace of her attacker's DNA. Not a bit, not under Christies fingernails and not anywhere else for that matter. The wet weather had done its worst as the time of death. Now IT seemed certain that Christie Johnson had died within hours of leaving her apartment to meet a man he hoped might make her a star.

Msnbc films presents a new four talk series from nbc studios that exposes the injustices of rainfall conventions, the singing critical first two episodes premiere charity at nine P M. Turn on M S N B C.

Terry hall was on a flight to new york when her daughters' body was found on that buddy hillside scheduled to appear on some network news shows to raise awareness for Christy's case. So IT wasn't until after she's landed sa Monica police chief James butz was able to delivered the terrible news.

I will be a victim of Christy's murder for the rest of my life.

That's Christi's mom, Terry.

And anybody who loved Christie or new Christie is also a victim of this murder.

Fritz's brother, Derek, was at working an airplane hanger in north CarOlina when he got the call from his dad. He called me and just ask me where I was. What I okay.

Can you sit down please? Could we have talk is to a deep breath to that? They found their body, and that cries on with us anymore. I think a lot of stuff in the next like couple days was like a really the next morning police chief, but was on the network morning shows to say the police had a suspect in the Christie Johnson murder case.

I want to give my condolences on behalf of the city of Monica. Two, Chris, his parents, is a very, very sad day for them. Uh, we are focused on a sudden conventions that we feel has very strong length to both the incident that I talked about last time to .

the woman in january and a crache Johnson, though the suspect was already in custody on an unrelated matter, he had a history of assaulting women under similar circumstances.

In one of the incidents he was convicted for, he named the same specific movie production that he mentioned to the first witness and Christie, and we purposely have not identified him because we don't name people that aren't arrested in charge.

Chief pots may have wanted to avoid publicly naming Victor petiole s, but the holy's new's sounds were undeterred. Reporters have sources and sources .

talk detective, that once told me that what police don't say is just as important as what they do, say former .

ally times reporter Andrew blankstein.

And this was one of those cases where they didn't say a whole lot. And I knew, actually, that said, a whole lot that this was a bigger, bigger deal, not just because, in some ways, IT fit this image of of somebody who was Young and and I even and had big dreams and was killed with this idea that there is a certain people that take advantage of that in in ways large and small.

That night, sixteen days after Christie Johnson went missing, two local T, V stations broadcast a photo of paleo gus. The next morning, the last Angeles times published his name. The cat was out of the bag. Now, a smart defense lawyer might be able to argue that future witnesses, i'd be influenced by that unfairly. But when there was a new witness the very next day, but influence unfairly, IT seemed like IT.

I was watching the news one morning, having a cup of coffee, and Christine Johnson being missing, had been in the news for a while few weeks.

Her name was cathie, the mono the .

story was on, and the photo that they showed of him was an immediate recognition of who he was.

So Kathy called the deep line that every morning .

I just told them my story.

Will you call them to look at the six pack? The a? And when I saw that group of photographs was a really obvious, yeah.

no debt, no doubt. No question.

Cathy story went back to the late nineties. SHE was at twenty eight year old actors at the time. He had had big parts on a number of TV shows, recurring ing roles and chicago hope and the old star track equal deep space nine.

Cathy was on the lookout for a new opportunity. And that, he said, is when he met the man police suspected of killing Christie Johnson. where? why? As the century city mall, just where Christie met him.

IT was the later part of ninety eight, early part of one thousand and ninety.

What happened?

I was there shopping by myself one afternoon, and I was approached by a man who asked me if I was an actor or a model. And I said, yeah, i'm an actor. And then I just stopped in where to hear .

what he had to say.

which he told me he um he really liked to my legs I was wearing shorts and that he was working closely with the James bond movies and then he were looking for, uh, new people, people who weren't so recognizable to be in promotions for the James bond movies, James bond girls, posters, advertisements, bill board even, yes, yeah, he talked about bill boards. sure.

That sorted a bit scammy, but at least plausible to Cathy. After all, he could look the par six feet tall with long, dark hair and the athletic build of the college volleyball player SHE once was Cathy. He could see herself in the role of a bomb girl.

He actually asked if I would sit and talk on for a minute, which I did, and he wanted me to um leave them all with him that day and go take pictures at A A colleague house. We had a studio in his house who can take pictures right then in there and sort of get me submitted or get me started. He talked about big box.

He named numbers of money that I can't recall today, but IT was a lot of money, and I suggested that he call my agent and set up an appointment through her. He didn't want to do that. He was an interested in talking to my agent.

He, he started to make the argument that there was more money for me. If I didn't go through, my agent shouldn't have to take her cut. IT would slow down the process, which of course, was just a red flag for me. And anyone who asks you to leave a mall right then, and there with them is a red flag .

and has the warning lights in the back of Cathy's brain were blinking. But the man talk to a good game, and he didn't look like somebody would be dangerous, was IT like he was coming on you?

No, no, he he wasn't the serious at all. He didn't try to touch me, um he didn't try to flute with me or come on to me. He was very business like, very professional described .

looked .

like he was about, I would say, six two. He was a little bit taller than me and six feet tall. He is wearing A A suit, a nice gray suit. He seemed like he could be legitimately in the business and talking to me about a real opportunity.

So SHE was curious, what was this guy up to? And he went on smooth sk as he rolled out his pitch. Then he asked him for a business card.

He presented me with a business card that look a little little, a little old, and he told me I could look at IT, but he would really like to have IT back because I was the last card that he had at this point. Of course, I realized there was no real opportunity here. This was just some guy trying to rope me into something. Just taste for .

the warning signals. And Cathy brain, we're burying now. Still, SHE said he was intrigued by the man's audacity as the doctor of a new york city detective, SHE figured, SHE, maybe play along, go to this photo shoot, see what happened?

I took down all the information on that card, and I I did call my agent, give IT to her, and had her follow up and call that .

number did IT seem legitimate based on that.

Well, the the person whose card that was called my agent back after he had left him a message and said, tell her not to go to this meeting. That is not me. I don't know who has my card, but tell you your client not to go.

Did you get that message before you were to have a meeting with him? yes. That night, Cathy culture father in new york, can told him what was going on.

SHE asked if he thought the local police would go along with her, maybe as part of a sting Operation, rather, does that? No, no crime had been committed yet. Detective to bono knew his daughter well enough to know he would probably go through with the meeting anyway. So he cautioned, do not go alone.

I just feel like I wanted to catch him doing. I don't know what, but I wanted a corner and I wanted to catch him. I I A little .

danger yeah .

probably yes, IT is and I wouldn't recommend IT but I went and got a friend of mine who was a stuntman on the show that was working on a big, strong, tough guy and um I asked him to just come with .

me the next day, stuntman psychic drove to an address in the hollywood hills where SHE been told the photo shoot would take place so you took your friend with you. Yes, grow up there. What happened?

Nothing, nothing, nothing I was instructed by um by him to wait in my car, the area of the block where he told me to park. He said, bring your car here, a park here. Um someone will come out and get you, show you word to put your car, show you where to park your car and then lead due to the house.

And there you SAT with the man and the car. Yeah, and nobody came.

Nobody came.

You think he was watching the car?

My assumption is he was looking from somewhere and saw my friend in the car and just aboard to his mission.

A close call, to be sure, one that some other actress might have shrug off, is one of those things that can happen in hollywood just part of the scene, but not Kathy debora. The experience stuck with her, and as you will see in future episodes, would lead her to study the mysterious mister pei logos, learn who he was, where he'd been, and then meet him again under circumstances very different from those of the century city mall. Next time on murder and the hollywood hills.

he grab me, pull me by my hair, drag me back to the bed, and I knew that this was IT. He grabbed my neck with his arms and started to choke me.

As reporters, we talk about falling through the cracks. He was somebody that seemed to just kind of skirt, skirt the lock.

I'm not asking for anybody to take pity on me in the situation, okay, but at least let the facts come out before you make judgments. OK somewhere in. But the first come out, I ve had a lot of issues that have happened in my past. I'm not proud of, but i'm not going to sit back OK and let myself be steam rolled over on something that I haven't done.

Murder in the hollywood hills is a production of day line, and nbc news in beem is a producer. Ryan drew, kelya dean and marsh house fell their audio editors, carson on commons and kiani read or associated cas. Adam gordhan is co executive producer. Pl ryan is executive producer and lisco is senior executive producer. Remember see news audio sound mixing by bob malayan, castine Anderson, Price and barns is head of audio production.

Hey, guys, really, guys here remind you to check out the sunday sit down podcast on this week episode. I get together with the one and only few grant to talk about his chilling new film, heroic and a four decade run of unforgettable movies. You can find our conversation now for free wherever you downloader podcasts.