4 – A Bad Actor
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Detective Virginia, ia open chain, had no idea what to expect. A police tip line can be a catch off for every nut town gim an excuse to rent on and a rent they will. And they certainly did call in the public that is more than five hundred colors.

Those first two weeks, always something to say about the disappearance of Christian john. And something like two hundred of those colors were taken seriously enough. That detect is followed up, particularly the women .

we interviewed, all the girls that called.

and 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 two had gotten the movie pitch.

Then he started in on the .

whole thing about thing. And one seemed to know when whatever happened to Christie 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 more.

In this episode, the man who wanted a house.

we also got a call from the real ter who had shown mr. Pei logos, numerous houses.

Just what was he looking for up there in the hollywood hills the week before Christian Johnson vanished? IT seems like he's not looking .

at the house like he's looking at the things in the house.

You hear from a woman who narrow ly escaped an encounter with Victor pei og 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 till right now.

And you're hear from the man at the very center of this mystery, Victor baila logos himself.

I'm never mistreated him. If anything, i've been over overly generous with them. You're talking about some women .

had some hidden agendas. Murder in the hollywood hills of address on an episode a bad actor.

IT was late on a friday, too late to be showing anyone houses that when paul Kitty saw all slender man pushed through the door at regal real estate little after six, he put on a welcoming smile and extended his hand. The date was february seventh, two thousand, three, a week before Christie Johnson was last seen alive. Christi was no doubt happily planning to do whatever IT is twenty one year olds do on friday night night in the big city.

The meeting in the real estate office might have been on some other planet for all he knew, but there IT was like a path marked out in shock. This was the start of the trail that ended down the soggy ravine in the hollywood hills bull kitties office on set, a molecule of yard. The domain told Katie his name was pillock s.

Victor, call me Victory. He said he 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, get you like the sound of that. So he gave Victory some forms to fill out and told him they could start the next day.

Paul Kitty told police 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, kd began to feel something wasn't quite right about this guy.

I told my room in 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 he said Victor would open disk draws in the houses they visited. On occasion, he said Victor would ask him to step outside while he screamed pictures, said he wanted to see if sound inside the house could be heard outside.

Know, I driven excentric people. I used to be a chauffer, and I driven people who who were had odds and things, you know, people who would take such steps to hear with both feet.

but screaming inside the test, the homesick oping. Well, I was a new one on pauci. I told my boss.

and he goes all. And when you think he's legit.

I think he is job. There was only one day that kd could recall not out in a Victor during the second week and february two thousand three. And that was saturday, if I worry, fifteen th, the day Christie Johnson was last seen alive.

On sunday the sixteenth and monday evening the seventeenth th, they were added again that last time kd told police. Victor said he was ready to make an offer in a house, but first he said he wanted to buy a car. He asked if paul new of a Mercedes or bm dear ship near the century plaza.

Well, yes, kd said there is. And then he drop vict off the bmw dealership on and told him, trapped by the real estate office when he was done so they could write up an offer on the house. The Victor never showed up. Only later the policy learn that Victor had been arrested for stealing a bmw right off the law that night, apparently posed as a buyer and offered stolen identification and financial information, information taken from one of the homes they've .

been looking at, Victor burglarized, a few of them taking checks and business cards and things of that nature.

That's detective Virginia and chain. What can tell me about stealing the bmw and how that played into at all?

Well, he stopped B, M, W, because he wanted to go to mexico, and I don't remember now if IT was during the test drive, or if they hung g, the key to the B, M W up. And he went on to the showroom and took the key and took the car.

Certainly a picture was emerging. Now, the theory said, detective, open chain, the houses, the burgers, the stolen car, seemed like they all fit in. r. Logis said a plan he was in up 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, the one with a killer view that was .

several hundred yards away from where her body was found.

Okay, so what .

have I think? He lord 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 over the help.

A tidy little theory, yes. But like you 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 fingerprint.

No DNA. No fingerprints.

So if he was in that house, he didn't wan anything behind at all.

correct.

Are you pretty sure that that's where the murder went down?

No, we're not.

Investigators spent days looking at store security videos from the century city mall for february the the day Christie was there. And sure enough, there he was buying a mini skirt at guess. But pai logos for all they are searching through the tapes.

They saw not a trace of him. Na, nor can they find a single person who saw pai logue and Christie together. So that tidy little theory of this might be all they ever get.

We were all exhausted trying to find something from. There were six of us working robbery homicide at the time, and every single one of .

us was dedicated to this case. Lank x con and coming car thief s somehow managed to commit the perfect crime. Open chain doubt of that. No such thing in her book, but with no physical or scientific evidence to build her gaze on, SHE knew the investigation would have to take a new tech.

This is one of the only cases that I handled that I had zero evidence. All I had were the witnesses and the same mo.

So that is what SHE and her colleagues decided to go with. They researched Victor pay the allogenic criminal record, and they dug through court dockets and dusty criminal files, looking for cases that either named hailo logos or coal cases that seem to match his M O. No photos of her bond movie addition. What they found, a guy had been playing the law for a jump p for more than a decade.

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The man had a history, no doubt about that. When the police did a little digging, they discovered Victors. First record at running with the law was fourteen years earlier. Back in the fall of nineteen eighty nine, IT involved an aspiring actress named Christine clusium.

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 is a some guy driving on the side of me sort of making eye contact. I thought, that's interesting. okay. Well, you know.

Christine was twenty one, and I just met her friend at a jazz lounge and manhattan beach IT was a hot spot for Young singles at the time. But ten miles down the coast from sa Monica, they are barely settled in that Christ when he saw that guy again.

beholds the same guy, what appeared in in this large as well, and still making icon, still making icon duck. So he, we introduced himself, and the three of us talked, and later he said, listen, i'd like to get a hold of you. Give me a number. Let me give me my car at .

but this sounded like a guy who just wanted to date yeah.

he sounded very just interested, very interested in dating, showing me the town this kind of the way that he put in.

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 A nice suit on, and he was very well groomed and 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.

I'll take you up. Limine will have dinner and we would go to some music, some music industry .

party and .

dona mention couple of other people. So, uh, that's fun. It's great. Why not do you suggest .

that he might have something what you wanted to do there? I get a part of never .

suggest to that. No, no. He just said this might be good for you. You could meet people, can make some contacts. And um of course, that's how you make movement in this business is by who you know in meeting people. So why not .

that tuesday night, john marina was as good as his word. He picked Christ up at her parents house.

He showed up on times six thirty White limasson and we took off White limasson we took off.

He really wanted to impress.

I guess. So we toward the local areas, brand mont, burly hills, and he had champagne and monkees and things like that. And so we had some of that.

And finally we went to the restaurant, the dome. And I remember going to the bathroom at the done and calling my mother from the bathroom, telling her, reading is fine. It's great. The guys fine, don't know, worries nothing, you know.

Oh yes, IT was shaping up to be a dazzling evening. The wine flowed. The conversation Sparkled for what Christine good till this, john marino must really be somebody. He spent money lavishly. Ly, 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 bypass the line and went into this this club.

And they jumped back in the limo to head over the bonding ture 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 little, said Christine, the evening so far had been a smashing success.

We then arrived back the bond adventure hotel and he said to the driver of the new museum, take Christine around the block couple of times on to make sure we're at the right place. And I everything is is set .

to that a little bit.

D but at that time, I thought I was raining. You can justify for anything IT was raining. Why should we get out if the party had been moved or or something like that or maybe whatever, whatever we so absolutely.

Anyway, after the limo made a few labs around the block, john marino reappeared at the curb and a quarter into the hotel. But he didn't know what to expect, really. Maybe a glimpse madona through a head row of elegant tuxedos? no.

Maybe casual groupings of hip looking musician types? No, not that either. There was none of that.

The lobby looked, oh, empty jero motel. Something to Christine about the party being up on the twenty floor. So SHE followed into the elevator.

When the doors opened on the twenty eight 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.

And you're just in a hotel hallway.

hallway where the sweets were. I had been to a couple of industry parties at the bond adventure before, so IT wasn't surprising to me that this is where this party was. Gonna all right, fine.

IT wasn't until john marina 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 calling me right now, and he may not even be who he says he is because he had a key card if he, if he was just attending a party, you wouldn't have a keep card, you would would have some sort of an an invite, or you'd be on a list of, you would be checking in now on the door, knocking on the door is something like that. And and then I think, okay, so this guy just red 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 moreno had already guided her through the door. He tried to think of a Graceful exit some way out that wouldn't embarrass the guy. And then he heard the door softly click .

within a matter of five seconds of the key card, the door, the realization. He just wants me for sex. Didn't think grape, I didn't think great.

I didn't think he was gona choke me. I don't think he was going to hurt me. I just thought I guy just wants to get in on.

And I thought, how do I get out of this? So from that five seconds, I found myself in a fight. Ultimately was a fight for my life.

What followed in, Christine was nothing less than hand to hand combat.

He threw me on the bed. He tried to rip my cloth off. And and, uh, in that moment, he pulled ropes from behind, the Better ropes attached to something behind by the headboard. I.

I have no idea. I had to a.

so he pulled these ropes, this rope out, and you try to time my, my arms with this rope. And I had learned something in self defence because I been racing martial arts and so hard. So I had learned a technique to get out of, amazingly, a rope, you know, time. And I use that technique, got out and throw him completely off guard.

They struggled like that, often on for the next hour and half, he said, episodes of intense physical battle IT expressed with desire, re. Moments of condition and calm mind. He so sorry.

this is terrible. I know this is not the way to get a woman. It's just things are going so badly, columbia records and my brother has just died and 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 was doctor jackal mister hide?

IT was in one of those moments of calm that he almost escaped. SHE thrown the jam log at her hand of the nob, was about to open the door when the man SHE knew was john marino, hurt her and attacked again.

He got 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. And in that moment I thought, right, I have to do something here.

So I had butted him. I must have hit his nose because he let go just enough for me to release myself. I rambled across the bed.

He got on top of me, and he dug his arms and his knees into my body. And I I couldn't push him off, obviously, in one hundred and twenty three pounds in his one nine year two. And so again, unbelievably, I moved my arms forward so that his own and his own weight would fall on top of me. And then I bit him on his couch, which was.

he was fully closed.

You, I on, I on his couch, hard that possibly could IT works. He rolled over, he rolled. He fell over.

He's yelling and screaming and and then I thought, you know, Victory. And now he's screaming because he's in pain. I'm now screaming, help, help ray.

Hell, hell, 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 this belief that I have fought this monster .

off by the time hotel security arrived, john marino had melted into the night he might have gotten away with IT. Except for one thing, Christ's parents that smell a rat and that big White lousy, you've 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.

you know. The man who flashed cash used a credit card to reserve the lima. A few days later, the police found him twenty 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 um you sometimes out, apparently I did not cause them that much damage but IT was enough enough for him to run away and for me to be safe thank god. So um but then that's when we found out the sky is not at all who he says. He's Victor paya logos and he's not the columbia records executive and he's not all of these things.

Pillagers was charged with attempted rape and false imprisonment.

When the case went to trial, patio logis attorney argued that Victory and cristine had a romantic relationship and that the donny broke 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 anything things that he was charged with. He was charged with attempted rape, not guilty, assault with attempt to to rape, not guilty, and false imprisonment. There was a long jury and and ultimately what happened was he there was some sort of a plea with the false prisons charge, so he had to do community service and pay .

a fine inclusions. Was quest fAllen after that? Angry of the jury for not believing her, angry at this system for allowing a dangerous man to walk free?

He probably probably had done this before because he was the crime, was too wealth, thought out the trap was too well set, and I, I, and so I said, IT then to everyone involved in the case, the the detectives, the police, everyone around me, my group, I said, this guy is done this before. He'll do IT again, and he will kill someone because he almost killed me.

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Cristy inclusion story had been easy to track down. After all, there was a court record, but when detective started coming through coal cases, cases in which an assault was reported, but a perpetrator never found that was a gold mine, one of those cases turned out from back in nineteen ninety, one years before Christie Johnson was killed. IT was a complaint from a twenty seven year old actress who said she'd been approached that L A X by a man who offered her a chance to be in a bomb film.

What he met him, he had said that I forgot the naming used.

but he was from disney. That's to, again.

he took her to dinner. They had dinner. Then he went up in order drinks and broader heard drink.

And he took a couple of substance and started feeling kind of weird. So SHE asked a Victor would try, and he did not want to try IT. And he walked out .

of the restaurant. Gos were gold. The drink 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 in the case, never went anywhere. That is, not until detective open chain found the old incident report.

The sample of the drink was kept ten years later. When I stumbled on this, we have the drink sent out for lab ork and IT came back with the drumming.

What the drink is still hanging around in the police department after ten years? Yes, there must be one heck of a storage site that the police departments have if there's keeping uh drinks for ten years and then test time later. Our property .

people make the best packing ers in the world. They can fit a lot of stuff into a little space.

Naturally, detectives track down the woman. They showed her a photo lineup and ask if any of the men in that six pack was the man who had Spiked her drink way back then. And what do you know? He picked Victor pya logis. Clearly, he has some intentions for that woman. Did he feel as if he dodged the .

woman he did in one particularly .

public one nine hundred and ninety six case, seven years before Christie was killed investigating, and he tried to angle a woman after he broke up with in act, he tried to strangle or twice, the first time in a vacant restaurant, the second time in her apartment. According to court records, pi allega had broken into the woman's apartment and hit in a spare bedroom when SHE discovered him behind the bed.

The reports save, fAiling a logos, jumped up and chased her around the bedroom with a ligature in his hands. When he couldn't do her, he ran away, taking some jewelry and a gun with him. IT took police a month to track him down pale.

August was finally captured after he broke into a home, and Young boy, male T. V. He surrendered after a three hour standoff for the swat team .

is coming out. Police say the suspect was not armed.

That nineteen ninety six incident was even covered on the local news, a live report. Los Angeles police tell us that following his capture, felony suspect Victor Lawrence pyo logos refused to walk out of the lost hill share station.

so they Carried him to the waiting patrol car and his journey to jail.

But the truly amazing bit was this when I came to the law and L A judicial system, the man was as slippery as an eel. Every time paleo ga seemed sure to wind up in a prison's self for some crime, his lawyers reached a plea deal with prosecutors. Charges were dropped or down graded, and he would end up walking away with the case with the x girlfriend, the one that resulted in the swat team stand off an exchange repeating guilty to a single count burglary. He got a six year suspended sentence problem, not prison.

Yeah, I mean, he was my impression that he was able to kind of skirt through a somehow .

that's former L A times crime reporter Andrew blankstein .

as reporters, we ve we talk about falling through the cracks. Are other people are more cynical and say, is just this is plea bargaining a quick look at the at the criminal record really born out this idea that he was somebody that seemed to just kind of skirt.

skirt the law, get get a plea bargain IT wasn't until nineteen ninety eight, the Victor paleo gus finally committed a crime. He couldn't please bargain away. In that case, pedia logis 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, pillagers tried to raper. Fortunately, the woman got away and called the police, who arrested paleologus and charged him with a sault attempted rape and false imprisonment. Though the attempted rape and falls in prisoner charges were dropped before a trial, he was convicted of felony assault.

And IT was, well, paya logis was out on bond. In that case that he approached Cathy to bono was the same old pitch photographer bond film audition eeta. Oh yes.

Those old files told quite a story, the story of an apparently encouragement criminal. Along side, two reported cases of attempted sexual assault. There were financial crimes, false statements and forgeries. On top of that, for party logos, personal calamities, in the miter late nineties, he opened to succession of restaurants, one in marina delray, one in brand wood, and then the last one in west, hollie wood. On last, ana.

All of them failed, as did a brief marriage by may two thousand and three, three months after the disappearance of Christian Johnson, detective urban chains still had no physical evidence implicating Victor logis, but SHE didn't have a pattern of past behavior. SHE figured that was as close to having a smoking gun as he would ever get. So SHE took IT to the D.

A. Did you get any push back from the D. A? And come on, just not enough here.

No, no. We took a downs to their own unit, and they filed IT right away.

They took a look at this, what they suspected this guy had done, and figured that was enough to go.

Yes, with all the players with this, with all the women that came forward with the exact same story, they decided not only what they filed the case, but they filed IT as a the capital case.

the death penalty. This time, the stakes could not be higher for Victory baila logue. Prosecutors felt they had a strong circumstantial case, but the illogical court appointed attorney, Andrew flying, 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 way he speaks, I believe his innocent.

In fact, the lawyer felt so confident that he did something defense attorneys almost never do. He agreed to let Victor palo logue do a jail house interview with me. Cameras and all. Are we .

all rolling .

picture p SAT .

across .

from me, legs spay apart and a chair that seem too short for pai August lawyer and refer said to aside.

where do you grow up? Pens, banana.

Big family.

Yeah, we had a big family came.

came off as gangly, soft spoken man in our interview is thick Brown hair, brush straight back, hit a long, sad faced, a dimple chin and pale blue eyes that seemed to drop with the corners. Hardly be the kind of menu of, imagine doing all the things he'd been accused of. We weren't long into our conversation before.

He told me he had recently gotten some bad news, and you learned about and spent tough. But we had A A wonderful childhood together and very thankful for both my mother and father being in my life. I don't believe for any a instant .

that this .

is a reflection of their a teaching or love or anything else.

No parents always blame themselves for whatever may happen to their children.

however caused. But this has no reflection on them. When soever my parents of an outstanding people.

there were everything that happened to you only charges all the allegation.

My father is quite old, but he's where what's going on.

At the time of this interview, paya logos have been locked up in the men's central jail for more than a year, largely because of the no variety of his case. He told me that year had been hard.

has been fights. There's been, there's been a lot of named ed calling. This has gained a lot of attention in the media. I'm not asking for anybody to, uh, take pity on me in the situation OK, but at least let the facts come out before you make judgments .

OK what you're doing this interview let the facts come out.

I've had a lot of issues that have happened in my past on that proud of, okay, they weren't to shout in points in my life and I can go back and correct and I take responsibility for anything that i've done. But i'm not going to sit back, okay, and let myself be steam LED over on something that I haven't done.

just what I was vitor. p. Logis was willing to take responsibility for what seemed to be moving target. He denied ever assaulting women.

Clear up one thing. I never struggled with any woman or forced ed myself upon any woman whatsoever but in .

the next breath he admitted to assaulting the woman in the case that sent him to prison to .

take responsibility for that. I did have some heavy influence in that uh, whole issue.

Liao gas admitted to stealing from olly's ood his home. He tored with a real estate agent. But all that James bond stuff, the show bis, come on.

So many women described. Well, he said, none of that ever happened. Did you, for example, ever portray yourself to a woman is 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.

They are all line. Yes, let's go on to the the heart of the matter, which is cristy Johnson .

SHE did not meet me in the mall.

You never in the mall that day.

I went to mall later on that afternoon, yes, but I never met this Young right now.

Not that I had any expectation that the August were burned out some sort of pretrial festival. A more about getting a sense of the guy. arrogant? Yes, maybe slippy perhaps like a man testing a brazing without sort of defense. But what do I know anyway? Two years would pass before a jury of twelve. With here, several women say under oath that their encounters with Victor palo logos mirror what investigators believed happened to Christie Johnson, but those jurors believe IT, absent any other evidence, would a jury find that a man's passed justify as a death sentence? Well, as I was about to leave that crap bittle interview room inside the jail, I heard pai illogical defense attorney say.

this will see what happens in this case. But I think i'm in a wind. This case.

Next time on murder in the hollywood hills.

IT is a very sketchy case. There is 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, and then you don't you're not going to anywhere. You're not doing this again. The only evidence they have on this case is that allegedly ms.

Johnson tells her roommate that he might have some meeting with a gentlemen who might put her in a movie role, a James bond flat that's IT. And suddenly from that one issue, mr. Pali logos is the killer.

It's part of the big cog wheel that just keeps on turning and and there's no solum bow and taking, please, are done all the time. And the way IT works, i'm sorry to tell you, and that's the way IT works.

Murder in the hollywood hills is a production of deadline and nbc news tib um is a producer, ryan drew, kelya dean and martial house fell their audio editors cars and commons and kiani read or asia producers adam gordin is co executive producer. Paul ryan is executive producer and lisa al is senior executive producer. Remind me, see news audio sound mixing by bob malaria, castine Anderson, Price and barns is head of audio production.

Everybody has told a cop from the day show reminding you to check out my podcast making space. In this weeks episode, I sit down with hollywood legend gold han to talk about her accidental ized to fame, her famous family and where he finds her. You can listen to the full conversation right now by searching, making space where ever you get your podcasts.