Opinion ID: 2590211
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: First warrant

Text: On the afternoon of May 14, 1983, later in the day of defendant's arrest, the first telephonic affidavit for the search of defendant's home was presented to Judge Beacom of the Orange County Superior Court. The information investigator Sidebotham had submitted in the affidavit for the search of defendant's car was incorporated into this affidavit. Sidebotham stated that, during the search of the car, he had found vials of various prescription drugs, prescribed for defendant, in the car's glove compartment. One such drug was propranolol, sold under the trade name Inderal. An empty vial of Valium was found behind the driver's seat. Two beer bottles were also found in the car. In the trunk of the car several photographs of males, some clothed and others unclothed, were found. One depicted a man who appeared to be dead, sitting on a couch. The passenger seat cushion was found to be saturated with what a criminalist determined was blood. Gambrel, however, was not the source of the blood, as his body had no obvious injuries that would have caused any great amount of bleeding. The pathologist who performed the autopsy on Gambrel had informed Sidebotham that the cause of death was ligature strangulation. Sidebotham was aware of other recent murder cases involving young men who were killed by ligature strangulation. These included Eric Herbert Church, whose body was found on January 27, 1983, on the northbound on-ramp to the 605 Freeway after apparently having been dumped from a vehicle; Geoffrey Alan Nelson, whose nude, emasculated body was found on the Euclid Street on-ramp to the Garden Grove Freeway on February 12, 1983; and Rodger James DeVaul, Jr., whose body was found in the Mt. Baldy area about February 14, 1983. A photograph found in defendant's car depicted an individual wearing clothing similar to that worn by Church when his body was found. A photograph of DeVaul, apparently taken postmortem, was found in the trunk of defendant's car. Nelson and DeVaul had last been seen alive together. All three had alcohol and Valium in their systems, and Nelson and DeVaul also had propranolol in their systems. Based on the foregoing factual recitation, Judge Beacom issued a warrant authorizing the search of defendant's home and the seizure of, among other things, weapons, blood, fingerprints, bodily fluids, hair samples, fiber samples, drugs, written or pornographic material pertaining to homicides, papers tending to show the identity of any victims, homosexual literature, and certain clothing belonging to Nelson. Service of the warrant began around 6:30 p.m. on May 14.