Opinion ID: 1204963
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendant's activities in the mountains, June 20-21, 1979, and subsequent observations by forestry service personnel

Text: In June 1979, Dana Crappa, 20 years of age, was employed as a seasonal firefighter for the United States Forestry Service, stationed at Chantry Flats. [4] While driving back to the Chantry Flats barracks in the late afternoon of June 20, Crappa noticed a blue Datsun F10 automobile parked on the uphill side of a sharp turnout at mile marker 11 on Santa Anita Canyon Road. She subsequently identified this vehicle as one later determined to be registered to defendant. A few feet in front of the automobile, a medium-built man with dark brown hair was forcefully steering or pushing a young girl with long blond hair, like Robin's, toward a dry stream bed. The man looked at Crappa as she slowly drove around the curve. Crappa testified the man resembled defendant, but she was not 100% positive. The sight of the man and the girl appeared odd to Crappa, but she proceeded to the barracks without stopping. On June 21, in the early evening, Crappa again was driving back to the barracks. At Rendezvous Turnout, approximately 1.6 miles from mile marker 11, she swerved her vehicle to avoid being hit by an automobile coming down the mountain. As she swerved, Crappa's vehicle nearly struck a blue Datsun F10 parked at the side of the road; it was the same vehicle she had observed the previous afternoon. [5] The rear tires and rear portion of the vehicle appeared to have had dirt kicked up on them. As she drove by, she glimpsed a dark-haired man near the blue Datsun F10, leaning against a rock wall. The man wore pants that may have had dirt on them, and a white T-shirt that appeared to be sort of dirty or have a stain on it. Crappa believed something was wrong when she saw the same vehicle in such a remote area two weekdays in a row. On June 25, approximately 7 p.m., Crappa parked her vehicle at the mile marker 11 turnout, left the engine running, and walked up a path. The area was permeated by a foul smell. Crappa came upon a tennis shoe, a pair of shorts, and a T-shirt. She also saw a body, bloated and unclothed, missing part of its head, and missing its hands and feet. The torso was pretty cut up. Terrified, Crappa ran back to her vehicle and drove to her parents' house. Consumed by a sense of guilt, she believed that had she stopped to investigate on June 20 when she observed the man pushing the girl, perhaps the girl would not have been killed. She therefore refrained from telling anyone, including the police, about what she had discovered on June 25. The first time she revealed her observations of June 25 to anyone was when the information was elicited from her during her testimony at defendant's first trial, after she testified concerning her observations of June 20 and 21. [6] On June 29, a forestry service crew that included Crappa and Poepke was spraying fire retardant near mile marker 11. About 100 feet from the road, Poepke found what he thought was a deer bone which, in jest, he tossed toward Crappa. Crappa was not amused; she knew the bone was human. That night, approximately 7 p.m., Crappa returned to the area again, apparently to confirm that the remains Poepke had thrown were the human remains she had seen. They were. Crappa saw a small skeleton, missing one arm. Near the skeleton were six.22-caliber shells, which Crappa placed in her pocket and threw away. Because shotgun shells commonly were found in the area, along with broken clay pigeons, she believed the shells had nothing to do with the body of the little girl. Crappa also saw the tennis shoe, shorts, and T-shirt in a pile together. She did not touch them. On July 2, the forestry service crew returned to mile marker 11 to continue spraying fire retardant. Poepke and two other fire crew members discovered a human skull and some bones. Law enforcement officers were summoned, and the scattered remains later were identified as Robin's.