Opinion ID: 2600593
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The first week of the police investigation

Text: Shortly after 9:00 p.m. on April 23, the first police officers arrived at the large apartment complex and coordinated efforts among officers and private citizens to check all the apartments and areas of the complex. Detective Mark Franey of the Barstow Police Department arrived at the apartment complex at approximately midnight. Franey was informed that efforts had been made to telephone or visit every apartment in the complex, and that someone had been contacted at all but four or five of the units. According to the information received by Franey, one of the apartments at which there had been no response was defendant's apartment. Another belonged to the manager of the apartment complex, who was out of town. The other apartments were vacant. Defendant's apartment was located directly across from the satellite dishes where Tahisha's ball was found. The apartment had a sliding glass door that faced the satellite dishes. Stefan and his friends sometimes played in the area in front of defendant's apartment, and on occasion defendant emerged from his apartment and yelled at them. Approximately two weeks prior to Tahisha's disappearance, she and her friend, Carrie Pizzo, 11 years of age, were riding their bicycles in front of defendant's apartment when defendant exited through his sliding glass door and told the girls to get the hell out of there. Eight or nine months earlier, defendant had approached Ashley Cook, one of Tahisha's kindergarten classmates who also resided at the Rimrock Apartments. Ashley was riding her bicycle in circles and singing when defendant attempted to grab her and told her she was being too noisy. Between 1:00 and 1:15 a.m. on Saturday as the search continued, Tahisha's mother told Detective Franey about the incident involving Ashley Cook, and Louis Jannsen, the maintenance man for the apartment complex, told Franey that defendant was kind of weird. Franey also learned at this time that defendant's apartment was located near the satellite dishes. Jannsen and Barstow Police Detective Leo Griego then went to the apartment manager's office to obtain information concerning defendant, and Franey walked to the area of the satellite dishes. By this time, officers had expanded their search outside of the apartment complex and had found a ball similar to Tahisha's ball in a nearby park. Franey traveled to the park, recovered the ball, and returned to the Clay apartment at approximately 1:55 a.m., but Marianne informed Franey that the recovered ball was not Tahisha's ball.
The police first contacted defendant at 2:35 a.m. on Saturday, April 24. Defendant answered the door and invited Detectives Franey and Griego inside. They informed defendant they were conducting an investigation concerning a missing child, and Griego asked him the general questions the police had been asking all the tenants. Defendant stated that he had not seen Tahisha and that he did not recognize her photograph. They soon were interrupted by a third officer who called away Griego. Detective Franey then assumed charge of the interview. Because Franey believed that defendant had been seen earlier at the apartment complex but had not answered his door, Franey asked defendant about his whereabouts earlier that evening. [3] Defendant responded that he had returned home at approximately 4:00 or 4:30 that afternoon from Fort Irwin, where he worked for DynCorp, supervising the maintenance of firing ranges, and had been in and out all evening. At this point in the interview, Franey was called away. Griego completed the interview and briefly searched defendant's apartment for Tahisha. The officers' initial contact with defendant was approximately seven minutes in duration, from the time they entered his apartment until they departed. Franey and Griego returned to question defendant on Saturday, April 24, because of a discrepancy in the account he had provided earlier that morningdefendant had informed Franey that he had been in and out of the apartment all evening, but had told Griego that he had been at home from the time he returned from work. Also, Griego had learned that defendant had been seen leaving his apartment at approximately 9:30 Friday evening. [4] Shortly before noon on Saturday, Griego spotted defendant in the apartment complex's laundry room. As Griego and Franey followed him back to his apartment, they noticed he was carrying a laundry basket that appeared to contain bedding. When Franey and Griego described to defendant the discrepancy in the information he had provided, defendant explained that he had been in and out of his apartment, going back and forth to his car and his garage, but had not left the apartment complex all evening. Defendant also stated that someone had telephoned him Friday evening and asked him whether there was a little girl playing in his apartment, and he had told them there was not. [5] The officers asked whether they could search defendant's vehicles and apartment, and he agreed, also giving them access to locked areas of his garage. That was the final contact the police had with defendant on Saturday, April 24.
On Saturday afternoon, April 24, Ramiro Perez completed his work shift at Fort Irwin, and obtained a ride home with a friend at approximately 3:00 p.m. After they left Fort Irwin, Perez said he needed to relieve himself. The driver stopped her vehicle on Fort Irwin Road, and Perez walked away from the car and over a hill so that he would not be visible to his friend. When he walked over the hill, Perez saw a body later identified as Tahisha's at the bottom of the slope, about 15 feet away. It appeared that she had been thrown over the hill and had rolled to the bottom. Perez reported his discovery to the police. In response to Perez's report, law enforcement officers fanned out along Fort Irwin Road. After traveling approximately one mile down that road from its intersection with Interstate Highway 15 without locating anything, Deputy Sheriff Robert Durbin of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department drove back and decided to check near a mine excavation site that borders the road approximately one tenth of a mile from the intersection. Durbin parked in a pullout area next to the site and walked into the excavation, which had hills and gullies. At 5:50 p.m., Durbin looked down from an embankment and observed a small body in the pit of the mine. The body was clothed in a dress that was up over the torso, had no underclothing, and had white socks and a single tennis shoe. When Durbin returned to his patrol vehicle, he found the other tennis shoe on the ground in front of his car. Tahisha's body was not visible from the road; it was necessary to walk over a hill and look down into the pit of the mine to see her. Detective Franey was familiar with the excavation and the surrounding desert, and testified that the area was used for four-wheeling, motorcycle riding, and target shooting. On the day Tahisha's body was found, a group of 14 campers was nearby and had driven approximately seven vehicles on the dirt stretch of Fort Irwin Road that borders the excavation. The pullout area on Fort Irwin Road where Durbin parked was used to load trucks with material from the mine, could be used as a turnaround for vehicles, and appeared to Franey to be well traveled, with many tire tracks. While Franey was present at the scene, numerous drivers attempted to drive down the dirt road, but were turned back because of the police investigation. The material on the ground was of a type that would reveal footsteps, but was of a nature that generally would not retain details permitting identification of a shoe print. The only shoe print that could be identified was from Perez's shoe. The police photographed the tire tracks adjacent to the mine and checked the tire treads of all vehicles at the apartment complex that were outside or in garages that had open doors, as well as the tire treads of police vehicles. The police were able to identify tire tracks of the vehicle in which Perez had ridden, and could see where the sheriff's car had driven over that vehicle's tire tracks, but were unable to distinguish any other particular vehicle's tire tracks in the numerous tire tracks that had been made over one another. In the course of examining tire treads at the apartment complex, the police asked defendant for permission to inspect his vehicles' tires, and defendant agreed. According to Detective Franey, this contact with defendant occurred at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 25.
At approximately 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 25, Police Officer Michael Hayhurst was dispatched to defendant's apartment in response to a report from a suicide hotline that an individual at that apartment had taken an overdose of pills. [6] He found defendant, apparently unconscious, holding a large knife in his hand. Hayhurst removed the knife, and defendant appeared to regain consciousness. Hayhurst asked defendant what the problem was, and defendant told him that he had a lot of stress at work the prior Friday, and that detectives had placed additional stress on him over the weekend regarding the case of a missing girl. Defendant stated that he could not take it anymore and wanted to kill himself. The police arranged for him to be transported by paramedics to Barstow Community Hospital. The knife apparently was left at the apartment. At the emergency room, defendant repeated that he had suffered stress at work, and stated he was upset because the police detectives considered him a suspect. Blood tests confirmed that defendant had taken an overdose of medication containing acetaminophen in a quantity sufficient to cause fatal liver toxicity. Hayhurst had defendant placed on a 72-hour hold to allow a mental health evaluation. (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 5150.) After spending approximately one day at Barstow Community Hospital, defendant was transferred to the behavioral health ward at Victor Valley Community Hospital, where the police allowed him to check himself in.
On Wednesday, April 28, Franey served a search warrant on defendant's apartment. He was accompanied by criminalist Patricia Lough, who entered the apartment first to vacuum before anyone walked on the floor. She proceeded methodically on her hands and knees, using a vacuum designed for forensic evidence collection. While vacuuming defendant's living room, Lough collected a small plastic star. She had not seen the star before it was sucked into the vacuum. Lough also testified she was not a hair examiner and did not recall whether there were any hairs in the filter. Lough also found in a clothesbasket in defendant's master bedroom a shirt that had two spots of blood. Defendant was wearing the same shirt when Franey first spoke to him in the early morning on Saturday, April 24. Although Franey had not noticed blood on the shirt at that time, he had not looked for blood; the spots were very small, and the lighting was poor. The shirt was similar to the shirt defendant was wearing when Griego observed him in the laundry room on Saturday morning, April 24. On the floor next to the shirt, Lough found a pair of pants that had a white dust-like material on the legs. In the closet of the master bedroom, Lough found a pair of dress boots that also had a white dust-like material on them. In the office area of the apartment, Lough found a knife that had a speck, one millimeter in diameter, of what appeared to be blood on the blade. The specimen was too small to yield information revealing DNA. Finally, Lough removed the floormats from defendant's two vehicles. Detective Franey found in defendant's apartment a collection of pornographic magazines and videotapes. Fifty-five pornographic magazines were found on the nightstand in defendant's bedroom, including Shaved Pussy, Oriental Delight, and Bridled. Shaved Pussy magazine contains sexually explicit photographs of young women whose pubic hair has been shaved. Oriental Delight magazine also contains sexually explicit photographs of young adult women. All of the models in these two magazines are postpubescent, but some are posed with props such as stuffed toys and a lollipop, and some are wearing knee socks and saddle shoes and have pigtails and bows in their hair. Bridled magazine depicts nude and seminude women who are bound to objects such as chairs and stocks by devices such as ropes and collars. Some have objects strapped into their mouths or tape over their mouths, some are blindfolded, and some have mousetraps or C-clamps attached to their nipples. In many of the photographs, the models exhibit expressions that reflect pain or fear, but none of the photographs portrays strangulation. The three magazines bear inscriptions on their covers that all models are over 18 years of age. Detective Franey described the 55 magazines found on defendant's nightstand as hard-core or triple-X pornography. Another 58 magazines, described by Franey as soft-core pornography, were found on a bookshelf in the hallway. In addition, 195 X-rated videotapes bearing 550 separate movie titles were stored in a metal cabinet in the apartment. Finally, more than 100 nonpornographic films were found on an open bookshelf adjacent to the metal cabinet. A list of the 113 magazines, identified by title and the location they were found in the apartment, and including a brief description of each magazine, was admitted into evidence. The actual magazines found in defendant's bedroom were admitted into evidence. A list of the 550 pornographic movies, identified by title, also was admitted into evidence. [7]
On April 30, one week after Tahisha disappeared, Detectives Franey and Griego interviewed defendant at Victor Valley Community Hospital. Defendant continued to assert he had stayed home all evening on April 23. When Griego told defendant that Hunskor and Jannsen had seen him leaving at approximately 9:30 that evening, defendant claimed he was confused. Approximately one week after Tahisha disappeared, the police interviewed Holly Robles, a waitress at Coco's Restaurant, and learned that defendant had not remained at his home the entire evening of April 23. Robles testified that defendant regularly came into the restaurant between 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. On April 23, he entered the restaurant between 9:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., ordered an iced tea, and stayed about 20 minutes. Defendant told Robles that a little girl who had wandered off Rimrock was missing. He told Robles that it was the mother's fault, because mothers do not watch their children and leave them with babysitters. He also told Robles that he was on call in the event they found the missing girl and needed a helicopter. [8] Robles testified that defendant seemed edgy that evening, [p]laying with napkins and stuff, which she could not recall seeing him do when she had waited on him on other occasions. She testified that he was scared and jumpy, that his eyes were red, and that she could tell something was wrong. She also had the impression that defendant did not care about the girl who was missing, but she further stated that he seemed normal concerning the girl's disappearance. Coco's Restaurant is located on Main Street in Barstow, several blocks from Interstate Highway 15. Defendant usually went to work by driving on Main Street to Interstate 15, then proceeding on the interstate highway to Fort Irwin Road. The distance from the Rimrock Apartments to the location of Tahisha's body on Fort Irwin Road was approximately seven miles. Detective Franey drove this route several times and arrived at the location where Tahisha's body was found within nine to 11 minutes while keeping within the speed limit.