Scene of the Crime: LAPD's Most Famous Exhibit

by Cathy Scott

Los Angeles Police Department authorities recently put on a show--the LAPD's Homicide Exhibit at the California Homicide Investigators Association conference in Las Vegas. And the community came out in droves to view the two-day "Famous Crime Scenes Exhibit."

It offered a unique behind-the-scenes look at the evidence police gather at crime scenes. Police cases ran the gamut from robberies, murders, serial killings, bank hold-ups, high-speed pursuits and hostage situations.

LAPD Homicide Detective Dennis Kilcoyne explained the reasoning behind making an exhibit and taking it on the road.

"Homicide investigators very rarely invite people under the crime scene tape and into the murder scene; this may be as close as some will ever get," he said, to seeing the scene as a detective would.

And so it was for the thousands who stood in line for up to an hour and a half to get in. The evidence of L.A.’s gritty past was more than sobering.

A respectful silence fell over the room as viewers quietly filed in, one by one, during the tour. They looked at evidence, photos, videos, get-away cars, weapons, documents, and autopsy photos. Included was evidence from the Black Dahlia case and Hollywood mob-era contract hits, all on loan from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office and LAPD’s evidence vaults.

It showed evidence from the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, who in 1994 was killed after she was repeatedly and brutally stabbed, along with Ron Goldman, in the courtyard of her Brentwood townhouse courtyard. It was almost chilling to see the bloody leather gloves, displayed behind glass, that were made infamous when suspect O.J. Simpson tried on the gloves in court and struggled to get them over his hands.

There were a bullet-riddled police car and similarly ventilated

suspect get-away auto from the notorious North Hollywood bank robbery and shootout.

But perhaps most grisly were evidence and photos from the ritualistic killing at a Benedict Canyon mansion where Charles Manson’s followers murdered five people, included pregnant including pregnant actress Sharon Tate, in the summer of 1969.

Still, it was the Robert F. Kennedy assassination display that seemed to stop people in their tracks. On display was the revolver used to cut down Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel on a June night in 1968.

I toured the site of the killing not long before the historic Ambassador Hotel was razed in 2005 so a public school could be built in its place.

Linda Deutsch, longtime special court correspondent for The Associated Press, led the media tour to some of Los Angeles's more notorious crime scenes. We were taken inside the hotel to the upstairs ballroom where the presidential candidate gave a short speech. We walked the path Kennedy took from the ballroom to the kitchen’s pantry area, where he was gunned down at point-blank range.

The Kennedy evidence exhibit led to controversy. Robert Kennedy’s son protested when he learned it included the torn and bloody shirt, tie and jacket his father was wearing when he was assassinated. Maxwell Taylor Kennedy expressed outrage that his father’s clothing was transported across state lines, from California to Nevada, to be publicly exhibited in Las Vegas.

Maxwell Kennedy said he was particularly bothered that his family was denied possession of those items when they requested them. The younger Kennedy's protests made national news that night, after the first day the public was allowed to see it. The next morning, people waited in a line that wrapped around the interior of the Palms casino, where the exhibit was set up in a conference room.

"My request was refused by the district attorney's office," Maxwell Taylor Kennedy told the media. "The District Attorney promised, though, to keep the personal items with care and out of public view."

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck issued a public statement and an apology: "The last thing we want to do is to traumatize a victim's family, and I am very sensitive to that. But at the same time, we want to preserve the history of the city of Los Angeles and improve the quality and understanding about our homicide investigations."

The LAPD pulled the shirt, tie and jacket from the exhibit after the first day.

Based on the response from a member of the Kennedy clan, it is doubtful the displays will go on tour again anytime soon, making the exhibit in Las Vegas a one-time-only viewing.

Photos by Cathy Scott

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OJ revisted: The Prosecutors' Biggest Mistakes

by Women In Crime Ink

We decided it could be fun to take a look back at sensational cases and voice our opinions on what went right, what went wrong, or who was really responsible. Yesterday on Good Morning America O.J.'s ex-girlfriend, Christie Prody (photo below left), said he made incriminating statements during their 13 years together and that she believes he's guilty of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson (below right), and Ron Goldman.

It just seemed the perfect time to take a look back and ask the question: In his 1995 murder trial, what were the O.J. prosecutors' biggest mistakes. Here's what WCI members had to say:

Laura James: They made their biggest mistakes in jury selection.

Kathryn Casey: There were, of course, multiple issues; in addition to moving the trial out of the more affluent part of L.A., where the murders took place, they drew it out too long, bogging the jury down with minutia. They had a good case. They needed to get to the point.

Andrea Campbell: Oh, where do I begin! The first problem was that the prosecution did not anticipate what the defense was doing. The crime scene had too much traffic. They didn't make the blood evidence clear to the jury. The "gloves don't fit" scenario was painful. Was there no one there to bring up the fact that leather shrinks when soaked? The blood trail to his home did not receive an adequate presentation. The fact that Simpson was a celebrity meant there was already a Sisyphus-type, push-up-the-hill, stone-rolling ahead of the prosecution team, yet they often got side-tracked by their own personalities-like the grilling of Mark Furman (that was a travesty). There's more to discuss, but who has time?

Robin Sax: There were so many mistakes. Many were due to the prosecutors, many due to the judge, and the most due to the jury. The biggest prosecutorial mistake was not allowing Bill Hodgman to be the lead prosecutor. He was and is a genius, he has amazing presence and advocacy skills, and he would have had that jury....no matter what obstacles he had to overcome.

Susan Murphy-Milano: There were so many mistakes.

The Former Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi (who prosecuted the Manson trial) wrote a book called Outrage: The Five Reasons O.J. Simpson Got Away With Murder. Bugliosi was very critical of prosecutors Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden. He faulted them, for example, for not introducing the note Simpson wrote before trying to flee. Bugliosi contended that the note "reeked" of guilt and that the jury should have been allowed to see it. He also pointed out that the jury was never informed about items found in the Bronco: a change of clothing, a large amount of cash, a passport and a disguise kit. The prosecution during this media circus felt these items of evidence would bring up emotional issues on Simpson's part that could harm their case, despite the fact that the items likely could be used to flee.

In addition, Simpson made an incriminating statement to police about cutting his finger the night of the murders. In the book, Bugliosi took Clark and Darden to task for not allowing the jury to hear the taped statement. Bugliosi also said the prosecutors should have gone into more detail about Simpson's abuse of his wife. He said it should have been made clear to the mostly African-American jury that Simpson had little impact in the black community and had done nothing to help less fortunate blacks. Bugliosi pointed out that, although the prosecutors obviously understood that Simpson's race had nothing to do with the murders, once the defense "opened the door" by trying to paint Simpson falsely as a leader in the black community, the evidence to the contrary should have been presented, to prevent the jury from allowing it to bias their verdict. Vince Bugliosi also criticized the prosecution's closing statements as inadequate.

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Women in Crime Ink Welcomes Diane Dimond

Women in Crime Ink is proud to announce the latest addition to our lineup, Diane Dimond. You might recognize the famed crime reporter, author, and cable news anchor as a regular fill-in for CNN’s Nancy Grace. Diane Dimond may be best known for exposing and then explaining to the world the child molestation charges against Michael Jackson. Diane's coverage of Jackson’s criminal trial was seen by millions on Court TV, NBC’s The Today Show, MSNBC, Larry King Live and news outlets worldwide.
Her book on Jackson, Be Careful Who You Love: Inside the Michael Jackson Case, is an explosive tome that details Diane’s exclusive revelations from when she first broke the story in 1993, to the case 10 years later when, once again, she was the first to report the latest charge of molestation.
Diane has been at the center of countless other major news stories as well. She stood in the blood of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman the day their bodies were discovered. A few years earlier, Diane was the first to report the story of rape at the Kennedy compound in Palm Beach, Florida and to identify William Kennedy Smith as the accused. And Diane has been praised for her hard-hitting interviews with a number of infamous prison inmates including: Pamela Smart, a school teacher serving a life sentence for enticing her high school lover to kill her husband; James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr.; Jeffrey McDonald, the convicted killer and subject of Fatal Vision; Kenneth Bianchi, the convicted “Hillside Strangler”; and Diane is the only reporter to have interviewed Richard Allen Davis, the convicted killer of Polly Klaas.
Diane began her broadcasting career in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At KKOB News Radio she wrote and anchored the morning newscasts and her investigative series on corruption within the local sheriff’s department earned her the prestigious Silver Gavel Award for Media and the Arts from the American Bar Association. In 1976, Diane moved across the country to Washington, DC to anchor newscasts for National Public Radio's “All Things Considered.” In 1980, she became Correspondent for RKO, the world's first satellite radio network, where she was assigned to cover Capitol Hill, the White House, and various Washington agencies. Diane became the network's National Political Correspondent and covered the campaigns of both President Ronald Reagan and his challenger Walter Mondale. Finally making a move into television in 1986, Diane’s first TV news job was at the flagship CBS Station in New York. At WCBS, Diane earned several awards for covering such groundbreaking stories as the “Baby M” surrogate mother case. Diane went into syndicated television in 1990, when she became the investigative reporter for the program Hard Copy. Diane's continuing coverage of the Michael Jackson story made the cut for TIME magazine's “Best TV of '93." Diane also made headlines when she acquired and aired the actual interrogation tape of O. J. Simpson being questioned by the Los Angeles Police Department. She then anchored the nationally syndicated program EXTRA and made headlines with her exposé of the deceptive practices of the Jerry Springer Show, among other investigative reports. In 1998, Diane moved to NBC and partnered with Geraldo Rivera to co-anchor CNBC’s nightly newscast, UpFront Tonight. Among other top-shelf stories, she anchored extensive live reports from Washington on the impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton. After moving to MSNBC, Diane hosted the series, “Missing Persons,” anchored major news blocks and, among other stories, covered the historic 2000 Presidential campaign, traveling with three of the candidates, George W. Bush, Al Gore, and Ralph Nader. Diane also became known as the correspondent who spent 35 straight days outside Vice President Gore's residence in Washington as the nation awaited the final, controversial recount of the vote. In 2001, after the September 11th terror attacks in New York City, Diane anchored live programs on the Fox News Channel where she specialized in the network’s continuing coverage of the War on Terrorism. Her live interviews with military and policy newsmakers were often quoted by other news organizations. In 2003, Diane hosted "Hollywood at Large" on Court TV. More recently, Diane has been branching out on multi-media platforms to tell the stories she finds so fascinating. Last year, Diane was picked by the all-women GreenStone Media group to co-host their syndicated morning radio talk show and she can often be heard filling in on other major radio talk shows. She also writes a weekly crime and justice newspaper column. Diane has staked her place in the blogosphere with her own blog as well as a regular column with The Huffington Post.
Now Diane has joined Women in Crime Ink as our newest contributor. When there is a breaking crime story, you can read Diane's take here and you can follow her coverage on CNN, Fox News, truTV (formerly Court TV) and other cable outlets. Please join Women in Crime Ink in welcoming Diane Dimond. Look for Diane's first WCI post tomorrow, on Election Day. Diane will be writing on the one thing missing from this election. We're betting our readers can guess the topic. Feel free to leave a comment below for Diane. She would love to hear from you!

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A Killer with Kids

by Diane Fanning

Many Americans were upset when O. J. Simpson retained custody of his children after his trial for the killing of his wife, Nicole Brown and waiter Ron Goldman. Many believed, as I did, that O.J. got away with murder. The child custody issue increased our outrage. But the bottom line was that, in the eyes of the law, O.J. was found not guilty. That finding made it difficult for the courts to remove the children from his care.

That was not the case with Mary Winkler. You remember Mary, don't you? She was the preacher's wife in Selmer, Tennessee, who shot her husband in the back while he was sleeping, then took her little girls to the beach.

The jury did not find her guilty of first or second degree murder, but instead opted to convict her of a lesser felony, voluntary manslaughter. That verdict called for a sentence of three to six years. The jury ended their deliberations believing that Mary's time behind bars would be measured in years, not days.

But that's not exactly what happened. The judge went for the lower end of the sentencing guidelines, giving Mary three years--but only 210 days of that had to be served in lock-up--she was given probation for the rest. Then the judge subtracted the days she served in jail after her arrest before her family could raise bail. When he finished the math, there was a balance of 67 days to serve. He then granted the defense request to allow her to spend up to sixty days of that time in an approved mental health facility.

After her conviction for shooting an unarmed, sleeping man in the back, Mary only had to stay in jail for seven days. How did that happen?

The jurors believed her claims of domestic abuse--some of which were grossly exaggerated, others were blatantly false. But the jury believed every word she said because Mary was a sympathetic witness. And her persuasive and savvy defense team led by Mississippi attorney Steve Farese used innuendo, emotional appeals and shocking, but phony, props to back up her testimony.

Mary didn't get her children as soon as her sentenced was served. It took her more than a year after her release to gain custody of her three girls--but she did do it. I was appalled.

Here was a woman, who by her own expert witness' testimony, experienced disassociative episodes that made her lose control of her actions. A woman who claimed to have been abused and then herself committed the ultimate act of domestic abuse. And she didn't kill him at a time when she felt the threat of imminent danger. No, by her own words, she wanted to talk to him and he didn't listen. For that reason, she shot him and then left him bleeding on the floor, unplugging the phone on her way out to make sure he could not call for help.

So what happens when her obedient little girls become teenagers and refuse to pay attention to her when she speaks? Will she lose it again?

And, now, in their early years, as they try to make sense of the world, how can they succeed? The person who killed their father--a man they loved--is now the person that have to depend on for survival and their sense of security.

The oldest girl, Patricia, who was eight years old at the time of the murder, told her psychologist: "My mommy killed my daddy. I'm afraid she'll kill me, too."

Perhaps Patricia has learned to conciously suppress that worry. But deep in her mind, the doubt about her mother will linger. She waill grow up in fear of her life. No court should ever allow that to happen to any child.

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