Scene of the Crime: LAPD's Infamous Exhibit

 

by Cathy Scott

Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink

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. 

"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."

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. 

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

What Really Killed Michael Jackson?

What killed Michael Jackson? That’s the $500 million question. Somewhere in between news reports, statements by Michael Jackson’s cardiologist and witness accounts lies the truth of what caused the singer’s sudden cardiac arrest inside his rented Bel Air estate more than a week ago. If 50-year-old Jackson had taken the powerful anesthetic Diprivan, which was found in his home, then someone had to have given it to him. It’s a drip drug, typically administered intravenously in a hospital setting and closely monitored by anesthesiologists. When dripping, the patient immediately goes into unconsciousness. When it’s not dripping, the patient wakes up. But because it doesn’t take much to put a patient to sleep and to prevent overdoses, someone has to be there to monitor heart rate, oxygen intake, that sort of thing. Pay close attention to the statements made by both Dr. Conrad Murray, who was with Jackson in his mansion at the time of his death, and Murray’s attorney, Edward Chernoff. First, Murray denied injecting or prescribing Jackson with the powerful painkiller Demerol, a sedative reported as being at Jackson’s home at the time of his death. “Dr. Murray has never prescribed nor administered Demerol to Michael Jackson," Chernoff told The Associated Press. "Not ever. Not that day. ... Not Oxycontin [either] for that matter." He didn't say anything about Diprivan. Chernoff said that 20 to 25 minutes had elapsed before Murray, a live-in cardiologist for Jackson, ran downstairs to notify staff to call 911. On June 29, the Los Angeles Police Department released this statement to ET about their interview with Dr. Murray: But Rev. Jesse Jackson has said publicly that it was more like 50 minutes. "Dr. Conrad Murray, the physician who was with Michael Jackson at the time of his collapse, voluntarily contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. Detectives assigned to Robbery-Homicide Division met with Dr. Murray and conducted an extensive interview. Dr. Murray was cooperative and provided information which will aid the investigation." Something killed Jackson, who was shown on videotape 48 hours before his death singing, dancing, and looking strong. And while the coroner’s office has yet to determine the cause of death, the evidence now known appears to point to an overdose. Diprivan was found in Jackson’s home and removed by investigators as evidence. "Numerous bottles" of Diprivan without labels were found at the mansion, the Los Angeles Times reported. The narcotic is widely used in operating rooms to induce unconsciousness. Is that what also happened this time with Jackson? The American Society of Anesthesiologists said in a statement, after Jackson’s death, that Diprivan "should never be used outside of a controlled and monitored medical setting," Also, the statement said, the drug is “meant only for use in a medical setting by professionals trained in the provision of general anesthesia.” Jackson was last seen at a rehearsal the night before at 12:30 a.m. Sometime between then and 12:30 p.m. the next day--over a 12-hour period--something happened. Jesse Jackson, who spent time at the Jackson family home in Encino, Calif., made another good point, telling reporters, "There is a concern about what happened the last 12 hours of Michael's life.” Three months earlier, as relayed to the media by registered nurse Cherilyn Lee, said that Jackson, who suffered from insomnia, asked her in a phone conversation how he could get the drug and who he could get to administer it. She told Jackson it was dangerous and could kill him. He told her no, that he’d had it before and it was safe. It was the only thing, he told her, that worked for him. In fact, Jackson suffered from such a severe case of insomnia that in the mid-1990s, during the pop icon’s HIStory tour, Jackson traveled with private anesthesiologist Dr. Neil Ratner, who regularly helped “take down” Jackson and “bring him back up” during the pop icon's HIStory tour, CNN reported. As previously reported and by his own admission, the then-personal doctor for Jackson intraveneously gave Jackson an anesthetic. The doctor reportedly said, “I’d take him down at night and bring him out of it in the morning.” Four days before Jackson's death, Lee received what she described to The Associated Press as a “frantic” phone call from a member of Jackson's staff. "He called and was very frantic and said, 'Michael needs to see you right away,' " Lee told the AP. "I said, 'What's wrong?' And I could hear Michael in the background [saying], 'One side of my body is hot, it's hot, and one side of my body is cold, it's very cold.'” "At that point, I knew that somebody had given him something that hit the central nervous system," she continued. "He was in trouble Sunday and he was crying out." The 911 emergency call made while Murray, who had a practice in Las Vegas, Nevada, prior to taking on Jackson as his sole patient, was performing CPR contradicts what Michael Jackson’s doctor said on TV and in print. First, the doctor's attorney said CPR was administred while Jackson was lying on his bed. In a taped conversation released to the public, the 911 operator told a security guard at the house to get Jackson on the floor after the guard told the operator that Jackson was being administered CPR on a bed and that it wasn't working. Later, however, Murray’s attorney, speaking on behalf of the doctor, changed what he’d said earlier and instead said Dr. Murray had adminsitered CPR while Jackson was on the floor. Dr. Murray’s car, a silver BMW registered in Murray’s sister’s name, was towed from outside Jackson's Los Angeles home. "The car was impounded," Amanda Betat, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department, told ABC News. "One reason it was impounded was because it may contain medication or evidence that could assist the coroner in determining the cause of death." Law enforcement sources also told ABC that Jackson was addicted to Oxycontin and received it and Demerol in daily doses. The cause of death might not be known for a few weeks, pending additional toxicology, neuropathology and pulmonary tests ordered by the Los Angeles medical examiner, who performed the first autopsy, with an outside examiner performing a second autopsy for the Jackson family. Now that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is involved in the investigation, we should all know soon enough what caused Jackson's sudden death on June 25 and if anyone will be held accountable. In the meantime, law enforcement officials continue to comb through medical records to learn who supplied and administered the anesthesia Probofol and other drugs to Michael Jackson. Photos, by AFP, of Michael Jackson's Hollywood Star on Sunset Boulevard and Craig Harvey, Chief Investigator from the Department of the Coroner for Los Angeles County, as he arrives at the Holmby Hills home of music legend Michael Jackson. Photo of ambulance an exclusive by TMZ staff.