Location

Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

On April 5, 1922, three men robbed the First National Bank of Arcadia of $2,800 in cash plus $5,420 in bonds and travelers' checks. The men exited the bank and piled into a car driven by a fourth man, their getaway driver. Police soon located the robbers' car. It had been stolen and the robbers had abandoned it to get into another car.

Within 45 minutes of the robbery, police stopped a car occupied by Broulio Galindo, Jose Hernandez, Salvador Mendival, and Faustino Rivera. Although police found no loot in the car, they did find five guns and two canvas sacks. The bank employees had stated that the robbers spoke perfect English, but none of the men in the car could speak English. The men, all Mexicans, would tell police that they were orange pickers and that the guns were for rabbit shooting.

The bank employees who witnessed the robbery identified Galindo, Hernandez, and Rivera as the robbers. Mendival was thought to be the getaway driver, and was partially identified by a telephone company employee who was working near the bank at the time of the robbery. Police found that Galindo and Hernandez had been previously convicted of felonies. Rivera died in jail prior to trial. At trial the defendants had to testify through an interpreter.  The prosecution could not explain how they spoke perfect English during the robbery, nor did it attempt to explain what happened to the loot. Galindo, Hernandez, and Mendival were convicted of robbing the bank. However, they were all pardoned in 1924 after the actual perpetrators were discovered.  (CTI)  [6/08]

James W. Preston was convicted of robbing a Los Angeles widow and shooting her when she tried to escape.  The victim, Mrs. Dick R. Parsons lived at 906 W. 50th St.  The perpetrator had entered through a first floor window, and on the dust of the screen, fingerprints were found.  Preston was arrested on a minor charge a few days after the crime.  His fingerprints were compared with those found on the screen, but did not match.  For some reason, however, the Los Angeles newspapers carried stories stating that Preston had been identified as Mrs. Parsons' assailant through the fingerprints.  The source of this misinformation could not be determined.

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Police officers Walter E. Evans and Miles H. Ledbetter, both detectives, were convicted of extorting a $750 bribe from Harry McDonald, a person with a criminal record of felonies.  After being arrested in 1929 for receiving stolen property, McDonald surprised the District Attorney by confessing to conspiracy transactions involving over 50 LAPD officers.  Among those were officers Evans and Ledbetter.  McDonald claimed that the officers had in 1928 extorted a $750 bribe from him in exchange for suppressing evidence that McDonald had purchased stolen diamonds from a Jack Hawkins.

At trial, McDonald, his wife, and his maid all swore that Evans and Ledbetter had visited McDonald on a Saturday and Sunday in 1928 and that McDonald had paid the officers a bribe.  The officers countered that they had indeed visited McDonald on Saturday July 7 and Sunday July 8, 1928, but the visits were to investigate an unconnected robbery of two diamond rings.  In rebuttal, McDonald and his wife testified that the detectives could not have visited them on the specified dates as the McDonalds moved to a bungalow in Venice, CA on the Sunday before July 4, and that they were not in Los Angeles for the two weeks thereafter.  The jury chose to believe the McDonalds and convicted the two officers.  In 1930, following unsuccessful appeals, the two officers started serving their sentences in San Quentin.

Later evidence surfaced that McDonald signed a safety-deposit record of a Los Angeles bank on July 9, 1928, so he could not have been out of town that day as he and his wife swore.  Also evidence surfaced that their maid had not been in their employ until after August 8, so she could not have been present on July 7 or July 8.  Coupled with these disclosures, and other discovered facts, California Governor Young pardoned both officers in 1931.  Evans and Ledbetter later received $4533.36 and $3313.39 in compensation.  (CTI)  [11/07]

Courtney Fred Rogers was sentenced to death for the murders of his parents.  In Oct. 1941 his 50-year-old father was rescued from a burning house, but later died of smoke inhalation.  Investigators found burning candles in the house and determined that fires had been set in several rooms.  The death of Rogers Sr. was ruled a suicide.  Eight months earlier, Rogers' mother had died from the inhalation of chloroform.  Her death had also been ruled a suicide.

Four months after the death of his father, Rogers was arrested for making a false $400 insurance claim.  Police found that the 24-year-old was heavily in debt and began to wonder if he had killed his parents in order to collect on life insurance.  Rogers, however, received no insurance proceeds for the death of his mother, although he did receive full ownership of the home he had jointly owned with her.  He received only $1000 for the death of his father plus $2300 for damage to the house.  Such proceeds were small compared to Rogers' debts.

After 16 days of more-or-less continuous questioning by police, Rogers confessed to the murders of his parents, a confession that he soon retracted.  Nevertheless, he was convicted of these alleged murders.  In 1943, the California Supreme Court unanimously threw out Rogers' convictions.  Evidence that his mother had committed suicide was clear and convincing.  The same was true in regard to the death of his father.  Neighbors had testified at how despondent Rogers Sr. was over the death of his wife and how he often had spoken of taking his own life.  Neighbors also said he had spoken of his dread of being left alone, after Rogers Jr., his only son, answered a draft call into the army.  Rogers Jr. was scheduled to report the day after the fatal fire.  At retrial, in the face of no evidence against Rogers, the retrial court dismissed charges.  (ISI) (Time) [2/09]

On Aug. 2, 1942, a teenager named Jose Diaz was found murdered near the Sleepy Lagoon reservoir in southeast Los Angeles.  The reservoir was frequented by Chicanos (Mexican Americans) who were excluded from public pools.  As a result of apparent prejudice and press hysteria, police arrested 600 Latinos in connection with the murders.  Twenty-two Latinos (mostly Chicanos) were indicted for the murders and tried before an all white jury.  The defendants were not allowed to sit near or speak with their attorneys during trial.

Three of the defendants were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison; nine were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to five years-to-life, five were convicted of assault and released for time served, and five were acquitted.  In Oct. 1944, the Court of Appeal of the State of California unanimously reversed the convictions, finding that there was no evidence linking the defendants with the crime.  (Wikipedia) (Google)  [4/08]

Daniel Kamacho was convicted of the murder of Deputy Sheriff Fred T. Guiol.  Guiol had attended a movie with a friend, Miss Pearl Rattenbury, and had driven her to her home at 1117 Elden Ave.  Before Rattenbury could step out of the car, a young man armed with a gun wrenched open the car door and demanded the occupants hand over their money.  When Guiol reached for his gun, the young man shot Guiol dead and then ran off.

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Robert E. Williams, also known as Bob, was was convicted of the murders of Matt Manestar and Ralph Burgess.  Manestar, 56, was the owner of the Rose Motel located at 1345 West Pacific Coast Highway in Harbor City.  He was killed on the night of Jan. 22-23, 1956.  Williams confessed to this murder while in a northern California juvenile correction camp.  He figured his confession would allow him to contact his girlfriend as it would force his transfer to police custody in southern California for questioning.  He was anxious to contact her because he believed she was about to marry someone else.  He also figured that he could not be convicted of murdering Manestar as he was incarcerated at the correction camp when the murder occurred.  Unfortunately Williams figured wrong.

Two years later, in an effort to free himself by proving that an innocent person could be convicted of murder due to a false confession, Williams decided to confess to another murder that occurred while he was in the correction camp.  In a Long Beach newspaper Williams found a story about the unsolved murder of Ralph Burgess.  Burgess, a salesman, was murdered on Nov. 20, 1955 at McKinney's furniture store at 2430 East Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach.  While five fellow inmates watched him, Williams wrote out a confession to this murder using details from the newspaper.  Williams was proven right more than he had hoped.  When put on trial for the murder, he was convicted again.  He was not allowed to refute his confession by calling his fellow inmates as witnesses.

Seventeen years later, in 1975, Williams was paroled from prison.  He began working on establishing his innocence.  Eventually, in a San Pedro police records room, he found a letter from a correction camp supervisor camp stating he had been in custody at the time of Manestar's murder.  This letter had been withheld from Williams' defense at trial.  In 1978, a judge released Williams from his life parole, effectively ending his sentence.  (News Article) (ISI)  [7/09]

Edward Echarria Avila was convicted of charges relating to the robbery and shooting of used car dealer Sam Bravero at his car lot in East Los Angeles.  Two eyewitnesses to the crime had been shown 30 mug shots of possible assailants but failed to identify anyone.  A detective then showed them a single photo of Avila that he had with him in relation to another case.  The witnesses both identified Avila.  However, after viewing Avila in a lineup, only one of these witnesses was still sure Avila was the assailant.  When detectives questioned Avila, they doubted his guilt because of the way he answered their questions.  Nevertheless, Avila was convicted due to the witness identification.

Two months later, the detectives thought another man, Delbert Wilson, might be responsible for the crime.  Wilson had been arrested several days before Avila.  After detectives matched a fingerprint found in Bravero's car to a print of Wilson's thumb, Wilson confessed to the crime.  Wilson also told police that he had coincidentally been held in the same jail cell as Avila and knew that Avila was being charged with a crime he himself had committed.  Wilson said he remained quiet as he had enough troubles of his own.  In Sept. 1957 Avila was granted an unconditional pardon.  (The Innocents)  [7/09]

An investigation by Centurion Ministries found that the state's primary witness against Pratt was an informant for the FBI, the LAPD, and the L.A. District Attorney's office.  Orange County Superior Court Judge Everett Dickey ruled that the informant had lied extensively about Pratt at his trial.  FBI agent Wesley Swearingen reported, “My supervisor and several agents on the racial squad knew that Pratt was innocent because the FBI had wiretap logs proving that Pratt was in the San Francisco area several hours before the shooting of Caroline Olsen and that he was there the day after the murder.”  Pratt was freed in June 1997.  Pratt's case was written about in Last Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt.  (CM) (Black Panthers) (Murder: An Analysis of its Forms)

Gordon Robert Hall was convicted of murdering Jesse Manuel Ortiz, 27.  The victim died after a gunman in a passing car fired several shots at him and his two half-brothers.  A few blocks away from the incident, police found what they thought was the gunman's car.  After they surrounded the area, which was the locus of a party, they found Hall hiding in some bushes.  Hall, 16, said he was at the party all night and that he hid because his attendance at the party violated his probation for involvement in a graffiti painting incident.  The victim's half-brothers, Victor and Daniel Lara, identified Hall as the killer.

Following Hall's conviction, the victim's brothers recanted their testimony.  Instead they claimed a man named Oscar Sanchez was the killer.  Hall's defense also discovered a new eyewitness who identified Sanchez and another man, Alfred Reyes, as the killers.  Reyes admitted being at the party but denied any involvement in the crime.  Instead he implicated Sanchez as the driver of the passing car.  Other witnesses also implicated Sanchez and/or Reyes, but none implicated Hall.  Additional witnesses confirmed Hall's alibi.

In Dec. 1981, an appeals court overturned Hall's conviction.  Two months later, charges against Hall were dropped and he was released.  (ISI) (MOJIPCC) (LA Times)  [7/09]

In 1980, eighteen-year-old Tony Cooks was accused of murdering John Franklin Gould.  Gould, 42, had been accosted by three black teenagers one evening while he and his wife walked down a street near their Paramount apartment. Gould was beaten, stabbed, and shot.  Gould's wife told police that the assailant was “a light-skinned black.” Police showed her a photo-lineup in which Cooks was the only light-skinned black, and she told police, “I can't be positive, but I think that's him.”  However, at trial, Gould's wife would positively identify Cooks.

Another witness, Helen Foster, who said she saw the nighttime crime 177 feet from her apartment window, identified Cooks as one of the assailants.  Two days after Cooks' arrest, a 14-year-old youth was also arrested after he confessed to his involvement in the crime; the youth then accused Cooks as also being a participant in the crime.  Based on these identifications, Cooks was indicted for murder.

Cooks' first trial ended up in a hung jury; his second trial ended in a mistrial; his third trial ended in a hung jury. Finally, at his fourth trial, in 1981, Cooks was convicted of Gould's murder. However, the trial judge expressed skepticism about the eyewitness identifications and overturned the conviction.  The prosecutor appealed the judge's decision and an appellate court reinstated the conviction.  The judge, forced to pronounce sentence, ordered Cooks to prison for sixteen years to life, but freed him on $5,000 bond pending appeal.  On appeal Cooks won the right to a fifth trial.

In 1986, at Cooks' fifth trial, it was revealed that the 14 year-old eyewitness against Cooks had told his probation officer that his testimony was a “lie” he made up in order to satisfy a persistent detective who would not take "no" for an answer.  The fifth trial jury voted to acquit Cooks.  (Ramsey Dissertation)  [10/07]

Melvin Mikes was convicted of beating to death 76-year-old Harold Hansen.  Hansen was found dead on March 10, 1980 in the basement of his Long Beach fix-it shop.  The pockets of his clothing had been turned inside out.  The shop, which was located on the main floor of the building, had been burglarized.

Near Hansen's body,  investigators found three chrome posts--a three-foot post, a six-foot post, and a "turnstile" post--all of which constituted portions of a disassembled turnstile unit.  Hansen had purchased the turnstile at a hardware store's going out-of-business sale, approximately four months prior to his death. The investigators determined that the assailant used the three-foot post to murder Hansen.

The government's case against Mikes rested exclusively upon the fact that his fingerprints were among those found on the posts that lay adjacent to the victim's body.  Mikes's counsel failed to present alibi witnesses. Mikes' conviction was vacated due to insufficient evidence.  His release was delayed four months waiting for the DA's unsuccessful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Mikes served 7 years of a 25 years to life sentence.  (Google)  [4/08]

Patricia Gordy Wright was convicted in 1999 of the 1981 murder of her ex-husband, Willie Jerome Scott. Jerome was found stabbed to death in his motor home while it was parked in a bad area in downtown Los Angeles. Jerome's homosexual lifestyle led to the dissolution of the couple's marriage. It also led him to some unsavory partners and placed him in some dangerous situations. No physical or forensic evidence connects Wright to the crime.

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In 1983, a mentally unbalanced woman named Judy Johnson enrolled her two-year-old son, Matthew, in the McMartin Preschool.  She became obsessed with Matthew's rectal problems and began thinking they were a result of sexual abuse.  Soon Judy was making accusations against Ray Buckey, 28, the only male who worked at the school and who was the grandson of Virginia McMartin, 79, the school's founder.  Matthew denied abuse at first, but soon Judy was making more accusations against Ray based on what Matthew allegedly said.

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Titus Lee Brown, Jr. was convicted of the stabbing murder of Israel Guzman Rangel.  The murder occurred in a South-Central Los Angeles parking lot.  The chief prosecution witness was Ricardo Pimental Baldavinos.  Pimental testified that he saw Guzman being attacked by two men. Pimental drew his unloaded gun and approached the assailants in an attempt to scare them away. Presented with a series of photo lineups a few days later, he identified Brown as the killer. However, Pimental's identification was weak: The incident occurred at night; Pimental had never seen the assailant before; he only saw the assailant briefly, though his estimates of time varied from "a couple of seconds" to "five minutes"; he had been drinking earlier in the evening; he could not recall whether the assailant had facial hair; when first contacted by the police, Pimental denied any knowledge of the incident; and Pimental failed to identify Brown's photo when presented in a photo lineup at trial.

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Jesus Avila was convicted of attempted murder in 1990 in the shooting of Demetrius Kidd.  The shooting occurred at a baby shower gathering in Ham Park.  Jesus's original lawyer, George Denny, became convinced that Jesus's brother, Ernesto, was the real shooter, after Ernesto apparently confessed to him.  But Denny never told anyone because he represented Ernesto in another matter and believed that he could not implicate him -- even if doing so might help clear Jesus.  While Denny wrestled with this dilemma, Ernesto and the Avila family gambled.  Rather than come forward and testify for his brother at the trial, Ernesto hoped that Jesus would win his freedom anyway.  "We thought Jesus would be acquitted and Ernesto would not have to go to jail either," said Christine Avila, their mother.

Denny withdrew from the case, citing an unspecified conflict of interest.  However, he never shared with Jesus's new lawyer information he had on why Ernesto was the real shooter.  When police arrived at the shooting, Ernesto had fled.  Witnesses there identified Jesus as the person who most looked like the shooter.  At trial, Jesus's new lawyer presented witnesses who placed Jesus on the opposite side of the park at the time of the shooting.  Some remember him hitting the ground when shots were fired.  However, the prosecution witnesses prevailed.

On appeal in 1992, a judge heard sworn testimony that Ernesto was the guilty party, both from Ernesto and several other witnesses.  However, the judge declined to order a new trial for Jesus, saying later that he did not find Ernesto's admissions credible.  Eventually, however, Jesus was able to appeal to the federal Ninth Circuit Court, which overturned his conviction in July 2002.  (LA Times)  [10/07]

Tito David Valdez, Jr. and his father, Tito David Valdez, Sr., were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit murder.  Valdez Jr. produced a Norwalk cable TV show called "Hollywood Haze" featuring a freewheeling mixture of music videos and interviews with partying teen-agers and rap musicians. Most footage focused on teen-age girls dancing at underground parties and nightclubs.

Valdez had hired a 13-year-old Pico Rivera girl who said she was 16.  She said Valdez had brought her to his Downey home and raped her in his room while his father and brother watched television downstairs.  After the girl brought rape charges against Valdez, he and his father allegedly conspired to kill her.  They allegedly solicited someone to murder her.  Evidence has surfaced that the wiretapped tape conversation played to the jury was an edited, altered version.  Secondly, the jury was never told that the star witness for the prosecution, was a paid FBI informant and had a prior criminal record.  (Valdez's Story) (Google)  [4/08]

Orenthal James "O.J." Simpson was found civilly liable for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and Ronald Lyle Goldman, 25.  He had earlier been acquitted of the murders in criminal court, but he is perceived by many as guilty despite his acquittal.  The victims, who were white, were found outside Nicole's home at 875 S. Bundy Drive in Brentwood, CA.  O.J., who was black, was a Heisman trophy winner, a Hollywood movie actor, a network TV football commentator, and was known for the TV commercials he made for the Hertz Rental Car Agency.  He was the most famous American ever charged with murder.  O.J.'s criminal trial was dubbed the "Trial of the Century," although that designation had previously been used to describe the 1935 trial of the alleged Lindbergh baby killer.

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Jason Kindle was convicted of the armed robbery of an Office Depot store where he worked as a janitor.  The store was located on South Figueroa Ave.  A thief had robbed it of $15,000 in cash and $7,000 in checks.  Following the robbery, Kindle continued to work at the store for seven weeks without his fellow employees pointing a finger at him.  After police detained him in the store, letting everyone know he was a suspect, five employees identified him as the robber from a police photo lineup.  At trial the prosecution presented a “things to do” list that Kindle says he compiled during a training session on working as a janitor.  The prosecution contended the list was a “recipe for robbery.”  Judge Lance Ito refused to order a retrial after learning that items on the list were janitorial tips.

An appeals court ordered a new trial because Kindle's counsel failed to introduce an expert on witness IDs.  An analysis was performed on a videotape of the robbery, which showed that the perpetrator was 6'6" tall.  Kindle was only 6' tall.  The DA declined to retry the case.  Kindle served 2 years of a 70 years to life sentence given under the three strikes law.

Juan Catalan was charged with the murder of 16-year-old Martha Puebla.  Puebla had testified against Catalan's brother in another case.  Catalan insisted that he was watching the Los Angeles Dodgers with his six-year-old daughter at the stadium minutes before Puebla was killed about 20 miles north of the stadium.  He said he had ticket stubs from the game and testimony from his family.  However, police said that they had a witness who placed Catalan at the scene of the crime.

Catalan's attorney, Todd Melnik, subpoenaed the Dodgers and Fox Networks, who owned the team, to scan videotape of the televised baseball game and footage from its “Dodger Vision” cameras.  Some of the videotapes showed where Catalan was sitting but Melnik could not make him out.  Melnik later learned that HBO had been at the stadium the night of the killing to tape an episode of the TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm.  The attorney found what he was looking for in footage that had not made the final cut.  “I got to one of the scenes, and there is my client sitting in a corner of the frame eating a hot dog with his daughter,” Melnik said.  “I nearly jumped out of my chair and said, ‘There he is!’”

The tapes had time codes that allowed Melnik to find out exactly when Catalan was at the ballpark.  Melnik also obtained cell phone records that placed his client near the stadium later that night, about 20 minutes before the murder.  The attorney said it would have been impossible for Catalan to get out of the parking lot, change vehicles and clothing, and play with his daughter as well as kill Puebla during that span.

Catalan, who could have been sentenced to death had he been convicted of murder, was released after 5 1/2 months of imprisonment because a judge ruled there was no evidence with which to try him.  (CBS)  [7/07]