Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers

by Michael Connelly

  Investigators say that when they searched Malinosky’s belongings they found cameras and a business card suggesting he, indeed, was a photographer. But the only photos found were of him smiling amid fields of marijuana plants. No tomatoes were found at his house, but police said several pounds of packaged marijuana seeds were found in the garage. And in the unpretentious, 23-year-old Volkswagen he drove, investigators found a coffee can crammed with $217,000 in $100 bills.

  “Finding this guy just opened up more questions,” said Sgt. Leo Blais, a Vermont State Police detective who has tracked the Malinosky case for years. “I am trying to get an idea of what he has been doing for 10 years and it is hard. We don’t know much about him.”

  Those who thought they knew Michael Bryant of Woodland Hills have also had to face the same enigma. A man they viewed as a good neighbor or tenant is charged with murder and is suspected of hiding behind at least four aliases and earning his living at least in part by selling marijuana seeds along with instructions on their planting and cultivation.

  “This really comes out of left field,” said Lilian Darling Holt, Bryant’s landlord for nearly five years. “It is devastating. Michael was a marvelous tenant and person.

  “This whole thing doesn’t seem right,” she said. “It seems that over the years there would have been something that would now click and I’d be able to say, ‘Son of a gun, I now see how this could be.’ But there is nothing like that. I just feel very bad. I wish I could do something for him.”

  Holt is not alone in being both perplexed and supportive of Bryant. Neighbors he was friendly with in the 4900 block of Topanga Canyon Boulevard have volunteered to care for his dog while he is in jail. And an attorney who met Bryant a few years ago in a coffee shop is now helping him fight extradition to Vermont.

  “There is complete shock among those who knew him,” said the attorney, Greff Michael Abrams. “He was the kind of guy most people would want as a neighbor.”

  Abrams said Malinosky disappeared from Vermont and began using false names because he was being hounded by authorities for a crime he did not commit.

  “There is more to this case than meets the eye,” Abrams said. “You don’t need to be a genius to see why he would leave Vermont. He believed a witch hunt was under way, and he decided to leave.”

  But authorities insist they have made no mistake. Malinosky is the only suspect in the Nov. 5, 1979, disappearance and apparent murder of Judith Leo-Coneys. The 32-year-old mother of a small boy disappeared after telling friends she was going to a house owned by Malinosky.

  “Everyone out here I talk to about him can’t believe it,” said Blais while he was in Los Angeles last week investigating Malinosky’s life here. “They keep telling me he isn’t the type.”

  So far Blais has established that Malinosky lived in the Los Angeles area in the early 1980s and worked as a house painter. He later moved to Utah and then back to Los Angeles, where beginning in late 1985 he lived alone in the two-bedroom Topanga Canyon Boulevard house.

  Along the way, Malinosky somehow picked up one alias—Barry Vandiver Bryant—that actually was the name of a real person, Blais said. The real Barry Bryant, of Charlotte, N.C., has since changed his name because of credit problems that began when Malinosky took his identity.

  In 1979, Malinosky was, on the surface, an unlikely murder suspect. He had taught for several years in Burlington area schools and was known to many in the northern Vermont community. At 34, he was assistant director of special education for the Burlington School Department.

  Bearded and slightly balding, he was a man who enjoyed the outdoors. He had an apartment in Burlington and owned a house in the rural town of Shelburne, which was more convenient for hunting and skiing. A mellow-voiced widower, his wife having shot herself to death in 1976, Malinosky was raising a daughter and son.

  But in mid-1979 Malinosky’s life apparently went into a tailspin when Leo-Coneys broke off a two-year relationship with him. According to Chittenden County court records, he was deeply hurt by the breakup, had sought psychiatric counseling and had been seen at least once spying through the windows of Leo-Coneys’ apartment.

  Two weeks before her disappearance, Leo-Coneys was held at gunpoint by Malinosky for several hours while he unsuccessfully attempted to persuade her to resume their relationship, records say.

  On the morning of Nov. 5, 1979, Leo-Coneys told friends and relatives she was going to drop by Malinosky’s home in Shelburne to retrieve something of hers. She chose that morning to go because she knew he was scheduled to be at work in Burlington.

  But Leo-Coneys was never seen again. She was reported missing by her family later that day and investigators learned that Malinosky had not gone to work or even called his office to explain why. That night, when he was spotted driving his van in Shelburne and questioned by police, he said he took the day off to go bird hunting and did not see Leo-Coneys.

  Leo-Coneys’ car was found at a junkyard in the town of Roxbury the next day. A handwritten note on the windshield said the car could be stripped for parts and was signed “R. Peterson.”

  Malinosky was questioned repeatedly after the disappearance. But on Dec. 2, 1979, he put his children on a bus to his former in-laws’ home, emptied his bank accounts and disappeared. Though Leo-Coneys’ body has never been found, authorities claim they have amassed convincing evidence pointing to Malinosky.

  According to court records, FBI experts matched Malinosky’s handwriting to the note found on Leo-Coneys’ car at the Roxbury junkyard. Investigators also found a cab driver who reported picking Malinosky up in Roxbury on the day of the woman’s disappearance. A cab dispatcher who took the call remembered talking to Malinosky. She had once been one of his students.

  Detectives had also noticed while interviewing Malinosky the first time that his parka was torn and leaking its down filling. The same type of down was found in Leo-Coneys’ car, court records say.

  Police believed after Malinosky’s disappearance that he might have killed himself, and the case languished without any charges being filed.

  In 1986, the Leo-Coneys case was assigned to Blais to be updated and, using a computer search, the detective learned Malinosky was alive and had apparently lived in Salt Lake City in the mid-1980s, where he used his own name to get a driver’s license.

  Blais went to Utah but Malinosky was gone.

  Once again, the case languished, until last year when a new state attorney, William Sorrell, was appointed and made the Leo-Coneys investigation a priority. The case was presented Feb. 20, 1990, to a grand jury, which concluded that Leo-Coneys was dead, and a warrant was issued two days later charging Malinosky with her slaying.

  According to court records, Malinosky’s daughter told investigators she had met her father earlier this year at the St. Moritz Hotel in New York City. Blais learned that the hotel room Malinosky used was paid for by a credit card issued to a Barry Vandiver Bryant. From that point, credit card billings under that name were traced to four private mailboxes in the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood.

  Members of the Los Angeles Police Department fugitive squad questioned the private mailbox proprietors, who identified Barry Bryant as Malinosky. And on April 12, the detectives were alerted by one of the mail-drop operators that Bryant had just picked up his mail.

  Police and FBI agents immediately went to the area on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills, but Bryant was already gone.

  The investigators decided to check area motels, and a clerk at a Best Western in the 21800 block of Ventura Boulevard identified a photo of Malinosky as a guest who had been renting a room since Feb. 20—the day the grand jury hearing began in Vermont. Investigators now believe he moved to the motel after learning, possibly through friends or family in Vermont, that the grand jury was investigating the case.

  Police watched the motel room and Malinosky was arrested that afternoon when he drove up in his 1967 Volkswagen. He had papers identifying himself as Michael Bryant and that show
ed his address as a house about five blocks away on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

  In the car, police found the coffee can containing $217,000, along with a material normally used to keep moisture out of packages. Detectives said the powder indicated the can of money may have been buried previously.

  Investigators were puzzled by where Malinosky had gotten the cash. But the next day, his house was searched and dozens of packets of marijuana seeds were found in the garage. Police theorized that Malinosky may have accumulated the cache of money by selling drugs or the seeds.

  Los Angeles Police Detective Ronald Tuckett said marijuana cultivation instructions and other drug paraphernalia were found in the garage.

  “It looks like he may have been in the mail-order business,” Tuckett said.

  Though the drug investigation is continuing, it is unlikely local charges will be filed against Malinosky because they could hinder his extradition to Vermont to face the murder charge, authorities said.

  Alerted on the morning of April 12, the day Malinosky picked up his mail, Blais was already flying from Vermont to Los Angeles when the man he had pursued since 1986 was taken into custody. The detective and suspect met for the first time in a holding cell.

  “All he did was stare at the ground,” Blais said. “He was very upset. I introduced myself and he said, ‘I know who you are.’ I said, ‘I know who you are, too, but do you want me to call you Frank or Michael or Barry or what?’ He said to call him Frank. It was a strange feeling to finally meet him face to face.”

  DEATH OF AN HEIRESS

  MURDER OF KANAN HEIR REMAINS A MYSTERY

  Judy Kanan, a tough-minded businesswoman, came from a pioneer family. Two men are still suspects in the 1985 slaying, but a detective says he has no idea who killed her.

  LOS ANGELES TIMES

  January 29, 1990

  FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY, Judy Kanan, a strong-willed 68-year-old businesswoman and descendant of a pioneer family, stopped by a Woodland Hills corral to feed her pets—six Arabian horses that she fawned over like children.

  It was her daily ritual to care for the horses she loved, and residents near the stables on a cul-de-sac on Collins Street knew the sight of Kanan and her old Chevy well.

  But on that Tuesday afternoon—Jan. 29, 1985—a killer also knew Kanan’s routine well. When she got out of her car, a masked gunman stepped forward and shot her four times. She died on the sidewalk next to the corral.

  One of the detectives originally assigned to the murder, Phil Quartararo, remains on the case. Recently, as he looked through one of the thick files he has filled with investigative reports over the years, he offered a quick summary of the case.

  “I don’t have any idea who killed Judy Kanan,” he said.

  That is how things stand with the murder that gripped public attention for weeks after it occurred. It is now largely forgotten—except by those who knew Judy Kanan well or have the responsibility of looking for her killer.

  The case remains a puzzle for Los Angeles police and a source of bitter frustration for those who wait for justice for Kanan.

  “We don’t want what happened to be forgotten,” the victim’s niece and family spokeswoman, Patty Kanan, said last week. “If people don’t remember it, it will go away. We don’t want that because we want to catch this person.

  “The killer is still out there. That’s the frightening part. Anyone who would kill an old woman would kill anybody. That should scare everybody, not just us.”

  Judy Kanan was a descendant of the Waring family, which settled Agoura in the 1860s. By the 1980s, Kanan and her older sister, Patricia Kanan, had parlayed inheritances and acquisitions into landholdings in Agoura worth millions of dollars. Kanan Road, which runs north-south through Agoura, was named for the family.

  The sisters lived together in Hollywood and at the time of the murder owned and operated Kanan Village Shopping Center—the centerpiece of the family’s holdings—in Agoura. In the shopping center, the sisters also operated a small restaurant specializing in roast rabbit and chicken.

  Judy Kanan was an enigma. Of the two sisters she was the one on the front line of their business deals. She forged a reputation as a tough-minded, aggressive businesswoman who often took disputes to court—once she even settled a business argument on the syndicated People’s Court television show. At the shopping center, she was known to tenaciously press workers to finish projects or tenants to pay rent.

  Yet friends and other business associates described her as kind and fiercely loyal. Despite her family’s wealth, she worked many hours each day at the shopping center and restaurant. She drove a 13-year-old car and lived modestly. And she took time out each afternoon to drive from the shopping center to Woodland Hills to feed and care for her horses.

  But police said it was her tough business style and litigious image that left her with many enemies and perhaps provided a motive for her slaying. After she was killed, one Agoura businessman said, “You’re going to have half the population of Agoura as suspects.”

  Quartararo said the killing was carefully planned and executed. The killer knew her routine and knew she would be alone when she fed her horses each afternoon.

  “Whoever it was, he chose the one time Judy and my mother were separated,” Patty Kanan said. “It was the only place he could get to her.”

  The man who gunned Kanan down was wearing a raincoat and had a mask or hood to disguise himself, according to a lone witness to the slaying. The car in which he fled had been stolen from a car dealer’s lot. Twenty minutes after the killing it was parked near Ventura Boulevard and set on fire. That obliterated any evidence and helped cover the killer’s trail.

  The killing had many of the earmarks of a professional assassination but police still can’t say for sure that it was.

  “There was almost no physical evidence for us to work with,” Quartararo said.

  Detectives investigated Kanan’s business deals and disputes. They examined each lawsuit, every complaint Kanan had made to friends or authorities and interviewed dozens of people.

  In the weeks after the slaying two men emerged as “prime” suspects because of disputes they had had with Kanan, Quartararo said.

  The first man had argued with Kanan at the shopping center a week before the killing. The dispute centered on the man’s desire to rent space in the shopping center for a stereo equipment store. The two quarreled over the rent and then Kanan refused to rent to the man at all.

  During the following weekend Kanan received several threatening phone calls from an unidentified woman. The following Tuesday she was killed.

  After police publicized a composite drawing of the unidentified man, he came forward with an attorney but refused to answer questions about the slaying. His identity was not released.

  Detectives determined that the man’s girlfriend had made the threatening phone calls to Kanan and a warrant was obtained to search the man’s home. But no evidence was found connecting the man to the murder, Quartararo said. He was not arrested.

  The second man, whom police also declined to identify, had been accused by Kanan several weeks before the slaying of stealing building supplies from the shopping center. Quartararo said the man was arrested in the theft but denied stealing anything. A week before the killing, authorities dropped charges against him.

  Quartararo said detectives believed that the second suspect might have held a grudge against Kanan. A warrant was obtained from a judge and the man’s home was searched, but again there was no evidence linked to Kanan’s death and no arrest was made.

  Both search warrants remain under court seal, and other details of the investigation of the two men were unavailable. Quartararo said no evidence was found linking the men to the slaying, but neither has been eliminated as a suspect.

  Quartararo, who routinely handles other murder cases in the west San Fernando Valley, said it has been three years since a new lead has come in on the Kanan case. He believes it will take more than detective wor
k to break the case.

  “If we don’t have anybody come forward with some information, we aren’t going to solve this one,” Quartararo said.

  That the case remains unsolved is frustrating to Kanan’s family. Patricia Kanan, now in her late 70s, sold the restaurant she operated with her sister. Because of ill health, she turned management of the shopping center over to her daughter, Patty.

  The older Kanan declined to comment on the case.

  “Frustration is the word for what we feel,” Patty Kanan said. “And we feel sadness. We really want to know who did this.”

  Patricia Kanan, who is unmarried, moved last year from the home she had shared with her sister and now lives with her daughter in an undisclosed location. Though the Kanans do not live in fear of the killer, they anxiously wait for justice.

  “My mother and our family have the basic concern that someone out there has killed someone and believes they have gotten away with it,” Patty Kanan said. “It could be anybody. It was a chilling and very calculated act. And that person is still out there. I hate the thought of someone getting away with murder.”

  NEPHEW IDENTIFIED AS SOLE SUSPECT IN KANAN KILLING

  September 29, 1990

  Nearly six years after Judy Kanan, a strong-willed businesswoman and descendant of a pioneer family, was shot to death at a Woodland Hills horse stable, the investigation of the unsolved slaying has narrowed to one person—her nephew, according to police and court documents.

  A search warrant filed this month in Van Nuys Municipal Court identifies 34-year-old Michael Kanan, the son of the victim’s brother, as the killer.

  After the slaying, according to the court document, the suspect told an acquaintance who later became a police informant: “It’s a real trip to see something you’re responsible for. . . . The bitch got what she deserved.”

  Los Angeles police say they are seeking additional evidence before asking the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office to file murder charges against Michael Kanan, who is in jail on an unrelated burglary charge.