Crime Beat: A Decade of Covering Cops and Killers

by Michael Connelly

  “At that particular time, we were trying to get all the bodyguards identified,” Entwisle said recently. “We were never able to determine if these were the suspects in the killing although our investigation pointed that way.”

  Went Ahead with Trial

  Two of the bodyguards they could not find were Lowe and Mentzer. In December 1985 police and prosecutors decided to go ahead with the arrest and trial of Cavalli without knowing who the hit man was.

  During the trial in June 1986 a transsexual pornographic film performer who was a close friend of Mincher’s testified about the relationship between Cavalli and Mincher. But the case relied most heavily on the two witnesses who had identified Cavalli as the getaway driver.

  However, on the stand, one of those witnesses admitted that at the time of the shooting, he was a cocaine addict and could have made a mistake. The other witness, Cavalli’s attorneys brought out, had originally told police that he could not see the driver.

  Jurors later said the witnesses lacked credibility and chose to believe the defense’s contention that Cavalli was in Phoenix, and had made phone calls from there, when the killing took place. Cavalli was acquitted, and the Mincher case was shelved once again.

  Meanwhile, sheriff’s investigators working on the Radin killing of 1983 were investigating Mentzer and Lowe.

  Radin, 33, of Long Island, disappeared May 13, 1983, after getting into a limousine in Hollywood to go to a dinner engagement to discuss the financial backing for Cotton Club. His decomposed body was found a month later on a wilderness shooting range south of Gorman.

  Mentzer and Lowe were among the possible suspects identified in the slaying, but the sheriff’s investigation moved slowly until 1987 when deputies contacted William Rider, a former security chief for Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt. Rider knew Mentzer and Lowe from security jobs.

  Slaying Described

  Rider, according to court records and testimony in the Cotton Club case, told investigators that Mentzer and Lowe had told him about murders they had been involved in. One was the Radin killing. Another was the slaying of a woman in Van Nuys who the men apparently thought was a transvestite.

  Rider told the investigators of a 1986 conversation he had with Lowe while they were on a security job in Texas. “Lowe began drinking heavily and told Mr. Rider about Mentzer murdering a black transvestite,” a sheriff’s investigative report says, and continued:

  “Lowe said that he drove the getaway vehicle and that Mentzer shot the victim several times while standing on Sepulveda Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley. . . . Mentzer also shot the victim’s companion, but the companion survived.

  “Lowe stated Mentzer began calling the murdered victim names and kicking her after the shooting, and Lowe, who was in the driver’s seat of their vehicle, had to call to Mentzer to get in the car so they could get away before the police arrived.”

  Gun Matched to Slugs

  The investigators connected the facts Rider gave to the Mincher slaying. Rider later told investigators that he had unknowingly lent Mentzer the gun used in the killing and turned over a .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol, equipped with a silencer. According to the court records, investigators matched the gun to the slugs that killed Mincher.

  Rider next went undercover for the sheriff’s investigators, agreeing to meet with Lowe, Mentzer and a third former bodyguard for the Pascal firm, Robert Leroy Deremer, 38, while the conversations were secretly tape-recorded.

  In May 1988 while sitting with Rider in a car in Frederick, Md., according to sheriff’s records, Deremer spoke about the Mincher killing and said he drove Mentzer by the murder scene shortly after the shooting so that Mentzer could see what police were doing. The next day, Rider met with Lowe at a bar in the same city and while the conversation was secretly recorded, Lowe told of his part in the killing, the records say.

  Two months later, it was Mentzer’s turn. Rider met him in Los Angeles and steered the tape-recorded conversation toward the murder. According to the records, Mentzer said that in the weeks before the murder, he had placed a bomb under Mincher’s car but it failed to go off. He said he had also broken into Mincher’s apartment and pistol-whipped her. In another conversation, Mentzer said he used hollow-point bullets during the killing because he believed—erroneously—that they were impossible to match to a weapon.

  The tapes of the conversations, along with testimony by Rider, are expected to be key evidence against Mentzer and Lowe, if they come to trial. Authorities said last week that Deremer has agreed to testify against his two fellow bodyguards and will not be charged in the case.

  While authorities are confident that they finally know how Mincher was killed, the question of who ordered her death remains unclear.

  3rd Look into Case

  Earlier this year, Los Angeles police began their third look at the case after the sheriff’s investigation broke it open.

  “We’re following up on loose ends,” Entwisle said. “There are still people out there that were involved.”

  Authorities declined to comment on who the suspects are. But one thing they are sure of is that Gregory Cavalli cannot be tried again.

  “As far as Mr. Cavalli is concerned, the case is over,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew W. Diamond, who headed the unsuccessful prosecution in 1986. “He can’t ever be prosecuted again for killing June Mincher.”

  Deputy Dist. Atty. David P. Conn, who is handling the case against Mentzer and Lowe, would not comment. “I don’t want to speculate on Gregory Cavalli’s role,” Conn said. “He has been acquitted.”

  Cavalli, who has moved back to Southern California since his trial, could not be reached for comment.

  Pascal, whose security firm is now in Beverly Hills, confirmed last week that Mentzer and Lowe worked for his firm when it was hired by the Cavalli family. But he would not comment further. Pascal has not been charged with any crime.

  THE FAMILY

  4 MEN ARRESTED IN LAKE VIEW TERRACE QUADRUPLE KILLING

  LOS ANGELES TIMES

  September 30, 1988

  FOUR MEN WERE ARRESTED Thursday in a quadruple slaying in which two men, a mother and her 28-month-old daughter were shot to death at a Lake View Terrace house where “rock” cocaine was sold, Los Angeles police said.

  The four men may also be implicated in two more San Fernando Valley murders, police said.

  A team of nearly 200 police officers, including members of the department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team, raided three fortified drug houses and 12 other locations in the northeast Valley before all the suspects were arrested, a department spokesman said.

  Lt. Fred Nixon identified the suspects as Stanley Bryant, 30, of Pacoima; Antonio Johnson, 28, of Lake View Terrace; Nash Newbil, 52, of Lake View Terrace; and Levi Flack Jr., 24, whose address had not been determined.

  Held without Bail

  Bryant and Johnson were arrested on suspicion of murder, and Newbil and Flack were arrested on suspicion of being accessories to murder. All four were being held without bail at the Foothill Division jail.

  “The arrests of all four of these people refer to the quadruple murder,” Nixon said. “There are indications they are implicated in two others. The warrants for the searches of the 15 locations came out of the investigation of all six murders. The investigation is continuing.”

  The locations of the raids and arrests, as well as complete details of the investigation, were unavailable Thursday. But detectives said the arrests stemmed from an investigation centered on the Lake View Terrace shooting Aug. 28 that left the four people dead.

  In that incident, police said, two St. Louis men, Andre Armstrong, 31, and James Brown, 43, were killed after they went inside the house in the 11400 block of Wheeler Avenue. After the two were shot, a man ran out with a shotgun and fired into the car in which Armstrong and Brown had traveled to the house.

  The blasts killed Lorretha Anderson English, 23, of Seaside and her daughter, Chemise, who were sitting in th
e backseat. English’s 1-year-old son, who was also in the backseat, was only slightly injured. Police would not release the boy’s name.

  After the shooting, police said, the man with the shotgun jumped into the car and drove about a mile away from the house before abandoning it in an alley. The bodies and the injured child were still inside.

  Meanwhile, the bodies of Armstrong and Brown were loaded in another car and driven away from the house, police said. Police found them three days later in Lopez Canyon.

  No Comment

  Nixon said he could not comment on the motive for the slayings. Earlier, police speculated that a drug dispute ignited the violence.

  County records show that Newbil is the owner of the Wheeler Avenue house, which police said had been the scene of drug sales for two to three months before the shootings.

  The house was formerly owned by Jeffrey A. Bryant, 37, once described by police as a drug kingpin who controlled a sales network in the northeast Valley.

  In February 1986 Jeffrey Bryant pleaded guilty to operating a drug house at the Wheeler Avenue location and was sentenced to four years in state prison. He is believed to be the brother of Stanley Bryant, one of the suspects arrested Thursday.

  Possible Link

  The Wheeler Avenue case may be linked to shootings July 31, in which Douglas Henegan, 21, of Panorama City was killed, and Sunday, in which Tracy Anderson, 24, of Sylmar was slain, police said. The victims of those shootings were close friends, police said.

  Henegan was gunned down while he sat with friends on a curb at Hansen Dam Park. Anderson was shot to death on a Pacoima street after an argument involving several men. On Monday, Leroy Wheeler, 19, of Sylmar surrendered to police and was arrested on suspicion of murder in the Anderson case.

  Police declined to discuss the motives for the Henegan and Anderson killings or how they may relate to the other four. However, Nixon said Wheeler is also suspected of involvement in the quadruple slaying.

  DRUG RING KINGPIN CALLS THE SHOTS FROM PRISON, POLICE SAY

  October 16, 1988

  Los Angeles police think that a prison inmate in San Diego is directing a San Fernando Valley drug organization whose top members were charged this month in the slayings of four people at a Lake View Terrace “rock” house.

  Investigators said they think that the inmate, Jeffrey A. Bryant, 37, of Pacoima, is the leader of a drug ring with as many as 200 members that has controlled the sale of rock cocaine in the northeast Valley for nearly a decade.

  Bryant is serving a four-year sentence at the Richard S. Donovan Correctional Facility for a 1986 conviction for operating a drug house.

  “We believe he calls the shots from prison,” said Lt. Bernard D. Conine, chief of Foothill Division detectives.

  Linked to Statewide Gang

  Authorities said Bryant and other top-level members of his organization have been linked to the Black Guerrilla Family, a gang formed in California prisons in the early 1970s. The BGF, as it is more commonly known, at first focused on revolutionary politics but now is accused of operating a statewide drug network, authorities said.

  Bryant faces no charges in the Aug. 28 quadruple slaying at the house he previously owned in the 11400 block of Wheeler Avenue. But investigators said the arrests of several lieutenants in the killings have depleted his organization’s top echelon.

  Although police think they eventually will be able to break up the Valley organization, they noted that lower-level members are in line to take over for those arrested in the Wheeler Avenue killings.

  “We know there are people in the organization who want to step up,” Conine said. “The bottom line is, you can still buy rock cocaine in Pacoima.”

  Through informants and witnesses and from evidence gathered during searches of 26 locations where organization members lived and operated, authorities said, they have pieced together what happened at the house on Wheeler Avenue and why.

  Andre Louis Armstrong, 31, and James Brown, 43, both of the Pacoima area, were hit with shotgun blasts at the door of the house, police said.

  They said Lorretha Anderson English, 23, of Seaside, and her 28-month-old daughter, Chemise, were fatally shot while waiting in a car parked out front. English’s 1 1/2 -year-old son, Carlos, was slightly injured by flying glass.

  So far, 11 people, including Bryant’s younger brother, Stanley Bryant, 30, have been charged in the killings. Stanley Bryant; Le Roy Wheeler, 19; Levie Slack III, 24; Tannis Bryant Curry, 26; James Franklin Williams III, 19; John Preston Settle, 28; and Antonio Arceneaux, whose age was unavailable, each face four charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder. All are Pacoima residents.

  Antonio Johnson, 28, and Nash Newbil, 52, both of Lake View Terrace, and William Gene Settle, 30, and Provine McCloria, 19, both of Pacoima, each face charges of accessory to murder.

  The Settle brothers, McCloria and Arceneaux are still sought.

  Only Stanley Bryant, Wheeler, Slack and Johnson have been arraigned. Each pleaded not guilty. Wheeler also has pleaded not guilty to a fifth murder, the Sept. 25 fatal shooting of a Pacoima drug dealer who police think was attempting to compete with the Bryant Organization.

  According to police and court records, the slayings occurred during a power struggle in which Armstrong, who had served a prison term for a killing attributed to the organization, demanded money and a top position in the so-called Bryant Organization.

  A Group Decision

  Instead of giving Armstrong what he wanted, the organization decided to kill him at a meeting at the Lake View Terrace house, where the group kept money and cocaine, authorities said. When other people showed up with Armstrong, gang members decided to eliminate them too, police said.

  Wheeler told a police informant, “They had to be killed to protect the organization,” according to court records.

  “They were shot . . . through the metal door,” he is quoted as saying, referring to Armstrong and Brown. “The woman and baby had to be killed. She was writing down license numbers. I had to shoot them.”

  Authorities think the Bryant Organization took control of cocaine sales in the northeast Valley after James H. (Doc) Holiday, a leader of the BGF, was accused in a 1979 double murder in Pacoima.

  The charges against Holiday, who police think had controlled cocaine traffic in the area, were dismissed. But he was convicted of the attempted murder of a witness in the case and was sent to prison, leaving the northeast Valley to Jeffrey Bryant’s group, authorities said.

  The Bryant Organization began to distribute cocaine through street sales and at as many as six drug houses in the Pacoima and Lake View Terrace areas, police said. The organization soon earned a reputation for violence, police said.

  “The rock cocaine business is controlled by Jeff Bryant,” according to a police statement filed in the 1986 drug case that sent Bryant to prison. In the words of the statement, “He is the head of an organization consisting of family members and associates, which exists for the sole purpose of the distribution and selling of large quantities of cocaine.”

  Police think the organization was responsible for several unsolved slayings and attempted murders. Another court document filed in the 1986 case says an informant told police: “Jeff Bryant is a sergeant-at-arms in the BGF and often uses BGF soldiers to commit shootings and murders to enforce his hold on the cocaine distribution in the Pacoima area.”

  Chance to Network

  Bryant served time in prison in the mid-1970s for a bank-robbery conviction and may have become associated with the BGF then, police said. “Our intelligence shows the Bryant Organization is closely aligned with the BGF; in fact it claims to be the BGF,” Conine said.

  Bryant and his brother, Stanley, who police say is second in command of the Valley drug gang, were charged in 1982 in the contract killing of a man who vandalized one of their cars after buying $150 worth of cocaine that he thought was of poor quality, according to court records.

  Charged as the triggerman in that
shooting was Armstrong, an ex-convict who had moved to Pacoima from St. Louis and had “gained a reputation for being a hit man,” court records state.

  But after a preliminary hearing, the charges against the Bryant brothers were dismissed when a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence that they had ordered the killing. Armstrong later pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sent to prison for six years.

  Narcotics detectives began to focus intensively on the Bryant Organization after the murder case was dismissed, records show. Police said they identified three houses owned by Jeffrey Bryant, including the house in the 11400 block of Wheeler Avenue, where cocaine was being sold. Police said the drug operation was directed from a pool hall on Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima.

  The drug houses were virtual fortresses; bars covered windows, and steel doors opened into cages, which cocaine buyers entered to do business, police said. Money was exchanged for cocaine through slots in the cages.

  Stanley Bryant recruited people to work in the houses for $25 an hour, court records show. The workers were locked inside for eight-hour shifts. In each house, a pot filled with oil simmered 24 hours a day. Workers were instructed to dump cocaine in the oil should a police raid occur.

  In the first two months of 1985, police raided the three cocaine fortresses, made several arrests and confiscated weapons and small amounts of cocaine. Evidence obtained from the raids was used to charge Jeffrey Bryant with operating drug houses. In 1986 he pleaded guilty to one of the charges and was sentenced to four years in prison.

  But with the group’s leader imprisoned in San Diego, the organization did not wane, police said. Stanley Bryant headed the ring on the outside while his brother pulled strings from his prison cell, police said. Investigators said they think Jeffrey Bryant has commanded the organization by telephone and through organization members who visit him in prison.