Chase Darkness with Me

by Billy Jensen

  His mother was named Mary. Standing next to her at the podium was Juan’s fiancée, Julie Ann, and a Mexican American man with a kind face, Detective Adan Torres. He approached the podium and recapped the particulars of the crime, then played the video of the night Juan disappeared.

  The surveillance tape starts with a high-angle shot from behind a fast-food counter. Seven stacks of soft-drink cups sit underneath two empty computer registers. Your eyes are drawn to the double glass doors at the top of frame. You are waiting for something to happen there, when all of a sudden, a man approaches from the right side of the frame, performs a half barrel roll over the counter, and lands in the space behind the registers. He’s holding a pistol in his right hand and is wearing a Halloween mask on his face and a baseball cap on his head. Once over the counter, he steadies himself for a second, looks to the left offscreen, seems to point toward the front doors with his left hand, then disappears underneath the camera. In two seconds, he returns, jumps back over the counter, and exits to the right.

  When the gunman walked out of the frame behind the registers, he encountered Juan. He demanded money. Juan didn’t resist. But the gunman still shot him in the chest. He left with no money. Seven seconds was all it took.

  Stick-up robbery murders—the type you see at gas stations and liquor stores—are often some of the easiest to solve. Most establishments have video cameras, and the incidents are caught on tape from both inside and outside the store. They also have those handy height charts you see next to the doors to show how tall the suspect is. But in this one, the perpetrator is wearing a mask, and we don’t even have a straight shot of it—just a high-angle shot of a figure in motion. A figure who in one desperate act was about to knock down a set of dominoes and change the lives of so many people in El Monte, California.

  El Monte. I had never been there, but I knew it. El Monte has a particular significance in both true and fictional crime. The Jack in the Box where Juan was killed was three miles from the former location of the Desert Inn, the long-gone bar where Jean Hilliker was spotted with “the Swarthy Man,” the nickname that was given to the unidentified man who undoubtedly murdered her. Hilliker was a single mother whose body was found near the Arroyo High School ball field after a night on the town in 1958. She left behind a ten-year-old son named James, whose last name was that of his father: Ellroy. James Ellroy employed the demons that stirred that night to launch his career as one of the greatest fictional crime writers in history. Ellroy searched for the identity of his mother’s killer in his memoir My Dark Places. He uncovered some answers about himself but none about the identity of his mother’s killer. The Swarthy Man remains a mystery.

  At the Jack in the Box, witnesses said this killer ran out of the restaurant and down Flair Drive, where he hopped into a dark-colored sedan that “fled at a high rate of speed.” Juan died at the hospital.

  “The suspect was wearing a light-blue T-shirt, khaki cargo shorts, and black running shoes,” Detective Torres told the members of the press.

  “What can you tell us about the mask?” asked a reporter.

  “It has a mustache, a real thick mustache,” Torres answered. “With black plastic glasses—or remember in the old cartoons, the robbers used to wear just the black band? And a blue baseball cap.”

  That was the only image we had of the shooter’s face—a Halloween mask that looked as if someone crossed Groucho Marx with Cheech Marin, then grossly and comically enlarged and distorted the cheeks, ears, and nose.

  Torres spoke directly to the shooter through the news cameras: “Come in on your own and tell your side of the story.” He played the short video again.

  I ran scenarios in my head. The video would catch people’s attention for sure. But could it really lead to an answer to find his killer? In the Marques Gaines cases in Chicago, I had a good idea what the puncher looked like. This was different.

  It’s early, I said to myself. Let’s let it play out.

  In the audience stood cameramen from most every LA TV station, the LA Times, and the local papers in the San Gabriel Valley. They would be running the video on their social media pages. While it wouldn’t be as targeted as my technique—and it wouldn’t be coming from a dedicated page serving only the one crime and looking for only the one answer—they might get lucky and find someone who knew something about the man in the mask. I decided to wait a week.

  But I was still curious. I found Juan Vidal’s Facebook page and was greeted by a profile picture of a handsome man with thick sideburns, a Cheshire-cat smile, and a rockabilly-style pompadour. I learned that Juan had a Buick Special Deluxe that he called Christine, and he listed his musical likes as the Smiths and Morrissey. And Blur. I knew Morrissey had a huge following in the Los Angeles Latino community. But Blur? The upper-middle-class Britpop band who sang about “Parklife” and “Girls who are boys, who like boys to be girls?” I liked Juan even though I never knew him. It would not have been a stretch to see me and him sway in the same crowd at the Hollywood Bowl while Morrissey crooned “Everyday Is Like Sunday.”

  Halloween came and went with no news about the case and the killer. On November 2, six days after the initial press conference, the sheriff’s department presided over another briefing to announce that the board of supervisors had voted to approve $20,000 of funds for a reward to solve Juan’s murder. The city of El Monte was kicking in another $25,000. That was not a good sign. Sweetening the pot meant only one thing—the police had nothing. They were dangling $45,000 in front of the cameras, hoping someone would pick up the phone and do the right thing.

  I checked back in on the case every few days. Two weeks went by with no developments. Juan’s murder wasn’t the kind of killing Crime Watch Daily would readily cover. I would be doing this one alone.

  All right, I said to myself. Let’s see if you can help solve the murder of a Morrissey fan.

  I wasn’t worried about grabbing people’s attention. The video of the Jack in the Box murder was striking enough that people would stop. People would look. People would share. But we were all going to be dealing with the same problem—we were all looking at a man in a mask.

  “Give [a man] a mask,” said Oscar Wilde, “and he will tell you the truth.”

  What was this guy trying to tell us?

  Gangbangers don’t rob stores with Halloween masks. Kids who watch movies do. Career criminals also don’t choose such cash-poor establishments. This guy was desperate. He grabbed what he had on hand. A ski mask is easy to wear on your head like a regular stocking cap, then unfurl over your face when it’s time to go bad. But a full-on Halloween mask? This was an amateur. A kid who’s seen Dead Presidents one too many times.

  Watching the video again, I could tell he was young. Few people over forty would jump over the counter with such swiftness. He also had thin, athletic legs. The legs of a young man.

  I coupled these body traits with the facts of the case. He entered the Jack in the Box, jumped over the counter, shot an employee, and left with no money. He panicked, which told me he hadn’t done this many times before. He was going to be a baby face, probably under twenty-five. He could even be a teenager.

  But I wasn’t going to get anywhere looking for a guy under twenty-five with thin legs. If I couldn’t see his face, the next thing I could look at was his mask. If I could ID the mask, I could run a photo of it along with the video. The campaign would turn into “do you know a guy under twenty-five who owns this mask and might be desperate enough to rob a fast-food joint in the San Gabriel Valley?”

  It’s all about lowering the odds. Any way I can shrink the pool of who the perp might be gets me closer. And having a picture of the mask was going to be the next best thing to the killer’s face.

  I typed “Halloween mustache mask man” into Google and hit image search.

  It spit out all types of masks: The hippie. The lumberjack. The old-time gangster. The Rock.
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br />   I tried again with “human mask Halloween mustache.” This time, I got back a crazy-haired Einstein, a blond Viking, and a very realistic Walter White. But scrolling down, I found a cherubic old man wearing a ball cap that looked like it could be close. I clicked on the image and was taken to a site called Grimnation.com. There I learned the mask’s name: “Robert No Dinero.” Description: “Mask of a male character with large mustache and attached adjustable cap. The mask has great visibility, is adjustable, light weight, and comfortable.”

  The oversized nose looked right, but the mustache was far too bushy and drooped down far too low over the sides of his mouth. And the hat was a high-crown trucker style. I was looking for a low-profile ball cap.

  But Mr. No Dinero, as racist as it was, was the closest thing I could find. I took the photo of the perp and performed a Google reverse image search, employing the favorite tool of the TV show Catfish and internet daters everywhere.

  Bingo.

  Under the “visually similar images” tab was a mask and cap that looked perfect. It was called “Stan the Man.” Description: “Show them who’s the boss with this Stanley the Man mask. This half mask is comfortable enough to wear all night long. The latex mask features an attached baseball cap and great fit that blends naturally with the wearers face. No glue required.”

  The detective had said the killer’s mask had glasses or a black band like “the robbers used to wear in old cartoons.” Stan had neither, but looking back at the video, I wondered if it was the shadow of the cap that was giving him that impression. This was the mask of the killer.

  I called costume shops in Los Angeles. A few of them sold the Stan the Man mask. But it was also widely available online, not exotic enough to trace the sale. My best bet was going to be to run the stock photo of the mask along with the video and ask people if they knew anyone who might have worn that mask at a recent Halloween outing.

  With that one small victory, I moved on to the question at hand: Who knew an athletic guy with skinny legs between the ages of fourteen and thirty who might be in a situation so dire that it drove him to stick up a fast-food restaurant? There are two ways to target someone that young: go for his friends, former schoolmates, and coworkers. Or go for older family members or friends of the family. I decided to go after the younger set first.

  As for the location, I was going to stay local. Although the Jack in the Box was close to Interstate 10—leaving some to speculate that the gunman chose that location for an easy getaway—the facts of the case told me he was local. The gunman was young. He didn’t have much time to have lived or worked in multiple areas, knowing the streets and stores to be comfortable enough to try this robbery. Add that on top of his desperation, and I knew a guy like that was not going to drive ten miles out of his way.

  I learned another key fact from Detective Torres. The gunman wore a similar mask to someone who had robbed a Subway restaurant in nearby Irwindale two days before the attempted robbery at Jack in the Box. That clinched it.

  When this case came up, I was knee-deep in geoprofiling the Golden State Killer, as we were trying to finish the last section of Michelle’s book. With GSK, we had dozens of locations that he had struck within such a small section of Sacramento. Michelle had a theory that there was a buffer, or safe zone, in the middle of all the attacks. When plotted out on a map, the crimes formed a circle surrounding an untouched section of a neighborhood called Carmichael. Michelle and Paul Haynes believed the East Area Rapist may have either lived in, worked in, or frequented that area. The idea of the buffer zone was that you would never commit a crime too close to where you lived, also known as the don’t-shit-where-you-eat theory. But you also wouldn’t commit your crimes too far away, where you might not know any of the escape routes if things went south.

  With Juan’s murder case, I only had two plots on the map, not even enough to triangulate. But it was enough to start searching.

  I reached out to Juan’s sister and explained that I was going to use a new system I had created utilizing social media to find people who might know the suspect. I didn’t get into the specifics. I just said I was going to try to help. She just wanted the man caught. With the family’s go-ahead, I called Detective Torres and explained my plan. He had been looking for answers for weeks and admitted he was stuck. He was willing to take any help he could get.

  I called the page the “El Monte Jack in the Box Killer,” and for the profile picture, I used the stock photo of a model wearing the Stan the Man mask I was confident the killer wore that night. Close up, free of the blurry images caught on the surveillance video, the mask was sinister. A ball cap sat above two bushy eyebrows. Under the eyeholes were two exaggerated, puffy checks, a large bulbous nose, and a bushy mustache, which on one side hovered over a half-smoked cigar. The mask stopped above the wearer’s mouth, leaving his chin fully exposed.

  I posted the first ad on November 15, using the video of the gunman hopping over the counter. The video ran for twenty seconds and showed the gunman twice at full speed, then once in slow motion.

  For targeting, I selected the zip codes of both Irwindale and El Monte, combined population 115,708 (85,546 adults based on the latest census). With enough money—and the right message that would inspire people to share the post—I could reach almost all of them.

  Do you know who shot and killed young man Juan Vidal at the El Monte Jack in the Box on Oct. 21? He is wearing a mask (see avatar, know anyone who has this mask?) but appears to be Caucasian, light complexion Hispanic or middle eastern, 15–30. Please message any info—any info at all. And pls. share.

  Less than twenty-four hours later I got a private message from a man named Hector Carillo. “Who are you? How did you know Juan?”

  I explained I was a journalist and victim’s advocate working with the family.

  “The family request that you put your name on the page,” he said. “They don’t like the way the page is written. Might want to add the search for the el monte jack in the box killer.”

  I told him my name and attempted to explain my method. There are thousands of “searching for” and “justice for” pages on Facebook. And there are also millions of people trying to grab your attention. Posting with the most direct language possible, even if it sounded like it was coming from the killer himself (as I did with the River North Puncher/Man in the Green Hoodie campaign) was going to get a lot more attention.

  Hector responded angrily: “Billy this is an active, non-botched case. Juan was a very good friend of mine and in our group of friends we have a friend that is a CSI for LAPD. please don’t fuck our friends case up. you WILL piss off allot of people. This is not a game or an app for us. this is not a cold case trust me.”

  “Hector, believe me, that is the last thing we want to do,” I immediately wrote back. “That is why I check with both the family and the investigator in charge before I start anything. When I asked the LASD if they wanted help, they said yes. If they would have said no, I would have backed off.”

  The next message he sent was a photo of the rear end of a blue El Camino on a tree-lined road with mountains in the background. In the bed of the El Camino lay a casket.

  “He was a car guy,” Hector wrote. “We got him his last ride.”

  Juan was a person, I screamed in my head, that scream I had screamed a thousand times before. He just wanted to marry his girl, get in his Buick, listen to Morrissey, and drive to his new job at a pharmacy. And a guy in a twenty-six-dollar mask thought he could kill him and get away with it.

  With Juan’s friend calmed for a bit, I checked back on the campaign. It was moving quickly. You could tell how it was slipping into pockets of neighborhoods as Juan’s friends’ comments piled on top of each other. Having a rallying point—a local business most people knew—was key. People had stories about this Jack in the Box, and they wanted to share them. That made the post get in front of more people.

&nbs
p; “Oh my God that’s so sad why people need to hurt others so bad.”

  “He may have known where the cameras were he may have been a regular customer so sad to think about if this idiot still goes in like nothing.”

  “He left a hand print on the counter,” wrote another. Which was true, but early on, Torres had told me that there had been so many prints on that counter that it was useless.

  “The masked man was going to shoot one of his coworkers so he jumped in front of her pretty much saved her life.”

  There was action, but it wasn’t doing the trick.

  At this point, I was learning a lot about how people would react to the campaigns. Empathy has to be higher if a person sees something in a Facebook feed or on Twitter rather than if they’re looking at a wanted poster at the post office or a newscast on TV, crammed in the middle of other murders and mayhem. Facebook has life in it. When you watch the news, there is an inherent callus on your brain: Bad things happen; people die. But when you see it on social media, you are unconsciously associating the person who died with your own friends and family. It’s all in the same river.

  I posted a second ad the next day, this time focusing on the mask. I used the best screenshot I could grab of the gunman from the video and the stock photo of the model behind the mask.

  I got a bunch of people commenting that the “guy looks Chinese,” thinking that the perp actually posed for a photo with the mask. “It’s stock photo, people,” I had to write. I tried not to get frustrated. People were trying to help. But after twelve hours of staring at a screen, reaching out to tipsters, trying to track down leads, I was getting whiplash from all my head shaking.