6. One More Day in Paradise

the Calabasas Hills. Well County Sheriff's deputies are facing discipline now for taking and sharing graphic photos at the scene of the helicopter crash that killed nine people, including Kobe Bryant eight deputies. According to media reports, some of those deputies taking and sharing photos were from Lost Hills. I've been trying to get in with the leadership at the station ever since I heard about the murder in the park. Sometimes I just go to the station and stare at

the mirrored glass behind the unattended reception desk. On the other side lie the answers to everything that doesn't make sense about this case. But all I can see is myself reflected back at me. It's the perfect metaphor for the Sheriff's department. They see out, but you can't see in. But the weird thing about Captain Bassarah, he's friendly. This guy calls me, I think you've been keeping up with the politics here. Remember I was the act captain here

and they got replaced and they got sent back. He's nice, he wants to help. You're getting stonewalled, he tells me cheerfully. When you're getting stonewalled, you know you're onto a good story. Something obviously went wrong at Lost Hill Station. There was apparently a shooter on the loose and Malibu for over a year and a half, and it was kept secret. Not only that the alleged shooter hated the Lost Hills cops, had frequent contact with law enforcement and lived in the

hills behind the station. And Sergeant Wright, who gave me the helicopter tour, He and Lieutenant Royal, the two Lost Hills deputies who argued there was a serial sniper would be serial killer in Malibu and then found him. They're under investigation what went wrong. Sarah's newly in charge. He wasn't there for all the mess, but he says he really really wants me to find out the truth. He wishes he could tell me, but he can. He'd get fired,

at a minimum, possibly charged. The truth he keeps promising me is a bombshell. It's crazy crazy, it's gonna be It'll make a good movie or a good book, or so he should get a chapter in it. Anyways, call me when you get a chance. I'll be in the rest of the week. Okay, by bye, I think I might be in. I'm Dana Goodyear and this is Lost Hills,

episode six, One More Day in Paradise. In twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen, there was a series of near miss shootings in and around Malibu Creek State Park, than nothing for eleven months. In the summer of twenty eighteen, there was a sixth attack another near miss. It involved a white tesla being driven by a man named Ian Kincaid. The date was June eighteenth, four days before Tristan Boudett was killed. Today, I'm at Ian's house at the top of a twisty road in the Malibu Hills. Standing in

front of his garage, he pulls the car out. The white hood has a single piece of white electrical tape right between the headlights. He peels it away, revealing a deep gash. Wow, yeah, let me understand why I don't want my kids to see it. So I was going about sixty miles an hour, sixty five or something like that when I pulled over, But beforehand, I'd been going considerably faster. Ian works as a gaffer in Hollywood, which

means it's his job to light the sets. He's worked on six Quentin Tarantino movies, and on the day we're talking about, he was headed to the set of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He wanted to get there by six am. Let me up the hood, so he got up in the dark and left his home. He took Malibu Canyon Road. I was driving through the canyon

about four twenty and I was driving pretty fast. Sometimes in the morning, i'd drive excess of speed, and I thought, you know what, I'm going to get there too early. I don't need to speed, So I slowed down and within a minute was when the bullet hit my car. And I remember thinking, what's that sound? Yeah, it was like it was like I thought, did I leave a coffee cup on my roof again? And was at what

that was rattling? Or I thought I looked down my tea cup was right there, and I thought, well, maybe it was an acorn because I was driving near some oak trees and just you know, these are just thoughts at four o'clock in the morning, I wasn't trying to solve any mysteries. And then within i'd say ten seconds,

maybe the the alarm started going off. So I pulled over and got out of the car, and it was pitch dark, no other traffic, and I slammed the right I pulled over right there at the at the Hindu temple. The bullet went in the hood, passed through the front trunk and out the fender. You can see it wouldn't take too much of a change in speed for that to gone in elsewhere. You know, his height wasn't too far off, you know, if he was indeed aiming at me. I tesked the hole with my pinky. It has a

jagged edge. I can feel how close a call that was, how the bullets so easily could have hit him. So I went through there. They've replaced this piece. I think it came through here and then out the fender from from about here, and they said it might have bounced off the tire. After work, Ian says he stopped by

Lost Hill station. He remembers the deputy who took the report didn't appear too worried, so she took a picture, and she handed me a slip of paper with a number one and said, this is your crime report if you ever need it. Okay, And they weren't concerned. There was no nobody expressing any kind of serious interest in it. For the next few days, he tells me, he felt strange and avoided Malibu Canyon. When he couldn't avoid the road, he ruminated where had that shot come from, who had

fired it, and why. Then four days later, on June twenty second, Bodat was killed. I remember driving through Malbi Canyon seeing a lot of cops and a fenced off area, and you know, if something was going on, and I got to work and uh, and I really don't recall when I learned, but they learned that somebody had been murdered in the campground. I thought, wow, that's that's bizarre. Suddenly,

he says, the cops were all over him. My phone just lit up, and within I been in a half an hour, I probably got twenty calls from sheriffs, from LPD, from Lost hills, from rangers, from newspapers, from reporters, and I just what is this. They summoned him back to Lost Hill station, where a group of deputies quickly ushered

him around the side. So I drove around the back and there must have been fifteen guys in uniform that came up, and there were a lot of guys that were just like volunteer kind of guys wearing sheriff's deputy sheriff's stuff. There was a sargeantie, remember, and there was a detective and they had a handful of dowels and they have different diameter, and they put the dowels into the hole. And that was Sergeant Twoey Wright and his

search and rescue team. Sergeant Wright saw this shooting as another one of the near misses and believed that whoever had done it had also likely killed Tristan Boudet. They were trying to figure out the trajectory of the bullet. The trajectory was important investigating the BMW shooting. Sergeant Wright had found that hill the suspected shooting mound on the

park side of the canyon road. He was wondering if whoever shot the test had fired from the same elevated spot, and later, after the Woolsey fire had burned a bunch of brush away, he went back and searched there and found nine millimeter casings. But back in June twenty eighteen, Ian says, the deputies were being secretive by what I gathered. They didn't want to tell me anything. They were trying to usher me away from the car most of the time and have somebody else asked me questions while they

were putting the dolls in and stuff. But I was Ian says he did hear one thing loud and clear, and it confused him in the months ahead, when he, like everyone else in Malibu, kept hearing the Sheriff's departments say there was no connection, no relation, no link among all these violent crimes. He overheard Sergeant Wright and the deputies say that he Ian was the eighth victim in an ongoing shooting spree that had just turned deadly. I believed they said that I was number eight, and I thought,

what's that mean? When I might number eight? And then a little later they said that is it Tristan, Yeah, that he was number nine. This was the thinking of a faction inside Lost Hill Station. They didn't yet know who the canyon shooter was, but they believed that he was out there for a year and a half. They'd been telling the department, but the department wouldn't listen. The Tesla shooting had been the Sheriff's Department's last chance to

intervene before the murder, and they missed. Captain Bissarah is inviting me to come and see him at Lost Hill Station. Yes, of course I want to come. It'll be my first time behind the mirrored glass. He's a generous host. He takes me around to meet the detectives. He takes me outside to the parking lot so I can see the helipad. There's a pile of scat right on the seal mountain Lion. Maybe I look around at the dry, empty hills over the ridge. Is that steep slope where Rowda made his camp?

How did it take them so long to find him? Captain Bissarah is babbling on about how cops hate journalists. How if I'm ever going to find out what I want to know about this investigation, I'm going to need to build some trust. He thinks I should meet as many deputies as possible, go out with them, see Malibu through their eyes. He suggests, I going to ride along

with the beach team. Okay. Rowda told me in a letter that he hasn't been to Malibu's beaches in years, since the mid two thousands, but it's worth a try. So I spend a morning weaving in and out of sunbathers on a quad. There was an incident regarding paparazzi's in Matthew McConaughey near a paradise cove, and there was an incident where a paparazzi was assaulted and his property

was vandalized, thrown in the water, his camera. And then we had some pirates guys that were dressed in pirate outfits that were at zooma seven in the parking lot that were smoking marijuana in their car. They said they were in a band, so they've dressed like fires. There's smoke at weed in their car. That was back when weeds. I mean, you're still not supposed to smoke in public, but it was more of a big deal back then. This job's fun because you just drive around and watch everything.

M M, it's Bassarah. He tells me he's arranged today with Malibu Search and Rescue Sergeant Toy rights old team. I head back to the station and climb into a Search and rescue SUV. Search and Rescue played a pivotal role in the route investigation. They found a lot of evidence and assisted in the capture operation. I've been trying to get on their radar for months, so UM for the team. We drive around for hours looking at the

beautiful ocean views. The guys tell me some stories. A gentleman called the sheriff station and thought, there's a woman being attacked on a trail. This is Mark Hollander, a medical officer was Search and Rescue was He was wondering if she was being beaten or raped. Was very concerned. We came out there, did a big search, found no evidence of anybody on the trail, any evidence of a

woman that was attacked. Um. One of our team members said, you know, I believe that when mountain lions are in heat, they put out a sound very similar to a woman screaming. So he went onto Google and was able to get the recording of this sound, which does sound like a woman screaming for help, actually saying help, help, help type

thing very similar. He's not wrong, this is a recording I found, so we as a fall if we went to the gentleman's house who reported it, and played that tape for him and said, is this what you heard that night? And he goes, oh my god, Yes, that's the exact sound I heard. Did you find did you find the woman? Did she? Ohsh okay? We said, actually know. The sound you're hearing is a malon lion and heat. It's a good story, but they're not telling me the story.

Did you get what you needed? Basarah asks, totally. I lie. I've been at this for weeks, driving all over Malibu, wasting time, getting the run around, looking out the passenger side window, watching the stone walls stream past. Then I get a number for a retired Lostills detective named JT. Manuel, and he agrees to meet me at a park about five miles from the station. He knows all about Lieutenant Royal. Yeah, he's very intelligent, extremely intelligent mentally and his never give

up at ititude. I mean, he's relentless. He knows Sergeant Right too well. Two, he's a hunter, so he's a good tracker, and he worked narcotics wherever. He's a very smart guy. Detective Manuel is a big guy with blue eyes and a Steelers baseball cap. We sit down on a bench by the playground. You know, a lot of stills.

It's different that way, where you got to work a lot harder to find the bad guys because they're not all over the place and the crime rates usually are not that high in this area, so you've got a kind of be a hard worker to get things accomplish. He was a detective at Lost Hill Station for twenty five years. He reported directly to Lieutenant Royal. He heard about near Missus one through three, the early shootings in

Malibu Creek State Park, from Lieutenant Royal. Lieutenant Royal's very hands on supervisor, so he, you know, he made sure we were briefed about it. And then near Missus four and five happened on the Canyon Road. I think a lot of us believed there was a pattern between three and four. Definitely. By five, definitely we knew we had

a shooter out there. Lieutenant Royal and his detective started chasing down everything, even though, as Sergeant Wright told me, his superiors in the department weren't giving him much support. Lieutenant Royal was looking for a pattern and looking at people in the area, and we were all going off of leads or suspicions and everything else. He was starting to develop potential suspect names, potential people of interest who may have been somewhat radical, radical behavior and all that.

So we were definitely looking at different individuals possibly possibly could be an area. They were looking for someone they just didn't know who. It's very hard to find people in the hills. There's all kinds of people living in the hills that you don't know about that you stumble across or you get a phone call on, and it truly is if you're looking for one individual without a lot of go on, it can be like a needle in a haystack. We did not have a lot of leads.

I asked him if they were starting to develop a psychological profile. Yeah. I just thought the person was definitely somebody disturbed who had some kind of anger towards the public at large. Did you start to think at any point that maybe the anger was toward law enforcement personally? That crossed my mind, Yes, But I think more more than anything, I thought this guy was just seriously out to hurt somebody, lone wolf type of guy. Did Routa's

name come up at that point. I think with Routa, I think that came up probably after they saw the tape with him burglarized and the gun. This conversation has definitely helped me understand how and when Anthony Rowda became a suspect. But I wonder if he can speak to the other thing that's puzzling me, the investor instigation into Sergeant Right and Lieutenant Royal. I don't think it was fair. I don't think it was right, and I don't think

it was warranted. Two deputies or two people from Lost Tills, which is commonly thought of as a slow station, went out and basically found a murderer and stayed persistent and collected some important evidence. And I don't know if personally that rubbed somebody the wrong way or they felt like it made him look bad. But I can't really give an answer to the motives of it. But it just, like I said, neither one of them deserved to be punished.

They deserved to be rewarded. I know a lot of people were thinking that these two guys got screwed for working on working extremely hard, and like I said, it just did not make sense. So according to Detective Manuel. It wasn't that they did something wrong, it was politics. But who did they piss off? Who is that powerful? I make a plan to visit CC Woods. She knows a ton about the Sheriff's department and is leaser focused

on Lost Hills. All this stuff, the exile of Sergeant Wright and Lieutenant Royal, the investigations into their police work, It all happened under the leadership of her friend, Sheriff Alex Vieneueva. Cecie gives me directions to a fifteen million dollar Malibu beach house. It belongs to another friend of hers. I drive up to find her in the garage doing her laundry because it's eight million degrees two miles up the canyon, and I didn't want you guys to melt.

And I'm always here. Actually this is I literally come here, hang out with my girlfriend. I do my laundry in luxury, and I work swear work. We walk inside and the ocean fills every window. There's a pool, a gym, a massive tank filled with rare jellyfish. We sit down in the private movie theater and she launches right into a discussion of Sheriff Vienneueva so my relationship with Alex okay,

she's crazy about him. When his retriever died, she posted a picture of him, his wife, Vivian, and the dog. I love you, she wrote. She says there's a lot of speculation about her closeness to Sheriff fian Aueva. You know, it started professionally when you're in a high profile situation, which with me started with the Malibu Creek State Park shootings, and that just kind of put my name all over

the world and it still continues to. So when you form a relationship with somebody professionally during a very excuse me, during a very profound life changing time, so the people who are meant to stay in your life will stay, and the people who are not meant to stay in your life are not going to. WHOA. This conversation is

getting weirder by the minute. I think they just look at me because of this cute little blonde thing, you know, this mouthy, little big boob blonde thing, and they think that like that's enough that to sway the Sheriff's like opinion, which is bullshit. And it's like, you know, I want to protect my ass too by not allowing people to think that I would ever use my sexuality to get somewhere, because I don't. I use facts, facts, truth, data, whatever.

So anytime Ceci says, Sheriffian Aueva is doing exactly what she wants, cleaning house at Lost Tails station. Holy shit, Okay, good Lost Tales and bad Lost Sails. Let's go to the bad Lost Tails. Bad Lost Tails has been around for a very long time. That dark cloud just hung right over that station. You want to talk about continuing the rogue cop mentality, That's what was happening at that department. In twenty nineteen, a captain she really disliked had taken

over at Lost Hills. At this point, I'm really fucking sick and tired of that househole, Okay and everybody else. He's a cock blocker over there. She wanted Sheriff Vienneueva to get rid of him, and she says she made it clear she would send Vienneueva pictures of the captain. I would draw a red circle around his head. It bexed through. I couldn't help myself. I'm like, I want that fucker. God. The guy she's talking about was captain at the time of the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash, so

that wasn't good. And CC was upset about a sexual assault investigation where the victim was a college student in Malibu, so she pushed to get the captain canned and then for Chuck Bassarah to get his job, which he did. From what I heard rumor on the eighth floor is that and Alex did that. Every captain in the department crossed their legs and protected their man. CC clearly finds this all exhilarating. So now as soon as that happen, like two months later, one of the deputies comes up

to me. He's like, oh, hey, CC, blah blah blah. You know, I just wanted you to know that, like at least half the station is scared to death of you. I'm like, that means half the station's not doing their job, Okay, So you let them know. If I catch them, I will put them on blast. Okay, whether it's an article or whatever it is, I'm going to make sure all the right people know. So they should be scared of

a watchdog. They should be. She says she's looking out for sheriff in a way of his best interests and going to war with his enemies. He's not a fan of these people who are making the department look bad. Who is she talking about? I'm going to say Royal and right or not in his on his good boy list. You know, I may not. I really don't. There are some ten thousand deputies in the LA Sheriff's Department. How would Alex Vieneueva even be aware of two former Malibu cops.

Detective Manuel said there were some politics. Did Sergeant Wright and Lieutenant Royal somehow piss off the sheriff or did they piss off CC? Or These things now one and the same. But I'm no different than an activist who uses my platform to affect change. So that's what I do. And because Malibu is so well known, Alex knows that basically if we fart over here, it's gonna make global news. Okay, speaking of which, she's got a new article in the works.

It's going to be a bombshell. Cecie checks the time she's got to go. I'm gonna go see Vivian Vienneueva. So there's like a dispatcher's lunch over at um Dukes. So I'm gonna go meet with those guys anyway, She's on her way to a lunch with Viennueva's wife, Vivian at Dukes, that surfer themed restaurant on pch So, first the sheriff and now his wife. I guess everyone loves the energy out in Malibu. Captain Bassarah isn't done with me. He keeps calling. He wants to know how I'm getting on.

He's chipperer as usual, but they're starting to be a frantic edge to his patter. You really need to find out the truth, he says. He tells me that Sergeant Wright and Lieutenant Royal are causing him trouble. Actually, he says, the right and Royal thing is like shit, and I can't keep it off my boots. He says, he's stepping in it, tracking it all over his carpet. What they botched the investigation? He tells me. They're giving the defense

a defense. He says, they're helping Anthony Rowda. There's a pair of top secret reports detailing all the ways Sergeant Wright and Lieutenant Royal allegedly screwed up the internal affairs reports about their police work. Captain Bassara says, to put him in an envelope, write my name on it. He's going to tape it to the bottom of his desk, and if he's killed in the line of duty, I should come to Lost Hills and claim it. It's Captain Bassarah again. I'm driving on PC, the ocean on my left,

mountains on my right. He's going on and on about the screw ups in the router a case. I know what he thinks of right and Royal, or as he calls them, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. But what about the other cops? Ty Berry, the major crimes lead who showed up at route's early hearings, and Daniel Morris, the homicide detective who witnessed Tristan Bodette's autopsy, The ones with records of misconduct which I got from the DA's office. The dirty cops.

I realize I've never asked him about those guys, Barry and Morris, He says brightly. I do know them. We were deputies together twenty years ago. We're like minded, he says, we understand each other. All of a sudden, I feel kind of sick, disoriented. I'm remembering this weird moment that happened when Bassarah was first showing me around the station. He asked if I wanted to see the jail. I did for sure. I knew Routa had spent time there,

so Bassarah asked the jailer for the keys. He led me to a cell with a cot along one wall. I walked in and as I was looking around, I heard the sound of clanking metal. He was closing the door, and then, still smiling, he locked me in. Lost Hills is written and hosted by me Dana Goodyear. It's produced by Western Sound and Pushkin Industries. For more information about my investigation, follow at Lost Hills Pod on social media. Up next episode seven, Morning Light