BLACK NIGHT, GOLD COAST-Gray George

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bizarre beach house slayings. Finally, in the spring of twenty ten, a DNA database broke the case wide open. Filled with stirring interviews, historic context, and never before released details about the Fariah murders, Black Knight, Gold Coast tells the story of an American tragedy that is at once shocking, timely,

and haunting. The book that we're featuring this evening is Black Night, Gold Coast with my special guest, journalist and author Gray George welcome to the program, and thank you for agreeing in this interview.

and that's where most of the population is based. The largest city is Oxnard, and then there are at least three other cities I know of in the county that have populations that exceed one hundred thousand, those being Thousand Oaks, Semi Valley, and the city of Ventura itself, which is the county seat Ventura County. Unlike Los Angeles, Ventura County is known for low crime rates for affluent citizens, for people who essentially want to get away from the crime

of the larger cities and the bigger metropolitan areas. So when it comes to crime, typically people at least in this region don't think of Ventura County as being a hotbed of violent sensational crime.

So tell us about this couple that's both forty two years of age when this story begins, when we are looking at this couple, tell us about them and their children, and tell us a little bit about what they do and who they really are. And especially in this community.

of the most affluent in the entire country. As I point out in the book Bloomberg Business listed in two thousand and nine, the year of this crime, listed Hidden Hills as being one of the wealthiest towns in America. So Brock Housted grew up in relative affluence. When he was a child, his family moved to a city called Moore Park, which is in Ventura County, and for high school he attended a very exclusive private school in Ohi

called Villanova Preparatory Academy. After high school, Brock's brother Scott, went to work at a local bank, and while he was working at the bank, he met a young woman who was one of his coworkers named Divina Deboni. She

was a tall, statuesque blonde absolutely gorgeous. In fact, when she was nineteen years old, she had won the Miss Oxnard pageant, and then she'd gone on to compete in the Miss California pageant, which I'm sure most of your audience members know is the last step before one enters the Miss America pageant. So Divina de Boni was absolutely gorgeous, and at least it's my understanding that when Scott Husted first met her, he thought that she might be a

good match for his younger brother Brock. So, to make a long story short, in nineteen ninety Brock and Divina Houstead were introduced to one another, and as the story goes, they were immediate There were immediate sparks between them. Within the next couple of years they were engaged and finally in nineteen ninety five they married. They initially lived after their marriage in a very exclusive neighborhood in the city of Ventura called Ventura Keys, which is nestled right along

the coast. There are mooring areas, there are boat docks within the neighborhood, and then after their children were born, they moved up the coast to the Faria home at the at the time of the crimes. Brock Housteed operated a business called Cotur Concepts. He provided custom metal work for high end clients. Some of his celebrity clients here in this region included Suzanne Summers, Mel Gibson, Oprah Winfrey, who owns a large spread up in the Montecito area

in Santa Barbara County. He had done work for all of them. Brockhusted's work his metal work had appeared in magazines. And at the same time Brock Houstead was getting his metal business up and running, Divina was establishing herself as a major player in the local charity world of Ventura County. She was the president of the national charity Junior League of Ventura. She made enormous strides in terms of fundraising

for that particular charity as well as others. In fact, one week before the tragic crimes that I detail in the book, she had given a check for almost eighty five thousand dollars to the local hospital. So both brock

and Divini Houstad were enormously active people. They were involved in their community, They were deeply involved in the lives of their children, Brocky and Isabella, and from all outward appearances they had almost the perfect life, living in their beautiful, multimillion dollar oceanfront home in Pharrea.

their father out fishing, surfing, boating. Their mother was actively involved at their school where she was involved in volunteer work, and from all accounts, they were completely normal, well adjusted children who came from a very large Ventura County background. Like I pointed out before both of their parents had grown up in Ventura County, so they had a large network of family members who lived nearby, and they were very well supported for after the tragedy occurred.

They were watching American Idol, and that was the season finale actually on May twenty, two thousand and nine, of the season when Chris Allen and Adam Lambert squared off on American Idol. Well at about ten pm, the winner of American Idol was announced, and at the time, Brocky, his mother Divina, and his father Brock were sitting in the living room of their home. Isabella was asleep in her bedroom toward the front end, the north end of their home, and it was just a very normal, typical

night for them. Just after the winner was announced, just after Chris Allen was announced as the victor in that year's American Idol, Brock Houstad rose off the couch and he walked into the kitchen of their home, which was attached to the living room area as sort of one large great room. Now, as I mentioned before, it appears that the Housteds were at least on this evening somewhat lacks about their home security, and both the back door and the side door of their home had been left unlocked.

So as brochu Stead was walking around the kitchen and his wife and his young son Brocki were sitting in the living room watching the confetti fall on the stage at the Nokia Theater in Hollywood, a man bursts through the back door of their home. And it was from there that the tragic events in May twentieth really began to take shape.

his face. As soon as he charged through the door, According to the statement that was later given to detectives, he immediately told all of the family members, Brock, Divina, and Brocki to get on the floor. They did is they were instructed. They all immediately got on the floor and as soon as they were down, the intruder, who was holding blacks what appeared to be a black semi automatic pistol, got on brock hu Stead's back and immediately pointed his gun at the back of the father's head

and began demanding money from the family. It was impossible for the three members of the family who saw the suspect enter the home to get a clear view of his face because there was a face There was a visor on the face mask that actually obscured the portion of the face that would otherwise be visible. So all they knew is that this armed, violent individual had entered

their home. He had ordered them to the floor, he had jumped on the father's back, he had grabbed the father's care in his hands, smashed the father's face into the floor, leaving a puddle of blood on the wooden kitchen floor, and he had started demanding the family's money from them. It was we can only imagine it must have been an absolutely terrifying experience.

She apparently kept an extremely level head during the crime, as did her husband, as did Brocky, the son, who was nine years old at the time and witnessing all of this inside of his home. And as soon as the intruder began making demands for money, Devina instructed her son, in what was reported as a calm voice, or at least as calm as one could reasonably expect for a situation like this, She instructed her son to go back to the bed room and get the money from her purse.

And at almost exactly the same time, the father, who again is being pinned to the floor of the kitchen by the intruder, asked his son to go into the kitchen and or as his son to go into the bedroom and get his money clip as well. So as soon as Brocki was instructed to go get his parents' money. He got off the floor, walked into the bedroom, retrieved the money, and brought it back into the main room to give to the intruder.

to her feet. She got up off the floor and attempted to go get jewelry for the intruder. Well, at this point, Brocky is standing over in the living room area and his perception of the event starts to break down a little bit. Of course, he's a traumatized nine year old boy, so I suppose that's to be expected. But he hears both of his parents begging the intruder

not to murder their children. And it was at about this time that his mother and father were both herded out of the kitchen area and into the back bedroom of the home.

this armed intruder. After about three minutes, about three minutes after the initial thrashing and banging in the back bedroom, Brocki hears this blood curdling scream coming from his mother in the back bedroom, and after just a couple of seconds, the screaming stopped, and it was at that point that Brocky finally scampers from where he had been kneeling standing next to the living room coffee table to a position behind find the far end of the living room sofa,

where he was at least partially concealed from anyone who might be looking for him. And after he heard his mother's scream, he didn't hear anything else until he started to hear heavy, the heavy fall of boots walking through his house.

onto the ocean front deck above the Pacific. It's the same door that the intruder had burst through just minutes earlier. Brocki notices that the intruder is rubbing together the thumb and fingers of his right hand. Brocki didn't think too much of it at the time, but he did recall

that detail later. After the intruder walks out the door, Brocky immediately sprints back down the hallway of his home, and as he's going down the hallway, he notices the intruders what appears to be a black stainless nine millimeter semi automatic pistol lying on the lying on the floor of the hallway. Well. Brocky walks into his parents' room and it's an absolute slaughter. His parents are both on the floor, either of them removing. There's no sign of respiration.

There's blood everywhere. There's blood on the ceiling, there's blood on the walls. There's a huge puddle of bright red blood on the floor. So, fearing for his sister's safety, Rocky immediately makes his way back to his sister Isabella's room, which is beside his parents' bedroom. He walks in and fortunately he finds that she has not been murdered as well. He wakes Isabella up, and at first, as you can imagine,

she's an absolute disbelief. Here's an eleven year old girl who one minute she's sound asleep in her own bed. The next moment, she's being shaken awake by her brother, who is telling her that both of their parents have been eviscerated in their bedroom. Well, at first, Isabella encourages Brocky to get into bed with her to calm down. Everything will be okay, you were just having a bad dream.

But after a minute or two, Isabella begins to realize that Brocky is deeply distraught, so she finally relents and gets out of bed and follows him into their parents' bedroom. And that's when she sees the carnage for herself. And that's when both children's terrors ratcheted up, ratcheted up to an entirely new level. After Isabella and Brocky view their parents dead, she immediately grabs him by the hand and

pulls him into the bathroom. She closes the door, they lock the door, and as they're standing there, shivering shaking on the bathroom floor, they hear the pounding of bootsteps re entering the home, and both children were absolutely frightened. They immediately took refuge in the shower. They closed the door as silently as they could, and they sat there in the cold, dark bathroom with only a flimsy knob lock on the door between them and the intruder who had re entered the home.

as if he's looking for something in the bedroom. Well, after a few minutes of pounding footsteps, minutes that must have seemed like hours to these poor children, they finally hear the bootsteps getting softer and softer and softer as they move away from the bedroom. So unsure exactly what to do, the children finally decide that they need to call nine to one one that they need to summon help. So the children exit the shower, they ease the bathroom

door open. They look out, and they can't tell that anyone's in the house. Brocky looks out into the hallway and he notices two really important details. He notices a that the back door to the house, the door to the ocean front deck that the intruder had come through, is standing wide open. He also notices the deep step.

the hallway and they begin looking at their parents. They finally determined that both of their parents are in fact deceased, so Brocky attempts to retrieve the phone. The cordless phone in the bedroom had been knocked to the floor. He and Isabella look over in the corner of the room and they can see their father's outstretched hand, and this

is obvious in the crime scene photos as well. Their father's outstretched hand was sort of pointed toward the bed, and evidently the cordless phone was just beyond his reach. So Brocky has to walk through the pool of blood, the huge pool of blood around his mother's body. He has to get up on their bed, and he has to sort of crawl across the bed in order to

retrieve the phone in the corner of the room. And as he goes across the bed, and it's really a chilling detail of the story that you can see in the crime scene photos. You can see his little bloody footprints on this pure snow white comforter the parents had on their bed. He retrieves the phone, he can't get a dial tone on it, so he and Isabella decide we have to get out of the house. We need to get help. The phone isn't working. This all seems like a nightmare come to life. So the children re

enter the bathroom. They lock the door behind them, and then by getting on top of the toilet, they're able to slide the bathroom window open, wriggle through the window, and run from the home.

beside the spilt contents of a Louis Vautromp purse. So the deputies make their way down the hallway of the home. They find the bedroom door locked. It was still locked from where Isabella and Brocky had locked it when they were attempting to retrieve the cordless phone. The deputies kicked down the door to the bedroom. They enter the bedroom

and they find the parents slaughtered. They can obviously tell that the parents were victims of a violent homicide, and so they immediately called detectives who come out to the crime scene and begin assessing the elements of it. Now, in the course of investigating the crime, it should be pointed out that, as I'm sure most of your listeners know, most murders are predicated on fairly conventional motives like anger, jealousy, revenge,

that sort of thing. These crimes were unusual, not only in the sense that they happened this very low crime upscale, gated community, but also because there appeared to be absolutely no motive to the crime. The detectives looked into Brocken Divina Houstad's backgrounds early on, and they couldn't find any links to known criminals, to any kind of problems in their background that might point at a suspect in the case.

So the upshot was they had no leads in the case. Now, if we look at the evidence in the bedroom in retrospect, I think that there are some reasonable conclusions that we can draw. For example, the murders were not the result of a highly planned crime by some skilled master criminal. These were very impulsive murders. These were opportunistic murders. These were murders that were committed by a disorganized individual who

had no understanding of how evidence works. Just as an example of that, the murder weapon, which was a huge butcher knife that had been taken from the cutlery block in the houst Husted's kitchen, it had been left at the crime scene. So not only had the murderer in this case left the butcher knife he'd used to murder the victims lying on the floor behind them, literally with their blood and flesh all over it, he'd also left

a living witness to the crime. I should also point out that when the detectives initially entered the bedroom, they saw blood droplets leading from the victims into the master bathroom, and they noticed that the same blood droplets were around

the kitchen of the bathroom sink area. So the detective started to surmise that somehow, in the commission of the crimes, the offender's hand had gotten slippery with the blood of his victims, it had slipped off the knife he had cut himself on the knife's blade, and then he had rushed into the bathroom to wash his hands. And as it turns out that that conjecture turned out to be right on the money.

Other stab wounds were delivered to her neck area. Now, you're right, there was a definite sexual component to this crime, and the detectives were sensitive to that as soon as they walked into the bedroom that night Divina Houstad. Prior to the murders, she'd been sitting in her living room and she'd been wearing sort of two layers of tank tops, and as I pointed out before, those tank tops had been left on the kitchen island and in the hallway of the hallway of the home.

obvious detail. And so when Divina and brock Eustad were removed from the home and taken to the County Morgue, they were swabbed as homicide victims usually are in the course of autopsies, and the medical examiner found a quantity of seamen inside Divina Hustead's mouth, which sealed the deal on the fact that she had been sexually assaulted in the commission of the tragic murders and as far as

the towel is concerned. When detectives entered the bedroom, they noticed that there was a towel that had been left on Divina Husteed's shoulder. So, if you can imagine, Brock Hustead is dead, flat on his back in the corner of the bedroom, his hand is stretched out to the right toward his bed. His wife was literally slaughtered right

on top of him. In crime scene photos, you can tell that she had fallen on her left side, so that her torso was basically covering her husband's outstretched right foot. Well in leaving the home, it appears that the murderer in this case had dried his hands after he'd cut himself on the knife while stabbing Divina Hustead, and he'd

also dried himself after committing his sexual assault. So when detectives found this green hand towel on Divini Houstead's back, they found not only her blood in significant quantities, they also found the unknown offender's blood in significant quantities and seamen down along the bottom fringe of the towel, And so that provided some extremely incriminating forensic evidence for detectives to work with.

so forth. But when the forensic example from the Faria murders was sent to the California Department of Justice lab, it did not register quote unquote hit in the system.

They look into the victims' backgrounds to determine whether or not there could be any connection between victim and killer. And I should point out as you as I'm sure you know, there are. In almost in the overwhelming majority of cases, there is some sort of link between the victim and his or her murderer, and that makes it

easier for detectives to narrow down the suspect pool. As detectives worked through this case, it became increasingly apparent that they were working what's called what's known as a stranger murder, and that is a case in which someone unknown to the victims murders them. Stranger murders are notoriously difficult to solve, even in our even in our current era of advanced forensic techniques DNA and so forth, it's still extremely difficult

for detectives to work stranger murders and produce results. It's in a timely manner. So in the course of investigating the Paria murders, the detectives started looking at whether or not a drifter along the highway near their home might have broken into the Housted home and murdered them. On a whim. It's worth pointing out that the socioeconomic demographics of the Frea area are a little bit unusual and

a little bit unique. I've i mentioned before that Faria Beach Colony is the gated neighborhood where the Housteads lived at the time of their murder. It's an extremely upscale community. The homes in their range and price I would say from probably the low millions to the you know, to

maybe up to ten million dollars. But just outside Faria Beach Colony, outside this gated community is Pacific Coast Highway, and there are big empty stretches of Pacific Coast Highways run along the Pacific Coast, and people who live in RVs or vans or other vehicles that have been converted for nomadic living live along the coast during the year.

It's a fairly popular thing to do. It's completely legal, and there are little RV lots along the coast as well that allow nomadic travelers with no connection to the local area to live there. So the fact that you had this large migratory population constantly moving through Farrea just compounded the difficulties Ventura County Sheriff's detectives were already facing

in trying to resolve this murder. They looked at whether or not anyone in an RV or anyone who was coming through the area temporarily might have been responsible for the murders. They couldn't make any progress in that direction. They looked, as I said before, into the backgrounds and brought into being Houston. They couldn't find anything there. And as the days and weeks and months dragged on, the tension in the community and the frustration of the family members was just compounded.

which is just up the coast from Faria. It's just a few miles up the coast from Farrea. At the firehouse community meeting, the sheriff's detectives tell the community members, we're really sorry. We don't have any leads in the case. We can't tell you all that much about it because it's obviously it's an ongoing, active investigation, and we don't want to divulge too many details lest we compromise the

integrity of the investigation. But they said, we don't have any reason to believe that anyone else is in danger. If you keep an eye out on your property, if you keep your doors locked, if you're aware of your surroundings, we believe that this was an isolated event. You have nothing to fear well, as you pointed out a moment ago.

On June third, two thousand and nine, just a couple of days after this firehouse community meeting takes place, Venturrea County residents wake up to news that a woman named Wendy de Rodeo, who was a forty something year old licensed therapist and author, had been slaughtered by knife in her bedroom in Venture Keys, which is exactly the same neighborhood where the Huestads lived. Now as a really eerie coincidence, the Derodeo home was only about fifty yards as the

crow flies from the former Housted residents. So of course this plunges the entire community back into a state of high anxiety. People are worried, and as I learned through sources in the course of my investigation, police were extremely worried at this time too. Here they had two bedroom knife murders, they had no suspects. The police had reason to believe that the Derodeo murder was not connected to

the Faria homicide. However, at the time they couldn't go into a lot of details because neither case had been solved. They couldn't go into a lot of details about why they believed that was the case. So, between the multiple violent crimes that had happened in this otherwise tranquil County and the lack of good information that was coming out of local law enforcement agencies, the community was on edge.

People were frightened. People were buying guns, people were buying burglar alarm systems, people were putting motion sensors on the lights around their homes, they were barricading themselves in at night. And it's quite a contrast from what Ventura County had experienced prior to that, where literally people in this world of worlds felt comfortable leaving their doors unlocked at night.

Excuse me to September of two thousand and nine. Cashier working at a Shell gas station on Harbor Boulevard in the city of Ventura is manning his post. It's mid evening, I would say, probably around eight or nine o'clock at night. Out of nowhere, this robber barrels through the door, brandishing a black semi automatic can gun, orders the gas station cashier to the floor, cleans out the register, and sprints

back through the doors and disappears into the night. And over the coming weeks in September, this bandit strikes no less than four more times. He hits three more small businesses in Ventura, and he's finally suspected of committing another gas station robbery in the city in Santa Barbara County, just outside the Santa Barbara city limits. In all of the cases, the suspect and the robberies is described to

detectives the same way. He's described as a white male approximately five feet nine five feet ten inches in height, athletic build, wearing dark clothing, wearing gloves, usually wearing some kind of face covering, speaking in sort of an angry to monotone voice, brandishing a black handgun. These aren't highly sophisticated robberies. He's not able to access any of the safes in these businesses. He just cleans out the cash register, stuffs the money in his pocket, sprints through the doors.

The Ventura Police Department, who has jurisdiction and all all of the cases in their city, investigates the robberies thoroughly, and they can't make any progress. Finally, on the evening of September twenty third, two thousand and nine, a gas station attendant is working in Santa Barbara County on State Street, which, for people who are in who know the area at all, it's one of the main drags that runs north south

through the city of Santa Barbara. He's out on a relatively isolated stretch of north State Street, and just before he's ready to end his shift, a black clad, bankrupt black clad robber with a mask with a bandana mask tied around his face accosts him in the parking lot, accosts this gas station attendant in the parking lot, orders him back into the business, orders him to the floor, cleans out the cash register, and sprints from the business.

It was ultimately that crime that ended up making progress in a lot of a lot of local investigations.

to it. And this is later confirmed when Santa Barbara County Sheriff's detectives go down to Ventura and they're able to pull surveillance footage from an in and out burger in that city. It's worth noting that in the course of robbing the Santa Barbara gas station, the robber ended up stealing the gas station attendant's wallet and then in

the hours after the crime. That night, on September twenty third, two thousand and nine, the Santa Barbara gas station robber went to an in and out Burger in the city of Ventura and used the gas station attendants credit card to buy a meal. Well, as soon as that fact came to light, the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department, who were

investigating the robbery, went down to Ventura. They pulled the surveillance tapes and they noticed that the Chevy Trailblazer indeed did not have any license plates affixed to its front or rear bumpers.

provide in this book is incredible. So tell us about Terry Williamson and Jack Packer and basically Josh Packer's early life and his not so auspicious beginnings.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department and the robbery detail of the Ventura Pede are completely at a loss as to who their serial robber is, who's been robbing all of these small businesses, But they do have one clue. In addition to the eyewitnesses who had seen the robber in his disguise, they know that the suspect was driving this light colored Chevy trailblazer that didn't have any license

plates attached to it. So one night, as these two Ventura police officers are patrolling their beat, they notice this trailblazer literally blazing along one of the streets in Ventura.

So they decide to execute a vehicle stop and pull it over, and as they're pulling the vehicle over, one of the officers remembers an attempt to identify poster, which, for those who may not know, an attempt to identify poster is a poster that's compiled by one law enforcement agency who's seeking an outstanding suspect, and it's disseminated to

other law enforcement agencies throughout the state. And the hope is that by broadcasting this attempt identify poster far and wide, another officer, another member of the law enforcement community, will recognize something about the suspect and be able to provide a tip that will ultimately lead to the apprehension of

that suspec. So these two Ventura police officers, after they've stopped the Chevy Trailblazer, they remember this, this attempt identify poster that had been sent down a couple of days earlier by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department. And in that attempt identify poster, the Santa Barbara detectives indicated that they were looking for a white male suspect who was

driving a Chevy trailblazer. Now, when the Venturipede officers stop the speeding trailblazer, they noticed that it does have it does have license plates affixed to its bumpers, so it's in compliance in that regard. But when they get up to the window, they look down at the driver and they noticed that he is a young white male. He

has kind of a stocky build. He's about five feet eight five feet nine inches tall, and in fact, he had been a former football star for the Ventura High School Cougar's football team just a couple of years earlier. When they grab his driver's license and they run it, they can't find any outstanding warrants on him, but they do make note of the fact that he had turned I'm twenty years old, just a couple of days prior

to the stop. So, doing their due diligence, the officers, after they write a citation for the speeding driver and turn him loose, they contact the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department and they say, listen, this may be nothing, but we pulled over a guy a couple of days ago for speeding down here. He drives trailblazer, and he's known as kind of a local ruffian. He's had some brushes with the law, nothing extremely serious, but we just wanted to pass this along to you to see if it

might aid you in your robbery investigation. Santa Barbara County detectives say thank you, and they do begin investigating the driver. Now, the driver's name is Joshua. What is a Joshua Graham Packer? And as you mentioned a second ago, his beginnings were extremely inauspicious, to say the least. His parents met in a psyche patric hospital when they were teenagers. They both grew up in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, and both of his parents were committed for one reason or another to

a Cincinnati psychiatric hospital. His mother was fifteen at the time, his father was seventeen, and they were both locked up for I think I think his father was in for schizophrenia treatment. His mother was in because she just couldn't get along at home with her father and stepmother. So eventually, after a long series of events that I leigh out in very meticulous detail in the book, his mother and

father decided to get married. His mother was in a very abusive situation prior to that, his father and I suppose needed someone to help give his life some ballast, and so, in an attempt to provide some stability for each other, his mother, Terry Williamson, and Josh Packer's father, Randy Packer, decided to get married. Terry Williamson married Randy Packer two days after her seventeenth birthday, and as she explained to me during our many, many many hours of interviews,

she was actually married with bruises on her wrist. She told me that Randy Packer was very abusive to her. So, anyway, to make a long story short, eventually the Packers decide to leave Cincinnati. Both of them had many bad memories there. By this time, they have a baby, Josh's older sister, Shauna, and they decide, like so many people before them, to seek their manifest destiny out here on the West coast.

So they pack up their aging car, they bundle up their baby, They get on the freeway and they start making their way west, and about three weeks later, they end up in Ventura, completely random. They had no intention of ever visiting Ventura. They didn't know anything about the place, but that's where their car broke down. So they were taken into a homeless shelter along with their daughter Shauna, and from there they began to build a live for a life for themselves in the city of Ventura, and

that was pretty much. That was where Josh Packer was born on September in September of two thousand and September of nineteen eighty nine, and that was ultimately where he was identified as a suspect in the Santa Barbara County robbery twenty years later.

some of these people at trial. But in this particular case, based on your research, these are some incidents that you can't put aside and not factor in to the bigger picture. So tell us some of the major incidents that must have had something to do with shaping this guy's psyche.

By the time Josh was five years old, his parents had completely divorced, his father had abandoned the family in Ventura, and Randy Packer had moved back to the Cincinnati Cincinnati area. At the same time, his mother is becoming deeply involved in the local drug culture of Ventura. She, as you pointed out a second ago, she got hooked on meth amphetamine.

She was absent for much of Josh's young life. So Josh was growing up around very disreputable characters in the Ventura area, And in the course of growing up around drugs and crime and criminals and degenerates in the seedier areas of Ventura, Josh Packer came into contact with hardcore sex offenders, and just to give your listeners a thumbnail sketch of some of some of the things he experienced

as a young child. I remember when I was talking to Terry one night, one of the more chilling incidents she described to me was the first time she tried crystal meth. At the time, she, Shauna and Josh were living with this hardcore drug addict criminal at a small motel in Ventura. Cherry said that as soon as the crystal meth, which was injected into her arm, as soon as it hit her system, she said she felt her brain just explode with this electric current like she'd never

experienced before. And she said that she basically locked the kids in the little kitchenette they had in this hotel room, and then she in this degenerate with whom she was living at the time, just using her own words, quote unquote, just had sex for days. And of course at the time, Josh and Shauna are about six or seven years old.

They get hungry, so these small children have to climb out the window of the motel and go to an old woman's home who's in the neighborhood, and the old woman would feed the children she would play with them, she'd look after them. But her son, this old woman whom Josh and SHAWNA. Packer would see out in order to have their basic needs met, she was being looked after by her her son, who was in his sixties

at the time. Well, as it turns out, he ended up sexually assaulting Josh Packer when he was about six years old, six or seven years old, and obviously that set Josh on a very bad course. Now added to this, Terry becomes absent. Not long after it, Josh is sent to live with one of Terry's former husbands, who assumes

custody of Josh and Shauna. I lay out in the book exactly what occurred with him, which was no picnic for Josh, a lot more abuse, a lot more exposure to criminals, disfiguring injuries that he suffered in the quote unquote care of this this former husband of Terry's, and finally Terry does get off drugs. Terry told me that

she used drugs consistently for about three years. She was largely absent from Josh's life during that period of time, But finally, in nineteen ninety eight, Terry is able to pull her life together, Terry saw someone murdered right in front of her. Terry's explanation of that to me was absolutely chilling, but she said that it did compel her

to get off drugs. So Terry gets off drugs. In nineteen ninety eight, she goes back to her children in Ventura, and not long after she moves back in with her children and her former husband, Josh is attacked in his bedroom by a wanted sex offender, which is just another surreal aside. Here is a child who has already been sexually molested on multiple occasions, he suffered disfiguring injuries on multiple occasions, and then he's attacked in his own bed at the age of I think it was ten or

eleven years old at the time. The suspect in that case was finally caught after he tried to break into another home on a different ninth but the damage had been done. And one of the things I was able to get access to in this case, which was enormously helpful in terms of compiling a comprehensive portrait of Josh Packer, was I was able to get access to his full permanent record from the Ventura Unified School District and it's

so obvious. I mean, Josh's school record is almost a perfect mirror of the traumas he was experiencing at home. During childhood, there were no severe behavioral issues, even during the time when you know, Terry was still marginally involved with her son's life. But after Josh was attacked in that bedroom, he began to exhibit really, really violent a tendencies at school. When he was in fifth grade, he was suspended for stabbing another child in the neck with

a pencil. Throughout middle school, Josh had a lot of problems, and those problems actually ended up persisting into high school. Now, you mentioned the character whom I identify in the book as Robert Miller. That's not the man's real name, but that is the name I used for him in the book. Robert Miller was a youth worker in Ventura. He worked with the Boys and Girls Club of Ventura. So after Terry re entered Josh's life in nineteen ninety eight, Josh

started spending time at the Ventura Boys and Girls Club. Well, this man, Robert Miller, approaches Terry and he says, listen, you know, I've been getting to know Josh throughout the time you know, he's been here at the Boys and Girls Club. It would really be my honor to serve as Josh's mentor. Now Here's Terry at the time, she's

trying to recover from her narcotics addiction. She's trying to surmout at least in some way, you know, the terrible decisions she'd been making for several years up to that point. She has no education, she's on welfare, she's living in a very unstable situation. She has these two young children. Terry, in her own words, as she explained to me, said that Miller's offer of assistance seemed like an absolute godsend. You know, here was an upstanding member of the community,

a college graduate. She was blown away by his offer of assistance. And in fact, during his middle school and early high school years, Josh went and lived with Miller for a while, and as I explained in the book, there is extremely compelling evidence that Miller was less than a shall we say, less than savory, less than positive influence on Josh's life.

running with this wild criminal crowd. Her former husband is looking out for Josh's best Supposedly, as Josh is pausing and turning up there, he rolls to the edge of this loft and then tumbles more than twenty feet to the floor below. When he lands on the floor, he ends up cracking his skull open, and so the stepfather immediately bundles Josh up and rushes him to the emergency

room at Venturre County Medical Center. Well, Josh actually experienced not only a fractured skull, but a very very severe concussion during the fall, and his stepfather was encouraged to bring Josh back for after care. Now, according to Terry, that after care never occurred. Josh has never given any further treatment after that one examination at the medical Center, And that is a very compelling detail of this story. I mean, we never know exactly why criminals commit offense

as they do. I think we can probably agree that crimes happen for for a large number of reasons. But you know, some of the research that's been done by people like Jonathan Pinkas wrote the book Base Instincts, an absolutely fabulous read. John Pincus is the head of neurology at the VA Hospital in Washington, d C. He's a

professor of neurology at Georgetown University Med School. Pincus's research suggests, and know uncertain terms, that there is a causal link between childhood head injuries and violent behavior later in life. So in the course of reading about Josh Packer, it's worth keeping in mind that he did experience an extremely serious head injury after falling from that that converted garage loft.

attributes that he has that are to his benefit. But then everything falls apart and you talk about a girlfriend named Jennifer and when he tries to break off this relationship, where she tries to break off the relationship, and his experimentation with fentanyl. So tell us a little bit about this story, and because it's very demonstrative of many things.

He's interested in athletics, and that's fortunate for him because he is an outstanding athlete. Everyone with whom I spoke described Josh as perhaps one of the best athletes they've ever had in that area. He was a terrific varsity wrestler. He made the varsity wrestling team his freshman year. He

also made the varsity football team his freshman year. And I have to say that, in looking at his life in total, Josh Packer's ability to overcome his childhood traumas in high school was very very impressive, and to his credit, he did take what appeared to be very substantive steps to try and come to terms of some of his demons. For example, during high school, Josh became involved in this Christian youth group called Young Life, and it appears that

he flourished in that group. He never had any behavioral problems, He never had any violent outbursts. He really tended to study scripture very heavily, and then of course when he would go to school, he would you know, be involved with the football team, the wrestling team, his classes. He was never an extraordinary student, but he did do well enough to get by in his classes and maintain his

eligibility for athletics. Well, like you said, that all came to a very tragic end during Josh's senior year of high school. Like most students, Josh was during his senior year, he was looking toward college. He wanted to try and get an athletics scholarship to attend college to try and apparently better his life. But Josh made a very very

bad decision during his senior year. So during his senior year, Josh is working as a TA for one of the one of the coaches at the school, and on the way to his TA assignment, his teacher's assistant I'm at that day, Josh is approached in the hallways of Ventura High School by one of his friends and the friend says, hey, listen, you know I have this new drug. You want to

give it a shot or something to that effect. And Josh asks what it is and the friend explains it's a time release narcotics patch that's given to cancer patients to help control their pain. Well, as it turns out, it was a drug called fentanyl. And for those who don't know, finanela is about one hundred times more potent than heroin. It's sort of a pharmaceutical grade synthetic opiate

that's used to treat severe pain and cancer patients. Well, when Josh has offered this drug fintonyl, he thinks nothing of it. I mean, there's a little bit of evidence to suggest that Josh might have been experimenting with drugs prior to that. But anyway, he takes the spin mil patch from his friend, He pops it in his mouth, he chews it up, he sucks down the medication, spits out the patch, and then walks to his TA assignment. Well, when he gets to that TA assignment, he can barely

stand up. Time has slowed down, the walls are blurring, the room is dissolving around him. So Josh asks his teacher, listen, can I go to the back of the room and just put my head down for a couple of minutes. I'm not really feeling very well. So the teacher, you know, obviously, who's preoccupied with teaching the class and doing other things, says, yeah, no problem, So Josh. Josh staggers to the back of the room, takes a seat, puts his head down, and

several minutes later, the teacher goes to check on Josh. Well, as I explained in the book, Josh has stopped breathing. He's overdosed on fentanyl in the classroom at Ventura High and paramedics are called. They rush him to the hospital. Josh is a young, strong, healthy athlete, so he's able to make a full recovery in terms of his physical health. Unfortunately, in terms of his status at Ventura High School, Josh's

days were done. He was immediately ousted from the football team, and I think as the school gave more and more thought to the agnominous circumstances of Josh's overdose, he was asked to leave school, and he was asked to finish his high school graduation credits to local adult learning center. So here in one fell swoop, Josh has lost the

social network that he was part of. He was a very popular student according to what I've been told at Dura High School, he was known to have a volatile personality, but again that was sort of aligned with his public persona as an athlete and as a sort of jock. And Josh has also lost his eligibility for getting a college scholarship. Josh's grades aren't good enough to get an

academic scholarship to college. Now he's been kicked off the team, he's been asked to leave school, He's in an adult learning center, and Josh's Josh's horizons have just narrowed significantly.

heels about her. They dated for several years. She's two years older than he was than he is, and she lives in a really affluent section on the east side of Ventura. When I first visited that neighborhood just to check out where she lived, I noticed that, you know, not only was her house one of the nicest, nicest on the street, her her lawn was by far the greenest in the neighborhood, and I thought that that was sort of a perfect metaphor for how he must have

viewed her. You know, she stood out even from all of the splendor around her. Apparently she really stood out to Josh. So anyway, after they begin dating, Josh immediately becomes very protective. Every time another guy will come up and talk to this girl, Josh will attack him, often physically. Also, around the same time, this girl's parents begin to notice that Josh is sitting outside their home or just down the street from their home in his car, watching their house,

or he appears to be watching their house. He just sits there for hours on end and stairs and apparently the parents didn't quite know how to broach that subject with Josh. They from everything I've been told, they didn't have any major problems with him. But finally, at the end of the day, this girl decides that she and Josh need a little time apart. And according to what's on the permanent record here, when that happened, Josh threatened suicide.

He threatened to kill himself, threatened to overdose on tills, and the girl was taken aback. She didn't know quite what to do. She was like a lot of women are when they're trapped in situations like that where their significant other is threatening to harm himself, yet she wants to break off the relationship because he's becoming overly possessive. She didn't know quite how to handle it, so they

did break off their relationship. They did start to distance themselves distance, take a little bit of space from each other, but they did remain in slight contact with one another.

to revive their relationship. Well, eventually they move into an apartment with Josh's old quote unquote mentor from the Boys and Girls Club of Ventura, Robert Miller. So here is this forty something year old man living in an apartment with you know, two kids, one of whom is nineteen years old Josh, and then his girlfriend is twenty one

years old. I'm sure it probably sounded like a good idea at the time for these three people to live together in a two bedroom apartment in Ventura and split costs. But you know, I think, as most of us have realized over the years, roommate situations don't always work out as we would envision them. And so after about six weeks of living together, the girlfriend is to me to bail. They moved into the apartment together over there on the east side of Ventura in mid March of two thousand

and nine. By April of two thousand and nine, the girlfriend is ready to take off, but in an attempt to calm some of Josh's agres surrounding her decision to leave, she decides to buy him two parting gifts. One was a motorcycle, the other was a black motorcycle helmet. And according to all of the witness statements that I was given access to in the course of my research, Josh was extremely disturbed by this girl's decision to leave him. He wanted them to remain together. He had very intense

feelings for her. They'd been through a lot of things together, and she was frightened according to other statements I've been given. Now, these were statements that were given directly to law enforcement, and I read them in the course of reports, so I tend to think that they're very, very accurate. But before she left him, she gave him this motorcycle and this helmet. And in the weeks after she left, Josh's situation really started to go down. She left in April

two thousand and nine. By the end of a in late April two thousand and nine, Josh was implicated. He was positively idd as the suspect and of interest street robbery. And and then of course.

its advances. So tell us about how he is finally linked through DNA, and tell us the process and the turn of events that happened that finally get him to be the suspect, and tell us about the whole process.

name over to to Santa Barbara County robbery detectives. Well, those detectives began looking at a couple of very compelling clues. I mentioned earlier that in the course of the Santa Barbara robbery, the robber stole both the gas station attendants wallet, and I may or may not have mentioned that he stole the gas station attendant's cell phone as well. In the hours after the gas station robbery, the robber called one of the one of the gas station attendant's friends

and threatened him about contact police. Well, to make a long story short, after, the Ventura Patrol officers forwarded Josh Packer's name to the Santa Barbara County detectives. The detectives in Santa Barbara County started looking at phone number where the phone calls had originated that had gone to the gas station attendant's friend, while those phone calls originated in

Josh Packer's neighborhood in Ventura. So here Josh Packer matches the physical description of the physical description of the Santa Barbara County robbert. He drives the exact same type of vehicle, and now the victim's phone has been used in Josh Packer's neighborhoods. So the list of suspects is narrowing in that Santa Barbara case, and detectives are looking at Josh Moore and more carefully. Well, as they're looking at Josh Moore carefully, a couple of other very compelling pieces of

evidence come to light. It turns out that Josh was in a habit in September of two thousand and nine of going to the Chumash Casino, which is a huge Native American casino in Santa Barbara County. Josh liked to gamble up there. Defectives in Santa Barbara started looking at Josh's gaming activity at the Chewmash Casino around the time of the gas station robbery, and what they ultimately found was that Josh lost two hundred and sixty eight dollars I believe on the night of the gas station robbery.

The detectives were also able to pull surveillance footage from September twenty third, two thousand and nine, which was the night of the gas station robbery, and they were able to tell that Josh Packers trailblazer didn't have any license plates on it that night. Finally, the detectives were able to trace Josh's personal cell phone to within just a couple of blocks of that State Street gas station in

Santa Barbara around the time of the robbery. And so with all of that circumstantial evidence in place, detectives were finally able in early twenty ten and January twenty ten to arrest Josh for the Santa Barbara County gas station robbery. So they went down to Ventura. They went to Terry Williamson's Hall, which at the time was on Ocean Avenue in Ventura. They arrested Josh and they transported him up the coast to Santa Barbara County and booked him into

the county jail. And I should point out that at the time California, a new California law had just gone into effect in January of two thousand and nine. That mandated the extraction and cataloging of all felony arrestees in

our state. So the net effect of that was when Josh was arrested for the Santa Barbara County robbery and dripped to the Santa Barbara County Jail to be booked, he had his mugshot taken, he had his fingerprints taken, he had all of his vital information recorded, and most importantly, he had a buckle swab, which is like a large Q tip taken from his mouth. So the law enforcement officer would just stick this Q tip inside Josh's mouth, scrape some cheek cells, and then the officer throws it

into a bag. That bag is sent to the California Department of Justice in Richmond, and then Josh's full DNA profile was developed, it was amplified, it was developed, and it was entered into the system. And three months later, as Josh is a waiting trial on his Santa Barbara County robbery charge, that's when the hit is made in CODIS and that is when Josh is finally linked to the Faria homicide which had happened in May of two thousand and nine.

life and not contributing to this homicidal rage. But with this non death penalty and with them, with this fight to not have the death penalty, there is a reason to not have a trial. And tell us about the fight of his attorneys to not have a death penalty and what is the alternative if they don't have a death penalty, and tell us a little bit about that fight by his lawyers.

him dead to rights. I was able to meet with the Chief Deputy Prosecutor of Ventura County, Mike Frawley, who handled the case. I was actually able to meet with him just after packer sentencing. But you know, he was He was of the belief that there was only one appropriate sanction for this horrible murder that Josh had committed.

Josh's defense attorneys, I think, although I was not able to interview them in the course of preparing the book, I think they recognized very reasonably that the state had Josh dead to right. Josh's DNA was all over the crime scene, Josh, you know was There were there were a million inculpatory pieces of evidence that linked Josh in no uncertain terms to the crime scene, and I want to enumerate those. Now, leave those for your readers read

your listeners to read on their own. But suffice it to say that Josh's defense team recognized that he would be convicted if he went to trial, and that he would be given the death penally if he were convicted. So eventually they were able to appeal a motion they had filed to have Mike Frawley removed from the case.

That the appeal of that motion went all the way to the California Supreme Court, and finally, at the end of the day, when both sides were getting ready to have an evidentiary hearing on Mike Frawley's fitness to serve as the prosecutor in the case, the District Attorney's office agreed to a plea bargain and that plea bargain allowed Josh to avoid the death penalty and receive a sentence of life without parole for the Housted murders. And so

that's where Josh is now. He was originally sent to Alasco State Prisons reception Area and now he is at the California Medical Center in Stockton.

victims' families the victims themselves, and that should be done. However, I contacted Josh for an interview after he was sent to Waco State Prison. He never got back to me. As I came to find out later, he was really traumatized. He's been struggling with a lot of mental health issues since since he was arrested for the Faria murders. But I was able to make contact and actually strike up a friendship of sorts with his mother, whom I actually came to admire in kind of a strange way. Like

I pointed out, earlier. She by her own admission, made a million and one mistakes when Josh was growing up. She abandoned them. She allowed him to be abused, she provided unsavory individuals access to him, and so forth. But

she's really done an amazing job of pulling her life together. So, in the course of interviewing her for what must have been dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of hours, it was interesting to see what her perspective was on having her son arrested, jailed, facing a possible death sentence for these crimes, and how tragic it was that because Josh was eighteen at the time he was arrested for the free and murders, his mother was not

able to ask his attorneys for any information about the case. She was not able to ask Josh Forerney information about the case because Josh was being held at Ventura County Jail. He was in solitary confinement. Obviously terry over the phones between the plexiglass and the jail. She didn't want to ask her son any information about his case. So she

really had absolutely no insight into these crimes whatsoever. All she knew is that her son was facing a death penalty, the death penalty, there was extremely compelling evidence against him,

and that's where I entered the picture. When I started interviewing her, I let her know that in the course of my research, I had obtained access to a huge amount of information on the case reports, police reports, crime scene photos, everything pretty much, and so I forwarded those and really talking those through with her and getting her reaction to those and to her son's predicament in general, without a doubt, one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and that's what I try to bring to

life for readers in Black Knight, Gold Coast.

their welfare. What has happened to the two children?

to life without parole on February sixth, twenty fifteen. In the years since the murders, Isabella and Brocky have grown into teenagers. I know that they were. The last I heard, they were living with family members in the More Park area, and I can only hope and I can only pray

that they are living slightly well adjusted lives. I think the fact that they had such loving, conscientious, stable family members probably gave them a very good shot at leading normal lives after this horrible tragedy they experienced as children.

American dream. They were people who had it all. And I think because they were so safe and they were so secure, and they were so comfortable in their daily lives, that contributed to them to letting their guard down for just a moment. And when they let their guard down, of course, that's when Josh Packer struck, and that's when he claimed their lives and forever altered their lives and

the lives of their children. So in that sense, the fact that comfort and safety actually contributed to a relaxing of safety conscientiousness, that is a tremendous paradox. It's also a real paradox in my mind that you know, California taxpayers are now saddled with keeping Josh Packer in prison for the rest of his life. It's not as expensive to keep an inmate in regular prison as it is to execute a prisoner and send him through his entire

appellate process, but it's still very expensive. And it's really paradoxical to me at least that California taxpayers will spend sixty seventy eighty thousand dollars a year to keep Josh Packer in state prison. Yet when he was a child, there wasn't one dime invested in finding out what his mental health issues were helping him overcome what we can only assume was malignant trauma of being molested and abused on so many occasions, of the head injuries, of the neglect,

of the abandoned, and so forth. In Josh's entire school record, there's not one indication that he was ever given any sort of substantive psychological counseling. So I find it paradoxical that will spend all this money on him now that he's an adult who's committed heinous murders. But we as a society wouldn't spend anything on this kid when he was so young. And I think ultimately the greatest paradox of the Ventura tragedy is that this is a case

that has devastated so many families. This is a case that devastated the Deboney family, the Houstead family, Josh's family. But at the same time, this case points out why arrest d DNA collection is so important. There is not a doubt in my mind that if Josh Backer had been left on the streets, if he had never been identified as a suspect in this case, he would have claimed other lives. It might not have been two years from now, it might not have been three years from now,

but it would have happened again. And by collecting his DNA at the time of his arrest on that Santa Barbara robbery case, we were able to prevent that from happening. So the paradox there is a case that he has been so deeply traumatizing to so many families, can actually spare more families pain by putting reasonable DNA arrest d DNA collection laws on the books. That's not an uncontroversial position.

I have come under some fire for taking that position, but based on the vitality of my research, based on all the work I did on this book, I have to say that it is it's bordering on negligence for any law enforcement jurisdiction in the United States, Canada, or any other country that has a modern law enforcement apparatus not to take arrest d DNA at the time of booking.

felony arrestees collect DNA from felony arrestees. So the bottom line there is, if Josh Packer was arrested in California today for the Santa Barbara robbery, his DNA would not be collected, it would not be sent to CODIS, and it would not be linked to the Faria murders. He'd still be out walking the streets. That idea is something that should resonate very strongly with all of us.

So DNA has very little controversy except in the area that you're bringing up in this book in terms of when it can be collected and why and what is the trade off in terms of people's privacy. But you stay to make a great argument for the necessity and the importance of DNA collection. So I want to congratulate you on that. I want to thank you very much much for coming on and talking about Black Night Gold Coast. For those that may want to contact you or keep

in touch, do have a website? Facebook? How can people contact you so desired?

his confinement in the Ventura County jail. So all you should do is go to YouTube and you can either enter my name or you can enter inmate brawls with deputies or fights with deputies or something to that effect, and that video should I'm up.