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You are now listening to true Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey Bundy Dahmer The Nightstalker VTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky. Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that
have written about them. After years of hard work, Brian and Jeanie League had earned a well deserved life of leisure in their picture perfect Phoenix mansion until their troubled son showed up with a need for cash and a thirst for murder. David Legg was an obsessive control freak and an army deserter. After fathering an illegitimate child, he wooed and wed a trusting young woman, only to destroy his marriage with lies and infidelities. But his susceptions were
far from over. In June of nineteen ninety six, Genie and Brian were found shot to death, their bodies sitting next to each other on their living room love seat. Jeanie's expensive ring and the couple's credit cards were missing. Meanwhile, David, the prime suspect, was living it up in Hawaii with his fifteen year old girlfriend draining his dead parents savings through ATMs. After a long and costly chase, this remorseless killer faced a jury of his peers in two thousand
and was locked behind bars for life. The book This Evening We're featured is a Deadly Deceit by a returning guest and journalist and best selling author, Don Lassiter. Welcome back to the program, Don Lassiter.
Hi Dan, great to be with you again.
Thank you very much for green to come back on another great book. Congratulations. Let's start off with a little bit of the details of Deadly Deceit. I guess maybe we can introduce some of the characters. Let's introduce Brian and Jeanie Legg. Let's go way back and talk about the lives of Brian Legg to start.
Okay, Brian LaGG was an Air Force captain served in Vietnam and honorably retired and from the Air Force and met a mother of three young well actually teenagers by that time, and the fell in love and married her within about a year or so. They have their own son, David Legg.
Now they went on to have other children as well, but was that they adopted some children?
Tell us a little. Jeannie had children from previous marriage, yes, yes, and when David, when Brian married, they're only a child together, was David.
Yes, Okay, thank you for that. Okay, Now, so tell us what life was like growing up with Brian Lake, What was really what Brian Legg, David's father really like, and what was the mother like? Characterized their life in some of the characteristics of these people, and tell us a little bit about their life.
Well, it's interesting that on one hand we get there. In the book. I profile what David Legg said about his own parents, particularly his father. He was quite critical, saying that Brian had abused him and beaten him rather severely, and that was way restrictive. Other sources tell me that this was a very nice couple, that Brian Legg and Jeanie were just terrific people. And when David subs equately met and married a girl named Alicia La Flesh, Alicia
fell in love with Brian and Jeanie. She'd had she had been abused in her own childhood and had suffered terrible trauma with no love, and when she met Brian and Jeannie, David's parents, she just she thought she was in heaven with this wonderful couple. So we have two very conflicting views of what Brian and Jeanie leg were.
Like, well, okay, you do have that, you mentioned that that you go in the book and talk about that. But you know that being given that Alicia comes from a totally incredibly dysfunctional family, so she would be relieved to find any kind of normalacy as compared to her own family. That would be fair.
That's correct, Yes, that's fair.
Now tell us a little bit though about because I found it very fascinating some of the things that some of the characteristics of Brian and his son's relationships, some of the things that he was strict about, and certainly being in the military, it's not a big stretch for
somebody to be critical and beginning orders. So tell us a little bit more about Brian Leg though, and then especially the relationship, and then tell us about what characterized some of their family life, including you know, the need to move quite often in the career of Brian Lake.
Well, David and Brian did have some fractious relations between them because David young, David was well, an odd child in many ways, he was a clean freak. He'd wash his hands frequently every day. His room was made up perfectly unusual for young boys, and he he would he would be a little defiant once in a while, and as you say, Brian being a military man, exercise discipline of the boy. At one point it was alleged that he ran over David's bicycle deliberately as a punishment thing.
But again that that came from David later in later years. So it's hard to know exactly just how problematical the relationship was. But they they grew up and moved quite frequently early on, a typical of military families. They moved around a lot. And it's also been suggested that they had some some financial management problems and that caused them
to move around. But finally they settled in h in a beautiful home in uh in uh in northern California, in an upscale district, and and they seemed to be doing quite well there.
Now was there. What I found was interesting too, And maybe you can clarify this how much came from from the uh from David himself, and then that's questionable whether that's true or not, or disingenuous or not. Tell us what you did find for certain, about sort of the sexual attitude that David experienced through Brian. What was Bryan Legg's idea of sort of making his son a man?
And what did you find out was the difference between what David had said and maybe what you had found independently of sort of that characteristic of the family dynamic.
Well, David was later found to be let's say, sexually involved, way young and a sex addict, he would later be called. He blamed it on his parents, saying that they were into pornography and that they did some strange things like swinging and swapping. But again, it's hard to know just how credible that is. In some cases, Brian was a very good father. He took him to concerts even and there's a there's a concert with one rock group that
you can look up on YouTube. Put the David and Briand's name in and you can see that they were actually at a concert and you can see them in about the fourth or fifth row of the concert.
Well, yeah, I found it very interesting that some of the things it seemed to be sort of contradictory behavior. It seemed, even if you don't take David's word for a lot of things where you talk about where the son was probably disciplined quite heavily for what some people might think of minor infraction. Yet he racked up and you know, this is a few years ago, two thousand dollars on a sex chat line and his father really didn't discipline him for that. So tell us a little
bit about that incident. And yeah, you were talking about taking him to a concert to So it really was a guy that seemed to be very cool in some respects, but in others at least there was that strong discipline.
Right, it's right, rather interesting. Twice in his lifetime we know that David ran up big bills for telephone sex calls to the sex private lines, once when he was a youngster still live at home, and once later when he was married to Alicia from Hawaii. Alicia found that she had about a two thousand dollars bill from David's calls to sex telephone numbers. But also it was alleged by David that his father beat him severely, would would force him into the when he had some minor infraction.
He'd be forced into the bedroom, take his pants off and lie on the bed and be lashed with a belt. He told a psychologist at one point that he had scars there permanently, but interestingly enough, I asked Alicia, who within knew David intimately, did you ever see any scars in his back? She said no, his back was smooth as anything.
Right right now, what was what was David's and Brian's wife and David's mother? What was she like? What did she have any problems? What was she like as a disciplineer? And what was she like as a mother?
Genie was just a typical loving mother who had already raised three children and raised David with loving care, just as any mother would. And I found nothing controversy about Jeanie's behavior.
Now, you also the other three children when you looked into this as well, when you investigated what the fate of those children? Not that it's empirical evidence, but what was the outcome of those children? Just to give some kind of credibility to that these people were, like you say, pretty normal parents, and as a result, the other three children tell us about their fate.
All three of the other children also had careers in the Air Force and rose to the level of officers captains and did quite well. Now there's some suggestion that there was some problem between Brian Legg and one of his stepdaughters, but I chose not to go into that because I had no factual background, no empirical data to
support any between him and his daughter in law. But they all turned out to be quite great kids and adults, and the son, David's half brother, became a CEO in a electronics firm.
Right now, tell us about David at about twenty years old. Tell us what his life was like, what was his career ambition, where was he going in life, and how was he doing mentally and how was he just doing socially well?
David was had some problems and didn't He chose not to go to college after high school. Matter of fact, he dropped out of high school for a while and was living with his parents and just working at labor temporary employment jobs and just kind of getting along and spending way too much money. He used he once his parents' credit cards and to buy a very expensive set of drums he wants it made a great number of
other purchases that ran his parents into deep into debt. Now, there was one other rather important incident when he was in high school, and I believe in Michigan. He impregnated a classmate and produced a son, but for most of the years after that he denied that that was his son. But that came. That will come up later in the book. I mean, we'll talk about that in a moment.
Sure. Now you also talked about you know, he just racked up a lot of credit card debt, just to be so the audience knows. He came by that honestly because that was his parents. One of the sort of weaknesses they had was racking up credit cards as well, wasn't it.
That's correct?
Now.
The father, according to David, would go to the PX, the post Exchange fair post Exchange, and by hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of groceries because he could get it cheaper there. And David said, we I don't know why we needed a hundred bottles of this, and then twenty packages of that and freezers full of food. So they lived the high life. They always lived very well, had an expensive car and expensive homes, but seemed to be on the verge of bankruptcy frequently.
Right now, tell us about David meeting his wife Alicia. How old is David? And tell us how they met and then we can go on to tell the story of Alicia and her upbringing.
Okay, fine, Yeah, David was a little younger, about a year or so younger than Alicia, and they were both working in a temp agency in the San Francisco Bay area and Matt and Alicia just fell head over heels with him because she'd had a pretty rough life herself, and David was extremely charming and he could be that way with most he over the years, describing as a glib and very very charming. And he worked that charm on Alicia and took her to his parents' home and
introduced him, and she just fell in love. And they accepted her and treated extremely well, and she just fell in love with him. And so let me let me just jump forward now that how I came upon this book. Usually I'm reading newspaper articles to find the subjects for my books. But I had an email from Alicia La Flesh, and she said, I have a compelling story to tell and then a horrific thing that happened to the parents, the in laws that I love so dearly. Would you
be interested? And so I met with Alisha and at a restaurant, and she told me the entire story, and that's where we went from there.
Wow, I should have asked that question first. That's amazing. That's well to talk about an unusual way to get around as usually you get a call from an editor, don't you do it? Not from the a main character in the story.
Yes, sometimes it is from the editor and moral Okay.
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Often than not. It's from my own research, you know, watching the newspapers, reading magazines, watching television and thinking, okay, that looks like a pretty pretty compelling story in today's world. You better get onto it very early, though, because if it's if it's a big, high profile story or a story with some really interesting uh uh sidelines to it, uh you you you check it out and you find
two or three other authors already on to so. But this one was pretty pretty nice because it hadn't been explored by anyone. And Alicia Alicia, but her name at the time was Alicia la Flesh. And when I got that email, I have to tell you, I was almost deleted it instantly, but I'm glad I went on with him because it turned up to be a very good story.
Yeah, it sounds like alias for a professional first, it does absolutely now tell us about David's career as well about in the military.
Well, David, after Alicia and David got married, or just before they were married, I believe that David decided he was going to have a military career like his dad did, and he was. His dad wanted him to go in the Air Force, of course, because that's where he had been.
Uh.
And and David told Alicia he went in and applied, and he aced all the exams and then he was going to become a pilot. And uh. But this is remarkable since he had men finished high school and the Air Force is pretty selective about that and have some pretty stringent exams to screen these people. So again, it probably wasn't entirely true. And so he wound up enlisting as a private in the United States Army.
Right now, this is I'm sorry for mix, you know, just going off the chronological order here too. They had been engaged. The family loved her, she loved them, so they have they professed their love and then said they made plans for engagement, and then he says, jeez, maybe I should go into the military. Is that how that works? So tell us how that works.
Well, he did join the military and as a private, and then they were married in the Legs home in the Bay area of San Francisco. The marriage ceremony took place there and it was a very festive thing. And then their plan was for Alicia to stay in that home with her in laws while David completed basic training in Georgia and then wherever he would sign, as it turned out to be in Hawaii, a wonderful assignment at scolpvict in Hawaii, and then she would join him there.
And that's exactly what happened.
Okay, So tell us what's happening in the idyllic life of David leg and his wife Alicia. After all of this, you say, he gets an assignment to go to Hawaii, He's accepted in the military. Looks like his wife, his life is right on track. Tell us what's happening behind the scenes or if there's any cracks to this little veneer.
Well, Alicia is absolutely thrilled. My god, you get to go to the paradise of Hawaii and live there with her new husband, and the whole world is going to be glorious. They go to Hawaiian he's assigned to Schofield Barracks. And I like that part because I love the story James Jones row from Here to Eternity that was made into the classic movie and involved with a loser named robert E. Lee Pruitt played by Montgomery Cliff in the movie, and so I could see some parallels between Roberty Lee
Prewit and David. Anyway, they're living there, they they her hurricane, and Niki comes through and just rips the island and tears up the apartment where they live. But that turned out to be a minor thing compared to the way their lives started developing. David became an absolute control freak, not allowing Alicia to have any friends, not allowing her to go anywhere, not allowing her to use the new Karri bought, demanding that she cleaned the house in the
way he thought thought it could be cleaned. She she had to vacuum the rug exactly as he thought, with spacing between the lines as he saw. She became a slave and had no She was horrified that all of a sudden, her idyllic life turned to a nightmare.
Now, how did she deal with this? At the beginning, you say that she sees as the dramatic transformation? Did it have any kind of us said one time, he's hyper sexual. Actually, what was happening in their in their in their relationship otherwise in and what was her reaction? What did she do in response to this drastic change in behavior?
Well, ironically, with David was hyper sexual, very interested in sex. But just soon after their marriage he completely turned away from sex. She she couldn't understand it. She would just begg him, please just touch me sometimes, but he was totally disinterested. He was more interested in his cars and uh and his Hi Fi equipment, his drums. And they got in financial difficulty right away, of course, because of
Private's pay. It wasn't very big, and he was spending money hand over fist, and so it was getting rough. And she didn't understand also that he was carrying on. He bought her a new computer, but he she didn't know that he was using that computer to have sexual contact with women all over the place, including the the mother of his child from high school days. Now, so I proceed because the next step is really important.
Yes, go ahead.
One day, David comes home and he says, oh, I have to go on a special mission in Savilian clothes, and his buddy's with him, and they're dressed in cities and I'll be gone several weeks and it's highly secret, so I can't tell you what it's about, but I'll be gone, okay. And Alicia's almost relieved because Atlasa's gonna have some time away from his restrictive control.
Wow.
But a few days later, she gets a phone call from someone in Chicago and says, do you know where your husband is? Well, of course they do. He's on leave. He's on a special mission. No, he's here at Chicago and he's taking my wife away and her child and I'm going to kill them both. And Alicia is horrified. What is going on? Well, eventually he finds out that David is going to Chicago to rescue the mother of his child from high school days and take her away
from her abusive husband. And she's just sick, she's horrified. And she finally gets in contact with David by phone, and he suggests that, oh, why don't I just bring her and the child here in Hawaii and we can all all four live together. No, no, that's not going to.
Work, right, Yeah, So how does how does Alisha respond to this incredible news? What she do next?
Well, Alicia's she's she doesn't know what to do and and and David comes back without the wife and the child and uh, and they they struggle along for a while, but eventually it's just not going to work. So Alisa says it, our marriage is over, and she and David fly back to the Bay Area for her to go to live with her her her mother, who's a real problem and uh, and the marriage is over. And then David goes back to Hawaii. He's he's redeployed finally to
Fort Hood, Texas. And from there things get worse and worse.
When does when does Alicia find out about the just add insult injury, about the phone sex number in eighteen high dollar abillity racked up?
Well, eventually she started finding out before she left Hawaii, which he's off on duty, and suddenly she starts getting all these things. Oh, I know he was unforgotten. He was redeployed while he's in Hawaii. He was sent to Haiti during that special mission that his unit went to in a crisis in Haiti, and during that time, all of the male accumulated at Schofield Arts was sent to her.
And she had all these horrific discoveries of his communications with other women, his overspending, his telephone bills to sex lines, and all of that just finally brooked the marriage apart.
Now, so they're separated. How does he respond to this separation? What does he say to her? Is he violent? Is he suicidal? How does he respond?
No, he just goes about he's in Fort Hood, Texas now And then she goes back and lives in the Bay Area with her mother, and David is so concerned that he decides to he's like other soldiers. Aforehood goes across the border to war Is, where a lot of fun is available, and he meets a fourteen year old girl there. He's about twenty three at this time, and he falls in love with a little Kimberly from War Is and marries her before getting never having been divorced by a little from Alicia.
It's incredible, so you talk about in your book, even though she's fourteen and he's ten years older. How does the family react to this union.
Well, the family comes to Texas and tries to talk him out of the marriage, but as a matter of fact, he is preparing for a big church wedding and war is but they talk him into out of it and drive him away minutes before she was supposed to walk down the aisle with him. But then they hope that everything's all solved. The parents go back to their home and David goes back to Warriors and brings her across
the border. The young girl across the border with her mother and with her mother's permission, and marries her and a civil ceremony in El Paso.
So it's incredible that her family is okay with the union and basically facilitates this thing happening.
Amazingly enough, that's true. They accepted this twenty two year old soldier taking their fourteen year old girl away. David takes her then to eventually take her to Phoenix, where the parents have moved to from the Bay Area, and they bought a very nice home in the outskirts of Phoenix, and David takes her there and then they get an apartment.
And then shortly after that, the horrible thing happens that someone goes into the home of David and Jeanie LaGG and shoots them to death and takes the beautiful, expensive diamond ring from her finger and all the credit cards and cash and runs away.
Now, what I think is important that we sort of skipped upon, skipped over, is that one thing, and we'll just go back to. I think it might be important is that Brian Legg, being in the military, was proud of his work or his stay in the military, and so he talked to David at times about assuming someone else's identity. And I think it's important in this case
as we proceed with the story. So tell us a little bit about that, because I think it's a very ironic, very ironic fact given what happens after.
That's a good point. Dan Brian Well, during his service years was in special Forces that did some undercover operations, and he tells David at one point how easy it is to steal someone's identity. He illustrates it by saying, you can walk into a bar and strike up a conversation with a total stranger, and if you know the right question to ask and how to do it, you can have everything about that man, that person in the bar and steal their identity with it in a very
short amount of time. And David is pretty fascinated with.
This, right.
So that's a young kid. So then later on, now when he was in the last time he was in the military, he did meet someone named Darren malloy. So tell us about this meeting, and course we don't see why it's important.
Later, while David is at Forthood, he needs transportation to go over to Warris he's girlfriend, so he buys a car from another soldier and takes it across the border and leaves it there, and the other soldier is stuck with no money. And this happened three times. He brought three cars from other soldiers that he never paid for.
And finally he's caught up and he faces the company commander, who places him in another barracks on honor not to go anywhere, and he's roomed with another soldier named Darren molloy.
Now, how did they get along and how did things. He was just there for a few days, But how did what was the relationship like between the two men?
It was fine. Darren malloy would later say that, you know, he thought this kid was kind of weird, but you know, he was okay and they just chatted and uh. And then Darren molloy was reassigned elsewhere. And before his reassignment overseas, he goes to his California home and discovers that he's some of his identification cards are missing.
Did he put any what did he conclude from that? Did he have any suspicions or he just what?
Did he at first? Not at all. He just thought he'd lost them. And he's deployed on a special mission in a first at Iraq and in the Saudi Arabia, and so he just accepts that he's lost that and hopes that hope that nobody's spending his money right.
So now let's get to so Alicia and David are living where, and what are their financial and what's their financial situation? And tell us the year that this we're talking about here.
Let's say I believe this is all in nineteen ninety six, and then by this time, of course, Alisha and David are split up. Alisha has gone back and started a new life in the Bay Area and David's was in Fort Hood. But then he decides to take his little girlfriend to his little wife, which is an illegal marriage, to Phoenix area and live there, and he deserts from the army. So now he's not only a criminal having fraudulently stolen those three cars, but he's now a deserter from the army.
Okay, so what's the what's his relationship with his parents at that time? David Lake with his parents, Well.
He's of course borrowing from them and getting everything he can from them, but he gets enough money to rent an apartment not far from your parents' home. And he's twice two or three diverse jobs, but he only lasts a few days on each one, and he's spending money like mad, and suddenly he's pretty desperate for some way to pay for his apartment for all the other expenses he's incurred, and he needs money very badly.
Now, you talk about one particular episode that I think is interesting given his state of mind at certain times, and you talk about a tantrum in an argument with his family where a tantrum after he has a confrontation or argument with his family.
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Tell us a little bit about that, because it is very important, I think to the story. That's why you included it.
Well, this happened actually before let's see. I believe it's just before they went to why or want to leave. I can't remember exactly, but Alicia had never seen David act out anything before. He's always very calm and just demanding, but calm. But at one point he gets into an argument with his father and he goes into the bathroom and for an hour he's in there, kicking and screaming and banging on the walls and throwing things, and everyone
has just absolutely stunned. And then eventually he walks out and it's like nothing ever happened. Everything is just fine, everything's back to normal, and she is just amazed to see this kind of behavior from this perfect man she's married.
Right now, You say that just be prior to this discovery of the two Brian and Jeanie are dead in their home, and we'll get you to get into the graphic detail of what actually was discovered and who discovered it. You say they were desperate for money. What happens just prior to this event happening? Say it's ironic too, because this is Wednesday, June fifteenth, and your book is really set in around the same time, just prior to Father's Day,
which is coming up on Sunday as well. So tell us what happens just prior to this discovery of these people being murdered in their home.
Well, it's pretty sharp of your Dan. I hadn't realized what we are talking about all the anniversary of the thing, aren't we right now? Well, David and you're there, Okay, thought i'd lost you. No, David and his little girlfriend had gone at Kemmy had gone to have dinner with his David's parents, said Brian a genie, and they had a night. They went out shopping with them all day, first to Pennies and various other places were foursome shopping.
Then they went back to the house for dinner, and then David and his little girlfriend leave, and that very evening someone enters the house and shoots Brian Jeanie to death, takes the ring and those bodies lie in that hot It's in June. It's the hottest heck in Phoenix, Arizona,
and those bodies lie in there six days. Meanwhile, Jeanie's son by the previous marriage, who lives in Tucson, Arizona, is trying to contact his mother and father stepfather, and he's trying for almost a week, and finally he and his wife decided, gee, we better go, and they drive up to Phoenix to check on him, and with a cousin, they go to the house and the cousin goes in the house and discovers these these bodies that have been in the heat for a week and is horrified at
the awful odor and uh and what they see. What he sees in the house, and he advises the son, don't even go in there and look at him. It's too horrible.
Right now, what do what do police find? And how was how was the couple murdered? And just tell us what they thought was unusual as the with the blanket and and the twine.
Uh, the killer had laid put a blanket over the bloody bodies, and then uh, dragging another blanket over them, and even a third one, and then taking a ball of twine and lashed these blankets over these the dead bodies. And then the house had been pretty thoroughly ransacked, apparently in search of checks, credit cards and whatever.
Now, uh, what was that? The other thing I was going to say is that they were what were they shot? And how many times would they show? Where were they shot? Where? How were they how were they murder?
Both of them were shot in the head and about I think five five bullet wounds between the two and three to Brian I think, and two to Genie, and both of them shot in the head.
Now, what did the police find in terms of evidence, late prints, casings, bullet casings, What evidence was there? What obvious evidence was there immediately at that crime scene, at the league's home.
Well, this was the big problem. Dan, the detective of Ron Jones and Ken Hansen were the chief detectives on this case. And in searching, they found virtually no forensic evidence. They found a kitchen glove that they hoped would be fingerprints on it. They found one bullet had missed apparently and gone through a potted plan into an adjacent wall, and they were managed to recover that bullet. But they found no gun, They found no usable fingerprints, they found
no DNA. It was really a frustrating case for them to research. And eventually the leads to to solve this case came from tracing the use of the legs credit.
Cards right now they did. You Know what I thought was interesting too, is how thorough they were they did the process called DPL they did. They had a couple of really a couple of experts in this basically, uh so to be able to do this so uh they did every effort in order to be able to find any evidence, that any trace evidence at all. And it's interesting later when they do match up one of the latent prints on the what they find, So tell us how police proceed, Well.
They're extremely thorough and they really want to solve this case. And and they work long, long hours and say they do the E D p L which is a special process to lift prints from the footprints or fingerprints from the floor. Uh they uh, they take the glove, they find a pepsi can and get prints from They did find a latent print on a pepsi can and uh, that's the only hope they had for any prints. But uh, what they what they really began to do was to search.
They began researching the credit cards through the credit card companies and finding that expenditures have been made in Hawaii and and and even locally in Phoenix. They had credit cards have used to book a plane flights and a local hotel and purchase of luggage on uh. And then they traced it to a car rental in Hawaii. So it was the financial trail that gave them some hope that they could finally trace down who did this. But even then they had they faced the question was the
person using these credit cards? Was this the killer or had somebody thrown that had the killer thrown away a bill fole with cards and someone found that and was using him. So even though they had the leads through the financial transactions, they still weren't sure they were on the trail of the killer. Now, what was really interesting that they they began to see that someone named Darren molloy was using these credit cards.
Yes, so that's very interesting. Now, so they contact the military looking for two people. And so not only are they looking for David Lake, the military is they're asking the military to assist him in Maloy as well. Isn't that true?
That's true, and it's kind of it's kind of irritating to these two detectors because the military seemed to be dragging their feet. They can't seem to find Darren molloy or David Legg.
And you're saying too, it seemed to the detectives that they weren't too anxious to look for these people either. It didn't seem to be much of our priority despite this murder investigation.
That's correct. It was so puddling to them. But what they eventually found that Darren malloy had been sent overseas to Saudi Arabia on a highly secretive mission. And so the military wasn't going to tell a couple of detectives and Phoenix about that, and that they also had a deserter on their hands, and they didn't particularly what admit that we can't find him because he's a deserter.
Right, so they were looking for They had questioned other people in the family, obviously other members of the family, but the person that they hadn't been able to contact, and the brother had said he hadn't had contact with David since the previous Thanksgiving. So they were searching for David Lake. But at that point, what did police have in terms of evidence, and well, who was their likely suspect, if anyone.
Suspect at this point was Darren Molloy, but they couldn't find him and so but eventually then they began to see that a car had been rented in Hawaii in the name of Brian Legg, that the victim, and then now they began to suspect Okay, wait a minute, David leg is missing. Someone is using his h his credit card in Hawaii and signing Brian Legg's name. Maybe David is involved in this thing somehow.
Now, when did they find out about the the the apartment on forty eighth Street, and who that's and and who that's who had rented that apartment. When does that happen.
Yeah, through through through the name of Malloy. They they traced it the Malloy had rented in his in A young girl named Kim had in Cecilia, I believe they were calling her, had rented an apartment on forty eighth Street in Phoenix, UH, a few miles from the leg home. And so they went there and they found uniforms but for Darren molloy, but also for David Legg and other things that led to David Legg. So now they're even more suspicious that David Legg the Sun might very well
be involved in this. But is David leg the killer or is he just spending the money? Is Darren malloy the killer or is he spending the money? They don't know yet.
Now I think it's important too, is that I want to make sure that the audience knows too, that the military didn't really tell the detectives. Listen, this guy's on special missions. That's why we can't tell you where he is. So the police were in the dark at the same time. So as things start looking more towards the possibility of David Legg being the perpetrator, they really didn't know because the military wasn't being so forthright either, was they.
That's correct, Yeah, they weren't being fourth right, and they
had their reasons, of course. But what eventually developed was the detectives kept after the airline companies to say, to see if they had the flights scheduled from Hawaii in the name of Darren molloy, David Leg or Kimberly, and eventually they were notified at the last second that two of these people were on a plane coming from Hawaii to Phoenix, I mean to La to Los Angeles, and boy, these two detectives had to scramble like man at the
last second. It's it's really an exciting moment. It's the car.
Race in my book that the plane race.
Yeah, tried, tried to get there, and they managed to arrive at Lax within minutes of the arrival of the plane from Hawaii, and they boarded the plane and led David Leg and his little fifteen year old girl off of that plane and arrested them.
Now, the first thing is that it seemed to be normal strategy that you would choose to separate them and then speak to the girl first because she might be the easier person to nail down in terms of lies of what they already knew and and get to see get her perspective and possibly get her to confess right off the hop. But what was in the two people's David and his girlfriend wife at what was in their bags that was very revealing to police? And what did they conclude as a result.
Well, they found the credit cards that they had been taken from Brandon Jeanie. They found a one thing is really great. They found a video camera which David had been taking on their their honeymoon in Hawaii, of some pictures of his little promiscuous little bride and doing some bizarre things. But in interviewing them at LAX, both both David and Kimmy were pretty pretty well if their mouth shut,
they dropped the few hints but not very much. And kimberly remarkably for you know, by this time she's only fifteen years old, she's she's really clever at dealing with two police officers.
So the thing is is that police already have a pretty good idea based on some phone records, and so they Ken Hansen is the person designated to question her, and so how does he proceed? What does he get from her? Does she lie, does she tell the truth? How does she respond? He said, her demeanor's pretty good. She's not really rattled or shaken. But tell us what he deduces after a certain amount of questions, And what are the kind of questions he asks her.
Well, he's asking just he's treating her with kid gloves. He's really trying hard not to be not to frighten her because he thinks she's got a little girl in his hand. But she's lying, like Matt, She's just telling all kinds of falsehoods and claiming that she didn't know anything. But eventually she did revealed that she was there the night that she and David were there the night that
Brian and Jeanie were killed. They had gone to shopping with them and gone to dinner at the house, and then they had left and then returned, and that Kimmy said, I was in the house and I decided I want to go out to the car and listen to some music. And while I was out there, I heard three shots in the house.
Didn't She also admit, almost very early on, despite all the lies, that she had seen a gun revolver a week before David had a gun.
She denied it. At first, she denied seeing any gun at all, but then eventually she does say, yes, I did see a gun.
Okay, now, so she said that she was listening to the radio, and she even said what songs she was listening to? Guns and Roses, sort of one of their softer tunes. I thought it was interesting that the police were so thorough that they actually called the radios to find out what exactly exactly if that tune actually to match up her story. What's what song DJ did you play at that time?
So I'm trying to think of the I'm trying to think of the name of the tude. I can't remember, but it was a Guns n' Roses piece. And he denied, he said, no, not in this this jockey. This jockey didn't I don't think of that out right, have been playing that kind of music? And then him change her story. Oh, oh, I think I had. We had we had a little refrigerator case out there we used for CDs, and I think I took a CD and was playing that when when when I was outside and David was in the house.
And what did she say when they said, well, did you maybe think of calling police? You thought made me there were gunshots, but you didn't think of calling the police or saying anything to anyone. And what was her response to that?
She No, she didn't. She didn't think it was necessary to call the police. You know, she just said and she was afraid. By that time, she decided she was afraid of David. If she she called the police and told anyone, he might hurt me.
I see, Yeah, it seems that the common refrain some of these people. Okay, so how do how do police proceed with questioning so they still are are questioning her, tell us about the questioning of David or what is happening at the same time.
Well, eventually they imagined they started getting pieces of evidence from David, you know, little little bits here and there to help them and and eventually charge them both with murder. And I want to tell you about the prosecutor, Glenn McCormick. This is one of the best people I've ever interviewed in all of these books. Glenn McCormick was an next professional football player, big, good looking guy. People comprinting with
the guy who's played Superman in several movies. And uh and I was chatting with Glenn by phone and by email and uh. And Glenn said, you know that's part of this happened in Hawaii. And he said, we sent investigators on Hawaii and we we interviewed and the police did too when they we interviewed a lot of people with all these transactions taking place, and they began to identify the pictures of David leg and Kimberly as the
users of these credit cards. And and he said, I was really working hard in this case, and I I employed another prosecutor to go to Hawaii with the investigator. He said, I guess I didn't think that through very clearly.
Did I.
I loved Glenn mcgermick and our times thang on focus because I wanted to talk football with, even if pro career. But what a great guy. And he built he built just a marvelous case against with no friendsy evidence at all, but with the just the use of the credit cards. Mostly they built a case of murder against David and Kimberly.
Now, the thing is important to know as well for the audience is that this Glenn McCormick guy is quite a character. He also, and this is unusual, he doesn't he doesn't believe in plea bargaining. So he doesn't want to give this anyone a deal. He wants to use the idea that Kimberly and David were illegally married and so there's no spousal privilege and then use kim on the witness stand. So tell us about all of that.
Yeah, that's a great point. You know, court watchers know that people who go to trist know that in most cases a wife it does not have to testify against her husband. A lot of people miss misunderstand that thing, and the White cannot. But it's a matter of choice. She cannot be forced to testify. So Glenn went the great links to prove that the marriage between David and Kimberly was illegal, that David was still married to Alicia
la Flesh when when he alleged he married Kimberly. So and they finally got a judgment from a course saying yes that was not a legal marriage. That allows Kimberly to testify. It has them to force Kimberly to testify in court under subpoena.
Now, what did they plan? We won't be able to go too much into the trouble. What did McCormick plan to be able to force Kim or what did he want Kimberly to attest to at trial That he thought, despite not having the overwhelming forensic evidence, that he would be able to get this conviction in front of this jury.
Well, McCormick really hoped that Kimberly would finally testify that, yes, she knew that David killed his parents and that she was in the car, but she heard gunshots and no one else could I possibly have done the murder. But Kimberly, even though she was given a pretty good deal, she wouldn't be charged with murder, She would be only charged with fraudulentlyse of the credit cards. She still she still was devious and reluctant, and when the trial started she
began by lying her head off. She was on that witness stand and now she's seventeen years old two years later, but she was one of the most adept liars on the stand. That and Glenn McCormick when he began in his testimony, he said, now the first thing what we want to do is establish you are a liar, aren't you? Kim? She didn't want to admit that, but the defense, now,
Michael Burnet's an excellent defense attorney. His whole strategy was to point to Kim as the probable killer, and every bit of evidence that McCormick might bring against David could equally apply to Kim, even though she'dn't been given the deal, and so the defense was trying to suggest she did the shooting that she can, so that began she began to see her problem and start finally giving them some truth on the stand.
Well, to add to the emotional aspect of this, when we talked about this ring, it was a twenty fifth anniversary ring to Brian At given to Genie, and they had agonized over this what she might get for that anniversary, what they might buy. So she was very proud of
this ring. Was I don't know anything about rings, but this a three point three or it's a significant, big ring that they eventually tracked down the jeweler that sold or that David had sold this ring to and got seven thousand dollars for probably about half as much as this thing was worth in resale. And so that was the kind of evidence as well that came at the trial about the ring and the sale of that ring, just to wrench some emotional response over that jury, wasn't it?
Well? That one? That was an excellent point. And that's what led him to Darren Malloy first, because someone named Darren Molloy the day after the murders came to this jewelry store in Phoenix and had a three point three carrot diamond ring to sell, and the owner of the shop bought it and made a good deal on it. But Arizona has a law that's something that a piece of jewelry of that expense, they must record not only the sale, but who sold it with a photo ID card,
and that remains on record. And Detective Ron Jones knew of that, and he began going through the records of transactions and found that transaction and went right to the jewelry store and interviewed the owner, and Darren Malloy was in here and he sold me that ring and he had a young Hispanic girl with him, And so that was the first lead to Darren Malloy, who eventually turned out, of course, to be David Legg.
Now, how did David Legg respond to questioning? How did he proceed to trial? He had a very experienced and skilled, a skillful lawyer. So tell us about how what he did, what his demeanor was like. Tell us a little bit more about David Legg after this.
The lawyer also had a beautiful assistant name also lawyer named Tanya McMath and Eve had seemed to focus more on her than he did anything else during the trial, and he was in complete denial though a Hispanic gang had apparently killed his parents, and Kimmy was involved, according to David, because she knew this gang and she's the one who put the gang over there to kill his parents and get that ring.
They said, yeah, now what was his story?
Though?
I thought it was very interesting too because it was pretty nonsensical, or at least pretty unbelievable. He said that he didn't kill them, however, he did throw the blanket on them and the twine tell us what his reasoning was for.
That well, David said that when I went over that parents, I found that evening, I found my parents dead, and I was horrified. I was shocked. But I'm a deserter from the army now, so I can't call the police obviously, and so what am I going to do? And so they I decided I just might as well take their credit cards in that ring and because of their mine. Anyway, now my parents are dead and so I'm to use that. But I did not kill them. Somebody else killed them.
But I just needed I was going to use the money. And yeah, girlfriend, Hawaii with it. Oh boy.
Yeah, so that's good. Yeah. And you know, the other thing I thought was interesting too, is because I think people forget and a lot of people there's so many, there's so many fascinating and incredible crimes and murders in the US that you chose to include the story of Eric and Lylemanendez and the murder of their parents. Tell us a little bit about that and tell us why you put that in. I found it interesting. It would surprise me a little bit. But tell us why you found it necessary.
Felt did you pick that up?
Dan?
That's great because one of the most famous murders in Southern California history is the story of lyleman and Desani's brother who killed their parents, who were very, very wealthy, and they killed their parents in order to enrich themselves and went through a highly publicized trial here at Los Angeles, and we're convicted and sent to life in prison, each of them, they both brothers. What's remarkable is that that trial ended only just a few weeks before David Legg's
parents were killed. And I suggest in the book that I wonder if David was inspired by the an INDs case to say, oh, I can do that, and I can do it better than they did.
Did you find in the end, really that there was any trauma, even if it was imagined because by David Legg some grand insult by his father or his parents, Was there any even a shred of reason why he may have had any animosity or anger towards them, or this is just a senseless, greedy slaughter.
I think David Legg is a classic, classic sociopath. I think he wanted money, He needed money desperately. He wanted to take his little girl to Hawaii, and he was in deep debt, and he's an uncaring person with absolute no conscience at all, and he killed his parents and took their money. And a reporter who covered this, whom I talk about in the book quite a bit, agrees with me. He interviewed David twice in prison, and he said, this man is a classic sociopath.
So you wouldn't try to excuse him at all with any kind of the talk about bipolar, ah, a d any kind of mental illness. He just chalk it up to greed and immaturity and murderous intentions.
Absolutely, And you know I have a problem. I've been to many, many murder trials, and I've seen psychiatrists psychologists get up on that stand, one for the one for the prosecution and one for the defense, and invariably they can contradict each other totally because they're making money, they're
selling their testimony. And so I pay very little attention dan to psychiatric testimony and trials because I think they're just well I shouldn't say this, but I think some of them aren't very honorable.
Well. The thing is too that the juries usually don't go for that, it's not really accepted. And I know the stats are very very low for any kind of insanity defense. So it's a good attempt, I would say, or it's worthwhile attempt possibly, but it doesn't really work out for the perpetrator too often, does it?
Very seldom? I think the abuse excuse does not work.
No, I like that. Well, I'm in Canada, and then it's exactly the opposite of what happens here. We somehow have not learned the lesson that America has, and I think if we were to have some of the you know, you're just a bigger nation by ten times, and so a lot of your cities are concentrated in population, and it does seem to be some sort of phenomena. At least, you know, there's really good detection of these crimes too,
and recognition of serial it is. I think a lot of countries you can say, we don't have the same rate of serial killers. They wouldn't know if serial killer had hit them on the head. You know. At least America can recognize it very early on and has been the groundbreaking force in being able to create that criminal profiling and databases and ViCAP and and so you know, you have to you know, America has experienced these heinous killers.
And I think after you experience these killers and find out all the information and the media does pick up on and some people can criticize that, but that's how people can get informed about this. And certainly after that you realize, yes, these people are psychopathic or sociopathic. There is no fixing these people. It's just time to make sure the public is safe from these people.
That's one of the reasons I write these books, Dan, I hope they inform people and let them know just who is out there. And by the way, be sure and tell your people to your listeners to visit my website Don Lessen dot com, in which I list all twenty books I've written.
Great Well, I want to thank you very much. I want to thank you very much, Don for coming back onto the program and talking about your incredible new book, Deadly Deceit, A perfect family, six bullets at Point Black Range, the cruelest betrayal of all. It's quite a fascinating yard. And we didn't even get in halfway through this book
and talk about the rest of the trial. There's so many twists and turns and great police work and like you say, you bring the life to characters, the prosecution, the hard the cops that did the good forensic work and the good footwork and got a if there can be a happy ending, at least there's a some justice for someone by finding out who actually did this and why.
So at my pleasure, Dan, and yeah, you read, I love trials. I have a real trial of pholl weekend. I love them and I love to so I go into great detail on the trial, and I hope, I hope my readers, your fans do too.
Yes, well, you absolutely have done it once again. Done so thank you very much. Congratulations on another great book, Deadly Deceit, and you have yourself a great evening, Dawn, thank you for appearing on the program once again.
My pleasure. Thank you.
Don.
Okay, good night.
You've been listening to the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them, with your host Dan Zephaski. Good Night,