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No, you are now listening to True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have written about them Geesy Bundy Dahmer The Night Stalker 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 Eating. 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. Rebecca Salcido had an easy smile, a sexy body, and strong appetites. She wanted the world. Bruce Clayland, she decided would buy it for her. The shy engineer quickly fell victim to her charms, getting her whatever she wanted, a new car,
about a house. But he wasn't Rebecca's only admirer. Even after Rebecca manipulated Bruce into marrying her, hoping to divorce him and take him for everything he had, she occupied herself with a series of lovers, male strippers women. They all spent time in Rebecca's bed, but when she learned that a divorce would only get her a few pennies. She knew she had to find another way to secure Bruce's fortune. The book tonight that featured is Honeymoon with
a Killer. He loved her, she loved his money. A return guest, Don Laster my very special guest, Don Lassiter, Honeymoon with a Killer. Welcome back to the program, Don Lassiter.
Thank you, dam it's nice to be back with you again.
Thank you very much to agreeing to this interview. And a great book, by the way, Honeymoon with a Killer. My favorite question, I think, because I always ask it is very curious, why did you decide to write about Rebecca Solcido and this case specifically.
Well, it's kind of an interesting cultural story to that that I did not include in the book. But when my collaborator, my co writer, co author, and Ron Bowers, and I were considering this story, I was looking at it and then I was wondering, really, what's kind of so familiar about it, And suddenly hit me that it's a retelling of the opera Carmen viz As opera in that and when I was a kid, I saw a
version of that with Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. So I'm picturing Rita Hayworth as Rebecca and the in Carmen. This woman is a beautiful, tempestuous, fiery gypsy in Spain who's selling her wares in a town pleasant and she meets a innocent, inexperienced soldier, Don Jose. He falls hopelessly in love, but she's unfaithful with a bullfighter. Their affair rex his life and ends in deadly tragedy. Rebecca meets Bruce while selling spices on a swap meat captures his heart.
Is unfaithful with male strippers, so that relationship rex his life, which ends in deadly tragedy. So this is this is Carmen, only without the magnificent music, the march of the Tory doors and the beautiful Hobiniera. Wow, incredile got me hooked on it.
Well, it's a great story. It has all these elements for sure. Now you mentioned Ronald E.
Bauers.
He's listed on the cover as Don Lassiter, the author with Ronald E. Bauer So tell us who what is his role in the writing of this book.
Ron is a forty year veteran of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. And he is. He's been involved in every mad you know, in prosecution of every major crime in that forty years, including all the ones you've heard about over the years. And so Ron has just a wealth of experience. So we became acquainted several years ago, and Ron just pretty much helps me with research. He writes some of the things too as well. One book
we quoted quite a bit of his writing. We didn't do that in Honeymoon because I wanted to take a little different type of voice on this one. But Ron is just a wealth of information for me.
Great, Great, Now for our audience, where does this story primarily take place in? What era? What time are we talking about? What years it took.
Place in the Actually in the mid eighties on right here in southern California. She Rebecca met Bruce at the old Lamorada Drive in theater which is now a swamp meat in Orange County.
Right now, we're talking about Rebecca Salcido, and it's an incredible story. Her character. Let's with her history. Where was she raised, what kind of up bringing did she have? Tell us about Rebecca Salcedo.
Rebecca's one of the most complex, multifaceted women I've ever encountered in research. Her friends called her beautiful, fun, sexy, outrageous, generous, affectionate,
other stars, duplicitous, self centered, greedy in the evil. Rebecca was born here in Los Angeles of Hispanic immigrants, and her mother was raped and produced the first daughter, Rebecca's older sister as a result of that rape in Tijuana, and then moved up here and that man deserted her and she was married again, and that marriage didn't last forever. So Rebecca grew up in pretty much a dysfunctional family with a lot of strain in the household. She and
her sisters and get well. Her mother was a nurse, worked as a nurse, but was hooked on prescription drugs and spent a lot of time in her bedroom while the sisters pretty much ran the house. So it wasn't a happy childhood. And I don't know if we can say use that as the abuse excuse or not, as many criminals who say they grew up in a poor environment.
Now, one thing you haven't talked about is her Okay, say hear her upbringing, but what did she develop into? What type of character? She obviously was an attractive woman, you can see as in the cover on the book. But she what did she realize if she didn't realize too many things, and what did she realize early on? And how did that affect her character development?
Well, her good looks and her incredible body. It became her path through an existence to wealth. She learned soon at the age of about twelve or thirteen, when she into a woman's body, that men would give her just about anything she wanted if she behaved in certain ways. And she did, and she had she had no trouble at all displaying those wars. But she also developed a gregarious personality that attracted not only men, but women, and I mean men and women in any way you want
to imagine. She saw that she could get just by the things she wanted. One one man even let her drive a Lamborghini that he owned, and no one knows what she was doing for that. She learned really early to use her female wiles and her figure to get what she wanted. She was by the way. She was once married, but only to provide an immigrant with a green card, and she treated that that marriage is no more important than a yard sale transaction, right right.
And she also, if an early age looked much much older than her age as well, which she did which helped her or didn't help in a particular case. And so what was she doing, say, after her teenage life? But what age would we find her previous to? And we'll get into right away talking about and one of the other characters, Bruce Clayland. But let's talk about, say her at twenty years old. Where was she at in her life? What was she doing, what was her occupation?
Was she going to school? Tell us what she was actually doing at that time.
Well, let's back up a little further. She had at about thirteen or fourteen, she was going to a school, a makeup school so she could because she didn't do well that year in school. And that's where she met her best friend. It looks like Bertha when you read it, but it's pronounced better. That there's a prominent character in our book here. Then as they grew in the friend,
you know, they became friends. And then Rebecca was very involved with a lot of men, and she produced a young boy, a son, and she didn't know who the father was was exactly, and she found out while she was in jail and watching in prison for a drug conviction, and she she conducted her friend Bertha. I'm gonna call her birth I'm not gonna try that better little way, okay, so Bertha, shekna. Bertha said, could you send me some pictures of the man I've been dating, so i'll ty
can figure ot which one is the father. So that gives you a pretty pretty capsualized picture of what Rebecca really was.
Right now, you talk about this Bertha, this is she's important to the story because she's with her at an early age and this is conceivably the very best friend, the person that knows her the best, and we'll say her very very closest friend. So that's why she's very important of all to this story. Isn't she exactly? That's correct, Bertha was.
But Bertha was extremely intelligent, bright, articulate, also Hispanic heritage, but she had a level head. And that's what Bertha said. She felt like was attractive to Rebecca that she sort of kept her on the straight and narrow as much as she could.
Now, what was the relationship with Rebecca and her other sisters? Dolores, one of her sisters, is a primary figure in this story as well. Tell us a little bit about the relationship with her other siblings thought it.
Was a terribly fractious relationship, and Birth explained to me that the girls were just constantly each other's throats. They slept with each other's boyfriends just to make the other one jealous. They were in constant competition with one another. No peace, no serenity in that household at all, just warfare.
Wow. And so again, now that we've caught up a little bit, as time goes on, what is her goals in life? I means you say she's easily can manipulate men to get whatever she wants. What is her goals in life? What is her occupation she'd believe she wants to do with her life?
Well, I don't think she ever had any real goals. She was a day to day exist and she had a few minor jobs, and Bertha got her a few jobs. One of them was at a company where Bertha was doing white collar work, and she got Rebecca a job as some helper. But Rebecca thought she would use her lovely figure to enchant the boss stepped out of a restroom with her blouse open, and as Bertha explained, everything
popped out. The boss was just absolutely furious since I'd get her out of here, and she got fired from that one. So I don't think she had many goals as far as profession. When she met Bruce, she was working at a company that made spices and bottled them in interesting rectangular shaped jars. And Rebecca managed to smuggle a few of those from her employer and take them to the swamp meat and sell there for a little extra profit. And that's where she met Bruce.
So she was hustling at that point. Now tell us, tell us about Bruce Cleland. You called the chapter and I don't know if if this is your idea, but I would think it might be that the evolution of a male virgin, and you can tell me why you titled it that. But what was his background? What was his family life of Bruce Cleland?
Bruce grew up in a an upper middle class home in South Pasadena, just very nice down the earth, salt of the earth, of people who were with a fair amount of wealth. One one sister, one older sister. But Bruce, unfortunately he didn't have He wasn't born with the good looks. I pointed out that if anyone remembers the funny character in the Old Laughing series called tiny Tim. Right, yes, Unfortunately, poor Bruce in high school excuse me, bo a quite
a resemblance to Tiny Tim. It made him extremely self conscious about his looks, so he just was. He became afraid to approach girls at all. They pretty much shunned him, ignored him, laughed at him. So he concentrated him academics. He was a very very bright kid, straight a's belonged as a. Was a four year member of the the group of the kids who achieve all the high grades.
He got a scholarship through college and eventually graduated with a master's degree from Stanford University in computer software engineering.
Right right now, you say again, you say the the evolution of a male virgin. You're saying he's shy. Now he goes to college. I guess his life changes. He does? Does he does he outgrow any of this sort of nerdy looks of how does his life continue?
Well, actually he did involve to a fairly decent looking man, but I don't think he understood that. By the time he reached age forty two when he met when he meat Rebecca, he still was hadn't had any experience with women at all. He became extremely frugal during those years working up in Silicon Valley for computer firms and doing international work, actually undercover work across the various continents for
the government. But Bruce became extremely frugal, invested all of his money and had accrued quite a bit of wealth by the time he was forty two. His best power was his father and his father and I he went to ball games together and did other things together, including driving from South Pasadena, Pasadena a few times to visit the swamp meet down in Orange County.
Now he even lived with his parents still at that age, didn't he, that's.
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I'm not trying too hard anyway. No, okay, So he accumulates an incredible wealth. You say he's likely a virgin. He has no virtually no experience with any women at all. And how I've described the day that Bruce Clayland meets again. He's with his father that day, isn't he and tell us about the meeting and what exactly happened and how it all came to be that these two people would meet.
Well, Bruce and his father are strolling wrong along in this colorful swamp meat which just every kind of vendor in there at all, I think, I said, from tortillas to tires in there, colorful Mexican flags, music playing in the background. A very very interesting place to visit. Ron and I went over and strolled through there just to
see what the ambiance of it was. Bruce and his father are strolling along, and he spots this rather attractive, a ruptuous woman selling spices from interesting jars, and something struck Bruce hard, just something like I guess Cupid shotting with an arrow. At that point, he told his father and surprised his father, AM messy, bessying, I'm going to go back and talk to that girl. His father was gobsmacked and just stood and looked at with big eyes.
And Bruce actually went back and started a conversation with Rebecca, and she saw dollar signs. So they talked for a while, and it later turned out that she was trying to find out as much she could about him because in the company where she worked, she had access to credit records. And when she told some of her friends the next day, I've met the man I'm going to marry and let me show you something. They thought she was going to show a picture. Instead, she pulls out his credit report.
Wow, Wow, what did she well before I go that? What did What did Bruce's family think of Rebecca or just the idea that he met this woman? What did he say to his father? Did he did he say, listen, I got her number, or I've set up a date? What was what was that conversation with his father about that meeting with Rebecca.
I don't think they had much of a conversation, but his father was, you know, absolutely amazed and rather pleased to see his son flirting, trying to set up a date with the woman. And even though they the father strongly suspected that Rebecca wasn't exactly the type of woman he would like to see his son get involved with,
he still was pleased that something was happening. So they were, and when he went home and told his wife, Bruce's mother, they were pretty pleased to see something with some possible future for their son.
Now, you talked about her going to her co workers and showing the credit report as opposed to showing a photo of the men. So she said, this is the man she's going to marry. Other than those people at work, did she have a conversation with her sister about Bruce or about with Berta or Bertha? Did she have conversations with them immediately after meeting Bruce.
Both, yeah, her sister and Bertha. And she said this is the man I'm going to marry. But she also added, I'm going to take him for everything he's worth and I'm going to be set for life and that showed pretty much the type of woman she was. Was not a sudden falling in love by her. I mean, if Bruce was in love, but that was one thing. She was not in love. She was in greed.
Now what did her friend Bertha say, and what did her sister say in response to I mean, obviously she's manipulated men for all kinds of things, but to have that kind of I'm going to take every everything he's everything that he's worth, and also I'm going to marry this man. What what was Dolores's response or sister and what was Birtha's response to that?
Well, both of them were pretty skeptical and pretty rather appalled. They thought, well, that's a that's not a very good way to approach this idea of meeting a man he only want his money, And but Rebecca was pretty persistent, and so that's that's what I'm after him. That's what I want, and I want to be sad for life, and I'll marry him and and he'll get me anything I want. And as it turned out, I told you that Bruce was quite a frugal character. Right a parcle happened.
He made a complete about face one hundred and eighty degree turned and started buying her things, being extremely generous with her. She lived in a small, very small house in a rough neighborhood, and he went in and bought new furniture for her and her little boy. She wanted a hot tub, he bought that for her. He bought her a boat and a trailer to go with it. And he stunned. He stunned his parents and his sister who was married by then, and his brother in law.
And this was his whole circle of social circle was where his parents and his sister and brother in law, and they were just absolutely amazed what happened to him. And while they were skeptical about it, and they still felt good that he was changing and that might he might have a woman in his life.
So just despite their he had enough money he certainly could do whatever he wanted. The overall it looked like Bruce was enjoying himself. That he wasn't the happiest, go lucky guy in the whole world despite all of his financial success and business success. He saw a real change in him as a result of meeting Rebecca. And they were good with that because of that, correct, they said.
You know, and I heard that later, he reports that he was just he was an absolute heaven. He was his personality change as well. He was happy and whistling and singing and looking forward to every moment he could be with Rebecca. And that's what makes this whole damn tragedy.
Actually, yeah, absolutely, Now, what did Rebecca manage to convince Bruce to do in a short period of time. He talked about the boat, and I wanted to make sure the audience realizes too, these weren't exactly ideas that Bruce came up with about the boat. This was from the prodding of Rebecca. I need this, I need this, I expect this. And at the same time we got a bear in mind that she did tell Bruce drew some lines on terms of his idea of well not romance.
But maybe you can tell the audience what her rules were and what she expected, what she told them in terms of, you know, in terms of her moral code.
Well, that just seems a very good point. You make a very good question she had. Obviously, as I've mentioned, she'd been very promiscuous before this, But this facade she's putting on for Bruce, she claims, well, women of my hispanic origin, don't just go to bed with anyone, and she said, I have one boy, and that's the only man I've ever been with, my little boy's father, and so obviously we're not going to have any intimate relations
until we're married. And she kept driving that home, I you know, we must get married before and so that that just don't we do not do anything naughty together. And Bruce brought it every inch of the way where most men within experience would have said, oh, oh my god, this is this is not working here, this is not right.
And there was other things too as well. That he also made duplicates of his credit cards so she could use them basically at her whim. She also began, of course, you mentioned that she's very generous. She's very generous with Bruce's credit cards to people her entourage will say, people and her family are people around her. That was something that again, another reasonable person might might wonder, and there was wasn't there also a stipulation that he really couldn't
just pop over to her place at any time? Or was that later when when when he actually bought the house for.
Well, that's correct, he wasn't. He didn't even try to spend the nights with her at that because he bought her story that she was very moral and wasn't going to allow any hanky pain going on, right, And then eventually they began to talk about marriage, and and he decided he went to take her house shopping and they bought a He bought a beautiful home for and Whittier on a hilltop, magnificent home, and he bought that for her.
And then she started angling, and she wanted to get her hooks into the fifty percent ownership of that thing. So she said, well, you know, we must be married in a church. Of course, because she's a religion demanded a marriage in a church, but she wanted to be She said, if we can just you know, maybe just go ahead, and we should have a civil ceremony first before the church. And he fell right for that and thinking, oh boy, now we can move in the house together.
But even after the little civil service marriage, she moved into the house, but he wasn't allowed to. He still had to stay down with his parents in Southstina. A poor guy. You know most men read if most men reading this would say, Wow, what a fool there was Poor Bruce. You know, he had no experience with this, and so the poor guy was just gullible and love struck. And I've written before in other books it's funny what love can do to people.
Sure, at this time you would just alluded to the brother in laws ed Brown and Theda and Harold Cleveland when it got to the point further along and they were talking about marriage and he bought the house for her and he wasn't allowed to be over There was there any suspicion from anything expressed with Bruce's parents or the brother in law at Brown. Was there any anybody from his side of the family that said, listen, this could be very bad.
Well, two things happened. One, his brother in law, who understood what was going on here it did try to talk to Bruce and tell him, you know, maybe you want to be cautious about this before you, you know, plot forward with this woman. Also, one of Rebecca's sisters actually called Bruce's mother, Theda, and said, you know, my sister is to take your son for a lot of money,
and she's not being very honest with him. And this is this shows the relationship between the sisters that her own sister would do that, but Bruce would was having was having none of that. So and the mother didn't even try to stop him. She thought, well, you know, he's a grown man. He should be able to make his own choice. Oh, by the way, let me back
up just a little bit. You mentioned the credit cards. Yes, she was buying a lot of things, not just for herself with his credit cards, but for her friends, including a male stripper that she'd been seeing sometime before that. And she was and when she moved into the new house, the male stripper paid quite a few visits there too, and Bruce even even saw him there one time, and Rebecca casually explained, Oh, this is just one of my cousins. He just came to visit me a little while. And
poor Bruce even brought into that. So some readers are going to begin to wonder what is the matter with this man. But he was he was gullible. He was into everything she was doing.
Now, wedding plans have been been made correct and and at a bridal show, Rebecca meets a photographer that becomes a very important figure in this story, to name Elizabeth Lamb even can tell us a little bit about those wedding plans, and uh, and about Elizabeth Lamb too.
You bet in the book readers will see I call Beth Lamb Elizabeth because that's a real name, and writers sometimes let me explain a little problem that writers have. Sometimes it's interesting because I have. It was really a struggle here. I had Beth, I had Bertha, and I had Becky. Becky is Rebecca's middle name, or given a nickname, I should say, And I had to make a be
very very careful so that I didn't confuse readers. So I called Beth Lamb Elizabeth all the way through, and Bertha by Bertha, and then I refer to Rebecca all the way through as not Becky, so I don't confuse the readers. I thought that was kind of that was a real problem for me. Anyway. Beth was a successful
wedding photographer. She was a very cordial, humorous, lovely person, and when Rebecca contacted her the first Beth was a little skeptical because she went to the little house in the rough neighborhood and was wondering, what do I really want to get into this? But Rebecca really wanted the first class treatment all the way. She ordered the most expensive package that the photographer had available, so Beth said, well, okay,
I'll go along with it. Rebecca, though wanted to treat Beth like an intimate friend, you know, like she really were very close to her, preferred to keep it on a courteous professional level. Here I give an example of how that worked. Rebecca hosted a wild bachelorette party before the Catholic wedding. And I asked, when I was interviewing Beth,
I said, did you attend? And she looked at me and she rolled her eyes, noted this Mormon mom, that gives you a little insight into what death was like, and and so yeah, and she so she went to They had the Catholic wedding and a very very nice Catholic church. They had a magnificent reception later at a country club that, because of the Brusu's parents had the contacts up in the wealthy section of San Marino area.
And it's interesting, the wedding was attended by several of of Rebecca's relatives and friends and people she knew, but they didn't go to the reception because they didn't quite feel in the country club atmosphere wasn't theirs so right? The reception was pretty much attended by the Cleveland family and their acquaintances.
Now, tell us you talked about the bachelor party, and the bachelor party is very important because, like you say, Elizabeth Lamb said, I'm not going to show up, and he says, but it also was because what of some of the information that Rebecca told Elizabeth Lamb, Well, this is what's going to go on at this bachelor party, and it seemed way too raunchy for Elizabeth Lamb. But tell us about the bachelor party and who who was there to witness what actually happened at that bachelor party.
Well, there's the bachelor party.
As I said, was hell, he is Ryan here.
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That's the new home that Bruce bought for her, But of course he wasn't going to be there. She invited all I think about twenty five of her female friends. But when she told Beth Lamb what the entertainment was going to be, that certainly convinced the Mormon mom she was going to go because she was going to have male strippers as well, including the one who she with whom she'd been having an affair. And the other women
didn't mind, although Bertha, her best friend. Bertha did go, but she said, I left before the male strippers because by that time I was involved in a serious relationship and I didn't want to be there for these male strippers. But she said, I went in to say goodbye to Rebecca before I left. I couldn't find I went into the bedroom, and there she was in bed with one of the male strippers.
Sure probably innocent though, oh absolutely, of.
Course they were just getting warm.
Now you say there was that Bertha left? Who witnessed the thing? Who who if anyone witnessed the entire thing? To say what happened the next day? Did anyone stay the night? Tell us about that.
Quite a few of the women stayed the night because there was a free flow of much much a drink and much food. And but one of the sisters also saw the event between the between the male stripper and her sister, and she kept that in her little memory bank to use in the future if she needed to.
Right now, the wedding takes place, and and and tell us about the wedding. Is it uneventful? Basically you say that the reception is basically attended by the Kleland's family and friends rather than her family. So tell us a little about the wedding, if there was anything unusual and towards there or uh, and and just tell us about the reception if and what happened at the reception itself.
Well, at the wedding and the church. The wedding photographer Beth Uh, she said it was it was beautiful and man, everything's going well. But she this introduces one other character that we need to know about. Rebecca's uncle Arturo was there. Now. Uncle Arturo had a he had two sons, Uh, Rebecca's cousins Alvaro and Jose and uh Alvaro was there, but Jose, but Uncle Arturo, who was a woman grover. He had
a couple of drinks. He and Bertha complained many times that every time I'd be around him, he try to grapple me, and she's I told him, I told Rebecca, if he ever touched is me like that again, I'm gonna kick him where it hurts the most and tell him to keep his hands off of me. Rebecca's, oh, don't worry about it. He does that all the meat to me all the time too. He just kidding around.
He's just a funny guy. And the Mormon mom wedding photographer was there taking pictures and she said, my biggest problem was Uncle Artu was all over me trying to grope me. Who I told him, get your hands off and stay away from me. And then she took she took the pictures and then but the the the reception in the country club was pretty uneventful. It went off pretty well, and then the two went off on their honeymoon to Hawaii. Now do you want me to go ahead?
And yes, yes, tell us about the honeymoon because it gets better.
Okay, They're on their honeymoon in Hawaii and Beth Lamb is at home and her phone rings and she says, and she says hello, and it's it's Rebecca on her honeymoon. She says, Oh my god, Oh my god, Peth, you can't believe that this is horrible. And she's telling how poor Bruce is totally incapable of doing what he's supposed to do. He doesn't know how, he doesn't know anything about how to please a woman or what to do
with a woman. Oh my god, this woman is calling this Mormon mom wedding photographer to complain about her honeymoon. And she Rebecca told several other people, She told her own sister. She even when she got back, she even called ed Brown, the brother in law with whom she had never had a one on one conversation, and was complaining about Bruce's incapable performance. And Ed Brown, the brother in law, told her, look, what are you doing telling me this carbage? Do you need to talk to someone else?
This is not my business, for Heaven's sake. And it's stunning that this woman was spreading these kind of malicious comments about her poor new husband.
Right, And what happened after they got back to the to the States after this anymoon, How did Rebecca proceed with Bruce? Where was her? We know what her complaint was about the honeymoon, but how did she proceed from there? What happened between the two?
Well, when she got back, they moved. They did move into the house for a while, and poor Bruce is trying to do his best, but he's beginning to think, you, oh my god, this is you know, this is awful. I want what's going on? And Rebecca is really cold to him. She's spreading these nasty rumors, and then she begins to say, I want a divorce. This isn't working out.
I want a divorce, and Bruce is broken hearted, and within just a few weeks she kicks him out and he moved back down with his parents, just stunned and horrified that this woman doesn't want him. Meanwhile, she's having parties up there and inviting her her male friends, her strip of friends coming out spending nights now, and poor Bruce doesn't know what to do, and so he finally at ed Brown, his brother in law's advice, sees a lawyer to talk about it, and the law gives Bruce
some pretty good news. It's just you know, the divorce laws, she won't get very much from you because you acquired all that before you were married to her, and the divorces don't require to split that with her, and so she'll she'll pick up maybe three or four thousand dollars. Well, when Rebecca hears this, she changes her tone entirely. She she suddenly doesn't want this divorce, but she begins a
news strategy. She begins spending the word among everyone who will listen for five minutes that Bruce has been molesting her little boy sexually, and now everyone who knows him is is just horrified, including Bertha. Bertha at first and are you are you kidding me? Are you are you telling me that he was actually molesting him? And she tries to rationalize maybe he was just holding him on his lap or something. He doesn't know how to treat little boys. No, No, I saw him and he complained.
My little boy complained, he molested him. And Bertha realizes this is just a scam. All she's doing now is angling to get his money via another route and divorce.
Did she tell anybody else the molestation accusation as well?
She told the wedding photographer also by death, and she told everyone who would listen, including her sisters, and the sister didn't believe it. She just called her not right, liar, But Rebecca, I wanted to proceed with this.
Did this molestation accusation get back to his family as well?
I don't know if it ever got to his parents. I hope not, because they that would have devastated them. But Bertha asked, well, you know, have you called the police, you know, have you called anyone be counseling? You need
police help on this? Oh no, no, no, I don't want to do that because that was that wouldn't work my But then she came up with an additional accusation that uncle Arturo had been visiting and that Bruce had had proposition him homosexual act and that now both Rebecca is spending the word that now there may be retribution. You know, my uncle in a Hispanic family, you do not make that kind of a proposition to man. I'm afraid my cousins might do something to him.
So she was already she was already laying some groundwork, and in retrospect, when people think about it, she was laying some groundwork for any kind of sympathy for Bruce to be gone, and also laying the groundwork for possibly any kind of talk of assault as well, right exactly, Yeah.
Yeah, she's laying groundwork and this is what that's what.
She's heading for now. Once she realizes she can't make any money from this divorce, how does she proceed with Bruce? What does she do? Is she's still on a spending spree? Does he still? Does he cancel any credit cards? How does he proceed? How does she proceed? And what timeframe were we talking about after he's booted out of the house.
Well, in just a few weeks after he's booted out of the house now and she is she's still usually credit cards extravagantly, and her strip of boyfriend is having a tough time making meeting and things, his meeting his expenses, so she's feeding him money as well out of Bruce's accounts. And this is when Bertha becomes more estranged finally from Rebecca.
This is just unfair because she liked Bruce and she didn't believe any of the stories about him, but she told him you stopped, you know, you should stop that. That's not very good. Well, how am I going to live? And so she's she's spending it rapidly. Now, finally ed Brown counsels Bruce and says, look, you know you got to stop that spending screen. So finally Bruce kills some of the credit cards so she can't keep doing that to him.
Right right now, I guess. To Bruce's surprise, he gets a call from Rebecca. Rebecca give him a call about talking about their future. When does this happen and who makes the call? And what's Bruce's reaction?
Yeah, versus's And he's folks one and he's just working every day, coming home and going into his bedroom every night, just morning and getting awful. And he gets a call one night. It's Rebecca and she says, you know, maybe we should make up, Maybe we should get back together. It would be really nice. Let's and they had often eaten at a Mexican food restaurant in Weyal Heights, which is East Los Angeles, And so how about a date.
How about we go there and have a couple of drinks and a nice Mexican dinner and let's, uh, let's get back together. We can repair our marriage. Oh, Bruce is actually lated. He just oh, he's so thrilled and happy, and he tells his mom and dad and their dubious but they said, well, okay, maybe that's for the best. So they take off to go somewhere one night, and
Rebecca shows up. I don't think I mentioned earlier that she Bruce also bought her a new suv, right, So she shows up in the suv and Burse gets in he's the passenger, and they drive to Boil Heights and go to their Mexican food restaurant. Rebecca during the meal
gets up two or three times. First she goes back and the waitress spots her making a call from the payphone, and then but that lasts only briefly, and then spots her two other times hiding down the hallway making cell phone calls, and then they leave the restaurant.
Now she takes the she had also they had also visited someone else that evening, which was, again in retrospect, kind of unusual, or at least they find out about it, and they investigate this this meeting. Who did they go and spend some time with that that evening that seemed a little unusual to police Later.
They actually happened. After the restaurant they left the restaurant and go over to uncle Arturo's little shambles shambles of a house where he had raised Olvado and Jose and three three daughters as well. His wife, by the way, had left him years earlier and lived in another county
because of his grouping of other women. So they go to uncle Arturo's house and his uncle Arturo's there with his girlfriend, and Bruce and Rebecca have they bring him actually food from the restaurant to uh and then they have several more drinks. They've had a few at the restaurant, and they have a few more, and poor Bruce by this time it's pretty well snuckered. He's he's had more
than he can handle, and he's weaving around. And they spend They stay at uncle Alva's house until old pretty close to one o'clock in the morning, and then they said, well, we've got to get on home back up to Whittier. So they drive out and she takes a little different route than she normally takes to go to Whittier, right.
And then happens something with the vehicle.
By the way, I didn't think I mentioned earlier that Alvarro, her cousin Alvarro also became a male stripper in being up at the house often. After Bruce was kicked out, he pretty much moved in too, up at the house and he became a male stripper, a client of her, of Rebecca's lover, and so now he's involved. But okay, Now, Rebecca and Bruce drive out in the suv and she takes a little alternate route and makes a right turn into a residential section and Rebecca says, oh my gosh.
She says, the red lights on the dashboard. That means the back hatch is open. She pulls over into this dark, dark residential street and steps outside to allegedly to close that, and all of a sudden, a gunman steps out from the dark bushes beside him and it's you know, after one am, and opens fire. He shoots, He shoots Bruce, and one bullet pierss his mouth, his cheek and goes
out one side. But that's not a lethal shot. Poor Bruce, absolutely stunned, horrified, in terrible pain, managed to scramble out of the car and start to run across the street, but the gunman is behind him and shoots him two or three more times, and Bruce makes it across and collapses. Then the gunman delivers a final shot into Bruce's head and then runs off down the street and turns the corner and disappears.
Now in your book, you have a woman named Virginia Silva, and she becomes a little bit a very important character.
Later.
She doesn't make a phone call, but she does witness something. And what does she see that evening? Based on that she hears she must have heard shots. What does she witness?
Virginia lives just across the street from where the car was parked. There's a they parked by some brush that they're just actually next to an turns to the sant Anna Freeway. But Virginia lives across the street in the row of houses, and at about one of the little after one on the morning, she had just gone to sleep,
she heard this blast outside. She jumps out of bed and runs downstairs and looks out through her bay window and she sees the dark clad gunman chasing Bruce across the street and shooting at him, and then sees the gunman disappear down the street and for Virginia's horrified, But within just moments she sees police start arriving in ambulances, and so she said, well, there's no point in me
calling nine one one. As it happened, the gunman ran about two blocks downhill after he turned left, and another witness, another Hispanic woman, saw him running along that sidewalk and was suspicious and she called nine one one because she had also heard gunshots up the street and saw men running. So she called nine one one and the police and the ambulances arrived just moments afterwards.
Now what did they find at the scene. Again, they they make assessments very early on based on their their vast experience with these kinds of cases. What did they see and what did they initially think was unusual for and what did they think this crime was and when they what happened when they talked to Rebecca about this as well.
Well. The first witness who saw it from her bay window, spotted Bruce lying face down in a driveway with blood poys. She couldn't see the blood, but blood was pouring out of them, and she also spotted a female figure behind the behind the suv, also prostate on the pavement, and it looked like two people have been shot to death. The police arrive and as just as they arrive, Rebecca
rises up from her spot on the paymore. She'd been lying down oddly with her her head cupped in her hands and her shoes placed very neatly behind the wheel, as if she placed them in the closet. And she gets up. Oh, oh, my god, they were carjackers. They oh, and they hit me and hit me on my head and knocked me out and what oh, I don't know. They took my rings, they took my expensive rings. Oh,
and she's just carrying on having a fit. And the police the paramedics examine Bruce and find that he's beyond any help. Then they examine Rebecca and they find no scratches, no pumps, no indication of being slugged, even though she's complaining she was knocked out by these carjackers. The police arrived, and the tectives arrive, and they wonder why carjackers would shoot this man and leave that car, that brand new car, sitting there running with the engine running and her purs
sitting in the in the middle of the seat. Carjackers don't do that. But they don't have any real evidence that she's lying, so they they pretty much accept her story. And start investigation. And then they talked the witness down the street who also speaks of seeing the dark clad men running down the street and she thought she heard a car door slam and a car drive away a few feet away from her house.
Right now, we don't have that much time. We've got eleven minutes. So what I'm going to do is that I want to talk about we go backwards a little bit too. Another important figure, which is a LAPD officer named Robert is a study and you use for him, but Robert Zavla or Zavala, and that there was some relationship with Alvero, and maybe tell us a little bit about his relationship to this story. And well, because it's very important right after this turn of events here, well, the.
Cousin Alvaro had been working at the YMCA and Boyle Heights in East la and in doing that he met and a police officer who came in once in a while. We call him Zavale in the story and uh in the act that he actually asked if he could get some information about becoming a policeman. Alvarro wanted to become a policeman.
Uh.
And then they all after Bruce was kicked out of the house. They all took that suv and pulled the boat over to Lake Havasu, including the police officer, Alvaro, Rebecca, and a couple other people went over to have a few days at the lake. Now she's she's kind of hinting that she'd like to have an affair with his police officer, while she's also talking about maybe sitting in Her next target would be one of the greatest boxers
in Southern California history. I want you to name him right now because but anyway, she has her She's targeting new men already before the murder. And then Zavalla gets a strange call early in the morning and wakes him up after one o'clock on the on the warning of the murder, and it's Alvaro and he first in one call, he says, Oh, I'm over here, and I'm all distraught because of my girlfriend's waking up with me. Uh, well, why are you calling me? Well, I just need someone to talk to.
And then a little while later he calls, Oh, my god, I just heard that Bruce was shot. Bruce was shot and killed. Now Zavala is really wondering what's going on, So he goes in and tells the detective who's assigned this case about all this, and this begins to open things up. Now you want me to proceed with you. We're getting closed out short of time. He want me to step one step forward and.
Tell yeah, go ahead, just just continue to yeah, continue with the story.
Okay, Well, we've talked about Beth Lamb the Mormon, the Mormon mom waiting photographer. Right now now Rebecca's sulsed to be grieving over her dead husband. But she calls Bath and she says, oh, we need a lot of whole bunch of pictures for the funeral, and we need a video tape. Oh my goodness. And so Beth goes up an appointment to talk about which pictures she wants from
the wedding and what to do now. And Beth spots these beautiful rings on Rebecca's hands and then she hears later when when she's a question, she hears that the rings were stolen when when the carjacker hit them, and she, my god, she thinks, this is wait a minute, this woman is lying. She had those rings in her hand, and she she struggles for several days, a couple of days, and what am I going to do? She calls a police officer friend hers and he said, you call that
detective right now and you tell them. So she did and this turn, this turned, This is actually the turning point in the whole case. The Mormon momb wedding photographers information helps get this case opened up and solved.
They what do the police ask Elizabeth Lamb to do?
But they asked her if she'd wear a wire and go to the house and see if she could get Rebecca to talk. And Elizabeth was scared to death. She didn't she didn't want to, but she did. She was very courageous and she tried. But no, no, no interesting information developed out of that. But because the the rings were obvious, uh the uh, the officers asked her, could you go up there and and make sure she's there because we're going to do a raid, and Elizabeth helps him.
She she chooses not to be in the house when the search worm arrives and they go into the house and to search and see what they can find. When they have a search worm and Rebecca's sitting on her hands, Rebecca could could we see her hands please? And she very shyly and reluctantly holds out her hands on there that beautiful glowing diamond ring that had been stolen. Okay, now she's lying, and so with a little bit more
information beyond that, she is arrested. And by this time they have also began a unique, brand new forensic study, and that's the use of cell phones. A lot of people don't realize that cell phones can tell what your location was on those records of your calls, and the calls you received are on records somewhere any given date that you use your cell phone, you can be traced
within a few hundred yards where you were. Well, as it turns out, Alvaro was very very close to the murder scene when it happened, and the cell phone records also connected those strange calls that Rebecca was making from the restaurant to Alvaro, and she and Alvaro exchanged dozens of calls just leading up to and right after the murder.
So basically police didn't I mean not to say they didn't have a hard job, but it was fairly easy based on the interviews with her friends, those phone records, like you say that they able to pinpoint that Alvaro had made the call very close. They also for audience that doesn't know it, it's pretty simple why they wanted to have a police officer. They wanted to know if they could get any information about the investigation. They wanted to have an ally they figured in the police force.
Didn't really work out that way. Not the smartest of criminals. So anyway, we'll just leave it at that. Because it's the trial, the story has more twists and turns, and it's an incredible trial itself too.
So the final twist was that the witness down the street saw the dark clad figure running was able to identify Jose the other Albaro's brother, as the shooter, and so that witness idem medication pinned him and they all went to trial, and it took three trials to settle this case. Finally.
Oh that's incredible. Yeah, we'll have to leave it for audience to want to read this book, and because it looks like it looked looks like an incredible slam dunk at the beginning of the trial, but not so not with three trials, that's for sure.
Well, I was hoping we leave some mystery for the readers.
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely no, it's a great book. Don I also wanted to talk about one of the new projects you're working on right now, and I wanted to tell people how many books have you written so far? In here you said fifteen year career. So far, how many books have you written?
Yeah, I'm glad you asked. This book was number eighteen. I've just finished number nineteen, and I just just in August I went to the trial for the one I'm beginning to work on right now, which will be number twenty. All of these but one were true crime books.
Wow. What does the new case you're working on it? Can you tell us about that who it's involved in.
Yeah, this is a case of a New York lawyer who moved to Hollywood and wanted to immerse himself in the lifestyle, and he did, and the pornography, drugs, strippers, and the wound up killing a young woman with him, and he became involved here with a little clumsy game of Russian roulette. Wow, after your body out in the desert?
Do you have a working title for this book?
Well? Yeah, we're calling it the one I just finished. We just tied Deadly Deceit. That's about a man who murdered his own parents in Arizona. And used their money to take his fifteen year old girlfriend of Hawaii.
Oh incredible.
And what I'm starting to work on right now is called Homicide in the Hollywood Hills.
Well, great title, so deadly Deceit. When did that come out?
It will come out. I just finished it. Oh, it's in the process of publication now, will probably come out a little bit later this year or early next year.
Is that another title with Kensington?
That? Yeah, he is with Kensington and that's Deadly.
Deceit, Deadly Deceit. That's great. Ah. Yeah, And so what made you start to write true crime? I know maybe I don't know if we'd actually talked about it on the show last time when we did Die for Me. But what made you? What compelled you to become involved with this true crime genre?
Well, that's what I read then, And I had a thirty year career with the phone company and spent five years after that just traveling the world, and I thought, I get some time, I should be doing something else, so I thought I'll write a book. Well, I'd always read true crime books, and I've always had a deadly horror of being locked up. I'm a little clusterphobic and
being locked up. It just gives me the shivers. So I read several books about people in life in prison, and so when I decided what shall I do next, I got to write a true crime book, and so that's what got that started. It's been a great second career, I'll tell you. It has a great, great fun.
Absolutely absolutely. And what point did you take a foray into fiction?
And I've not written any fiction. These are all nonfiction books, every book of mine, and including the other one which is not which is not true crime, that was about World War two men shot down in France and the rescued for the French.
Underground and what was the name of that book, that's.
Called Their Deeds of Valor, And that one comes from my heart. I love doing that one because I got to go interview scores of men who actually flew those B seventeens and and P fifty ones and were shot down or crash landed in France. I went to France as well and interviewed some of the French underground people, which was great fun.
Yeah, absolutely absolutely. And you say you decided you'd probably always read true crime. What are what are some of the authors that were influences for you.
It's interesting. Of course, Truman Capoti was in Cold Blood was He's the Pioneer, and then the second one was Onion Field by Joe Wamba, And right now I just finished reading Warmbas. I think he's about his eighteenth or twentieth book, and it ties in so nicely with my
homicide in the Hollywood Hills. He even mentions a detective whom I interviewed a few weeks ago and is acknowledging his book, So it's going to tie in wonderfully with Wombo's works, who was one of my idols when I've began writing.
Well. It's also interesting as well because I interviewed Philip Carlo, another Pinnacle author, Kensington author about the night Stalker, and this family was involved with the capture of Richard Rameirez in that neighborhood when he was running from the law.
That's right. Was when I interviewed her and she told me that her friends were those Hispanic people who chased Ramirez down and captured him.
It was just incredible to that story where where Rameraz comes back into Los Angeles and his face is all over the newspapers and the the Hispanic people are saying El matador elmantador is he's running away the killer, the killer, you know, Oh right, incredible, Rob And.
I actually retraced the route he ran that day and stopped at the little story where he saw the newspaper with his picture on the front. And then I have my picture who stayed taking it that same newstand.
Wow. Incredible, incredible. Yeah. Well, I just really want to thank you very much Don for coming back on the program and with this second book that we've talked about. I guess we'll have to talk about a lot more than that with your on your twentieth right now. So I want to thank you very much for coming on and talking about your great book, Honeymoon with a Killer. Great story, and thank you very much for the interview.
Don, my pleasure. Dan, thanks so much. I'll be looking forward to talking to you on the next one.
Okay, Don, have yourself a good evening. Okay, thank you, thank you, good night. By you've been listening to the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that are written about them, with my special guest Don Lassiter with Ronald E. Bauers. That's Honeymoon with the Killer on Kensington Pinnacle is the true crime imprint. Have yourself a good evening, good night,