You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand, kf I AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. On any given day in southern California, hundreds of investigators are working more than ten thousand unsolved cases. That's thousands of friends and families who have lost loved ones, thousands of people who got away with a crime, and thousands of murderers who still walk the streets. Killers who may be your neighbor, go to your church, or could be dating
a close friend. For the next two hours, we'll highlight cases that have gone cold, baffled investigators, or just needs that one witness to speak up.
This is unsure With Steve Gregory, Los Angeles County Sheriff's homicide case number zero zero six DASH one eight three four zero DASH two one three six DASH zero one one the murder of twenty eight year old Michael Johnson, along with the related Los Angeles County Sheriff's cold case number zero zero six DASH one eight six nine two DASH two one three six DASH zero one one the death of twelve year old Janet Aultmurano cold case Detectives Sean McCarthy and rich Tomlin are regular
contributors to the show. They've brought us many cold cases that they've picked up having never seen them before. But on rare occasions they present cases that they were involved with years ago, but they still elude them. In fact, this pair of cases, though separate, are connected. McCarthy and tomlind were not only both seen in twenty six, both cases still haunt them to this day. We begin with Detective McCarthy and an overview of the first case of
the deadly search warrant. October twenty eight, two thousand and six. Shortly after ten pm, a party appeared to be a block party according to witnesses, in the twenty one hundred block of the East one hundred and seventeenth Street in unincorporated Los Angeles, and the basic area is south central Los Angeles between Alameda and Woomington. That's the general area where this incident occurred. According to
witnesses block party. They estimated anywhere between fifty and seventy five people were milling around in the street. We later learned that it was a birthday party and it was predominantly local street gang members from two different Cryps street gangs. Mona Park is one of the crip gangs, and one hundred and seventeenth Street is the other. Now, back in six those two gangs were for the most part allies. They got along, they lived in the same general area,
they coexisted together, and they got along. And that's not always the case with crip gangs, but Mona Park one hundred and seventeenth Street at at the time did get along. Shortly after ten o'clock, witnesses said you could feel tension in the air. A couple of guys had arrived on motorcycles and they said, immediately upon their arrival, you could sense a lot of tension in the air people million of about and they could feel something was bad was going
to happen. Shortly after that, a male exited one of the houses, and every witness that we had said he had a handgun, some of the automatic handgun, and he didn't care who saw him with that handgun, and he did a bee line straight towards the guy on the motorcycle who had arrived. There was a very brief argument and then the shooting started and four people got shot, including the guy in a motorcycle whose name was Michael Johnson.
Michael was killed. Three other people were wounded. One was an associate of Michael, but two of them were just party goalers that had no relationship. He was just indiscriminately shooting, but his target was Michael Johnson. Everybody, for the most part fled the area and didn't come back. But there was one witness in particular who stayed there, and as we found out later in our investigation, the reason he stayed there is one of the wounded was his
brother. And he told first responders the patrol deputies, I witnessed this, I know who did it, and I'm willing to tell the detectives. So they kept him at the location until we got there, and as you already know, it's a while before homicide detectives arrived on scene. And he told us when we got there, who did this? He said, said the guy's name, and he says he runs, he runs the neighborhood. He's a big narcotic stealer in the neighborhood. I'm tired of him causing the problems
that he's causing. The obvious primary reason for him to talk to us was his brother was seriously wounded, so we had an identification. Now it was only one witness. We basically have a personal motive that had a gang aspect to it. And as you well know Steve, witnesses and gang shootings don't like to cooperate with the police, but because of the personal relationship he had with Michael, he was willing to talk to us, so we proceeded with
our investigation. We have a suspect. We believe he's a credible suspect. We also had some information from anonymous sources that identified the same person as the killer and the shooter, so we felt pretty good about pursuing our investigation with him as our target. So obviously, in an investigation a homicide where a gun's used, we want to recover evidence. And what's the biggest prize in a gang shooting is the gun that was used in the crime. So we
did some follow up. We identified several locations that our target owned resonances in the same general area, and we authored search warrants to search and hopefully get the weapon used in the crime. And it was a few weeks after the shooting. All the logistical stuff that goes into a search warrant, authoring the search warrant, getting judges on board to approve of the warrant. It takes a little bit of time, but we and we had several different teams served
the warrants at these locations that were owned by our primary suspect. During the service of those warrants, everything went well. We you know, the biggest concern when you serve a search warrant is was it done safely? Was anybody injured as a result of it? Did we have to injure anybody or shoot
anybody during the service of the warrant. Everything went very smoothly. It was it was on a it was in the evening hours and I'll get into that a little bit later, and it was just the sun was just going down, it was just getting dark. It was late October, around Halloween time change. So before you go into the big stuff, we're coming up on
a break. So now that you've kind of laid it all out, I've got a bunch of questions, Okay, okay, So we're talking with Detective Seaw McCarthy also Rich Tomlin joining us about two separate murders that happened apart, but there is a connection and we'll get to it later on the show. But first this is unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFI AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand I AM six forty live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is Unsolved.
Welcome back to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau and Monterey Park. We're inside the main conference room talking with detectives Sean McCarthy and Rich Tomlin about a murder that happened in twenty six the first one October twenty eighth, at
about little after ten pm. And this homicide was solved pretty quickly, and we'll back to that one with McCarthy in a second, and then Rich Tomlin a little bit later is going to tell us about how the case he covered just a few days after that is also tied to this case and it remains
unsolved, So there is a connection between the two cases. Detective McCarthy, before the break, you laid out the whole story about a birthday party in the twenty one hundred block of East one hundred seventeenth Avenue or excuse me, one hundred and seventeenth Street in unincorporated La You said, near Alameda and Wilmington. He said it was a party that involved members of both the Mona Park
and one hundred and seventeenth Street crips. Correct a couple of things. I wanted to find out when gangs like that, and I know that you both you and Detective Tomlin have gang backgrounds in terms of investigations. Is it your experience that when gangs have parties like this, is there security at a I've heard that there's usually security at the front, or they just have it's like you're their family gathering. Kind of paint a picture of what what does a
crypts party look like? Well, it starts out as generally starts out as they may block off the street. This was this was literally a block party, and they'll block off the streets. Partygoers will arrive and they'll proceed with, for lack of a better term, a gang party. But in this case, there was a birthday that was involved in it, and they know at some point the police are going to arrive and probably either minimize the the
the largeness of the party or shut it down totally. Right, it hadn't gotten to that point, and you know, we're not aware of it. I say, we're law enforcement's not aware of it until somebody picks up the phone generally and calls and says, hey, are you guys aware there's a block party with a bunch of gang members that on this street, and then we generally will respond to it. It hadn't gotten to that point yet, There was no problems. It was still relatively early in the night, so
it hadn't gotten to that point yet. The at a crypts party like this, and you know, I don't know whether there's a stereotyping it or just assuming, but would the majority of the people in attendance be carrying a weapon? Oh? I think there's a strong likelihood that several of the party goers
would. Just because you have rival gang members that learn about the party and may come and try to to to cause problems, maybe take the posture, hey, this is this is our opportunity to go and choot out a bunch of rival gang members that are all gathered together. This makes it a whole lot easier for us. So there's going to be plenty of people that are
armed at that party. They it may not be on their person, but it's going to be somewhere very close to so they can get to it very quickly because they know there's a good chance the police are going to arrive and they're going to start patting people down, and by concealing it somewhere close by, they have access to it, but the police aren't going to be able. It's interesting, it's just sounds. This whole gang protocol thing is always
fascinating to me. But okay, so back to the case itself. You were talking about the fact that after this shooting happened on October twenty eighth, just after ten pm, that people on scene immediately identified the shooter and they knew who who was involved, right, one person on scene, everybody else had spread out, had taken on. One person on scene had offered up the name of the suspected shooter. Correct, Right. So when we left
off, you were serving search warrants, and you're talking about that. Obviously, the number one concern is the safety of the deputies and then the detectives that are going in to serve that search warrant. So where did we leave off? So, as I mentioned earlier, it was the time of the year where it got darker. Earlier it was around six o'clock the sun had just gone down, but the warrants went at this particular location. It went
smoothly, safely, everything was good. But during this execution of the warrant, we found several gang members inside this house, and of course we have to do something with those gang members before we searched the location. So they were put in what's called flex cuffs. You know flex cuffs are because if
your audience doesn't know, it's basically plastic handcuffs, zip tie. They were all flex cuffed and they were sat on the porch out front, and they were being guarded by at least one or two deputies while the search went on. So we're in the process of doing that, we're getting people out of the house, we're getting them detained, flex cuff sat on the porch. But the reason I talked about the time of day, there was a light on the porch and it basically back lit all of these guys sitting on the
porch right, so they were easily seen from the street. And I had a personal involvement in this. I was the author of the warrant. I was also on scene. Once it became code for and for your audience, code for it means all clear, all clear, everything's safe. Everything's good.
It was code for and the homicide investigators, me and my partner came up to the location, went in the house to examine the evidence that was found, and there were several firearms, and we were all be honest with you, I was excited there was at least one weapon that was the same caliber that was used in the murder. And I was excited we may have gotten our murder weapon. And while we're examining the evidence, all of a sudden, automatic gunfire starts. And I know this is going to sound corny,
but it's the truth. I was standing next to a couch inside that house and I could hear rounds whizzen by me that that's how profound and how close it was. I actually like a sissy. I jumped behind the couch. Everybody was stuck in for cover. Deputies outside, deputies inside. We were all ducking for cover. Of course, when the shooting stopped, the first question that was yelled out, are all deputies accounted for? A couple minutes later the all clear, All deputies are accounted for, sire, Relieve
no deputies got shot. But then I heard somebody yell out we need paramedics. My first thought is, why do we need paramedics. All deputies are accounted for. Okay, we're gonna pause there, We're gonna take a break. When we come back more with detectives Sewn McCarthy and Rich Tomlin. But first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFI AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand k I AM six forty live and
on demand on the iHeartRadio app. This is Unsolved with Steve Gregory. Welcome back to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Homicide Bureau. We're in Monterey Park, inside the main offices where detectives work every day twenty four to seven, and we're talking with cold case detectives Sewn McCarthy and Rich Tomlin about two separate homicides. It happen and in October and November of twenty oh six. One's been solved and one is still unsolved, and we're going to talk about how
those two tie together. Before the break, Detective McCarthy, we talked about the serving of a search warrant. You were in the house. You said that you found a bunch of weapons and you actually thought that you might have found the weapon responsible for the first murder of Michael Johnson back in October of twenty eighth of six. And as you were looking at the weapons and as
things were happening, all hell broke loose. You said you heard gunfire erupt and you heard the bullets actually whizzing by you, and you said, I think I think I was told that there were just a little over two dozen deputies on scene. I mean, it was a pretty massive scene. People were ducking for cover. Where was the gunfire coming from? We didn't know
at the time. We later learned, and Rich will talk about that it came from I believe, and I don't want to miss speak for Rich's investigation, an alley across the street where the suspect originally started out, and I believe he climbed defense. There was evidence that he climbed defense, but I'll let Rich talk to that, okay. But at the time, you didn't did you think it was a drive by or just it was an ambush. I knew it was an ambush, I just didn't know where it was.
And that's the scariest part when you're getting shot at, is trying to identify the area and the suspect to a shooting at you, And I don't think any of us had any idea at that time when the rounds were being fired where they were coming from. So at this point you said that that there was all the deputies were accounted for. Everyone hollered out that standard procedure, everyone was accounted for. But then all of a sudden, you said,
someone hollered, we need a paramedic. Correct then what happened? So I was confused hearing that, and I went outside and I said, what the
what the hell is going on here? It said it's code for all deputies accounted for, and somebody yelled out that a little girl had been shot, and I found out shortly thereafter that a twelve year old next door neighbor or I don't know if it was right next door, she came out when the warrant was being served, just to see what was going on her a friend, and she took one of the rounds that was being fired right in the chest, and she was probably dead before she hit the ground. And now
we've got a dead twelve year old on a warrant that I authored. And you can imagine the emotions that we were all going through but me in particular, and I'll get into a little more detail of that later, all the things going through your mind, how we could have prevented this from happening. She had a fifteen year old friend who also was wounded, that was standing there with her. But now we have another homicide. And because technically I
was a victim, I can't handle my own shooting. Me and my partner can't handle our own shootings. So another team was called out to handle and her name was Janet Ault Morano. If I didn't say that already, another team was called out and at the time, Rich Tomlin and his partner were next up, and they got the call Detective Tomlin. So we receive a call of a twelve year old Well, the call was that deputies had been shot at, an ambush had occurred, and that radio cars had been struck
by gunfire. And during this ambush, a twelve year old girl was struck and murdered and her friend was injured. She had shot in a left arm, non threatening injuries. So, as you can imagine, Steve, when we get there, it is chaos. Okay, you have you have homicide there. The people that were serving a warrant were the Gang Enforcement Team and the OSS our gang Detectives Operations Safe Street Station, straight Safe Street, and
we're trying to figure out exactly what's going on. While I'm there, I learned my partner at that time was Tracy Gonzales, and she was fairly new to homicide. She had she had worked operations Shaved Street for years, but she was new to homicide. But she had actually worked in that area where
this shooting occurred. So that was a great help, great help. So once we we're trying to sort things out, we learned that the shoe, we learned that a search warrant was being served, but the shooters were across the street in a backyard diagonally from where the warrant was being served. Janet was standing across the street in her driveway, so the shooters are basically in her backyard. They see a twenty five thirty yards away the house that with
search warrants being served, and they had opened fire. She's in the middle. She gets struck in the chest by an assault rifle. Bullet goes through her chest throw and through an OSS detective who actually ended up going to homicide. Coming to homicide years later Gene Morse, him and another detective of Ryan Richardson pick her up and get her out of the line of fire. Now, when the dust settled, just to show you, the magnitude of how
many rounds are being fired recovered was thirty three AK forty seven shellcasings. Also there was nine milimeters shellcasings, so there was multiple guns being fired at the time. Again, as you can imagine, tensions are running high, and as an investigator now you're thinking, okay, police officers being ambushed. That's the initial thought, right, who are the suspects? It can be anybody. It can be anybody, anybody who has an extra grind, what have
you. So from that point of view at that time, it was very difficult to even nowhere to start. Well. Later on getting back to Tracy, she had an informant in the neighborhood. So let's before we do that, we gotta do a quick break here and we'll come back. We'll talk more about that. It's detectives rich Tomlin and Sean McCarthy. We're at the La County Sheriff's Department. This is UNSTALLD with Steve Gregory on KFI AM six forty. It's you're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand, KFI AM
six forty live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved Welcome back with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Homicide Bureau, talking with cold case detectives Sean McCarthy, Rich Tomlin, and now Detective Tomlin. Before the break, you were laying out how you became involved in this rather unusual case. Detective McCarthy was telling us about during the service of a
search warrant. We're going back to October or we're going back to November of twenty oh six, and during the service of a search warrant, somebody opened fire from across the street of the house that you were searching, and a twelve year old girl role was struck and killed and her fifteen year old friend
was struck and wounded. You were telling us that one of your colleagues had an informant, and what I want to go back before we get to the informant part is you've got a scene and it was a house that this has all taking place at, right, this is where the search worm was. Is that a house residential area. Yes, you've got more than two dozen deputies on scene. You got investigators. Yeah, First, I mean of medical. Do you have any medical there at this point? Because where they
called at that point or not until after the girls were shot? They were called after that after girls were shot. Okay, So now the scene just keeps growing and growing and growing. But your role there was to separate out the fact that your colleagues were involved or victims of a shooting, right or victims of an attempted murder. Correct? How do you guys do that logistically?
Where you've got one team of detectives there working on a search warrant for a murder that had happened a few days before, and now you roll up and you've got to isolate what that was, and now you have to investigate a separate shooting, and then in the middle of that, another homicide happens. How do you guys keep all that together? Unfortunately, that's called triage. You have to do what you We have to wear many hats in this
situation. We called in four other homicide detectives, one to do the scene, if you will, document the evidence located within the scene. We had two other homicide detectives start immediately canvassing the area, looking for witnesses, interviewing the deputies, and actually interviewing One thing Detective McCarthy didn't mention when they served a search warrant they had detained how many people were in that house Approximately ten
to twelve. So ten to twelve people that were in that house they were being detained. They're sitting on the porch of that house. So you can imagine, you see the numbers keep growing and growing and growing. So you just do the best you can. Sometimes it does take you have to take a step back and try to get a three sixty perspective of exactly what is going on. So how many detectives were onseen at any given moment or at the peak? At the peak eight detectives, would that be considered a pretty
large event? Yes, absolutely, well, and then you also have detectives in the gang unit who are there because they're serving this executing the search warrant. They're also investigators. They're doing because of their experience as investments. They're doing things investigative wise to expedite helping us out as homicide investigators. So you probably that night had thirty detectives on sne homicide and OSS detectives. Those guys
execute now thirty investigators total right. Their job when they're not serving search warms is to investigate violent gang rhymes, gang crimes. So we had at least thirty detectives on scene. Wow and Steve. The reason that I brought up the time of day. The reason that I brought up the time of day and the lighting situation was is we have ten to twelve gang members on the
porch. We have a porch light that backs lights them. And as Ritual explain, we believe the motive for this second shooting was retaliation for the first murder. And now that's suspect and we don't believe. And Rich may disagree with me. I don't believe for a minute that that guy knew that deputies were going to be there. He was coming, or they were coming. I don't know how many of them there were. They were coming to retaliate. They had already planned that, they had no idea we were going to
be there. Absolutely, and initially, as I said Detective Gonzales, she had an outstanding informant. He came forward. He actually called while we were there and explained, Hey, this is what's going on. This is in retaliation by Mona Park Crips, retaliation for the murder that occurred that a detective McCarthy was investigating Michael Johnson. Michael Johnson's murder the first one. The suspects were high at the time. They were far enough away they just knew the
target house. They knew what house they were going to go shoot at. They hopped the back fence, they were in the backyard across the street and they just directed their immediately ran up and just started firing at the house, never looking to see who's out there. Didn't even see the radio cars. There's police radio cars on the street. They they were oblivious to what was
going on, and we steve unknowingly made it easy for the suspects. We parade the occupants of the residents who are gang members from that rival gang, and we paraded them out there. We set them on on on chairs on the porch. We got a backlit situation. It's like shooting shooting ducks at a carnival. And they saw that and said, we're taking advantage of this situation. They were they were probably going to shoot at the house anyway, but we made it so much easier for him, and we had no idea
what we were making it easier for him, did you know? And this is kind of an aside, but then did you learn from that? I mean, moving forward? Did your protocol change? No? No, no, well, I mean it was it was a it was an unfre seeen assault that I don't I don't remember in my career another another incident that played out like this, because in most instances, even if that did happen before, they would have saw the police car and said, let's pick another day
to do this, you know. But but and Rich, we'll talk a little bit, a little bit more about the motive and this shooting. This was a unique situation that hadn't happened before this in my career and hasn't happened
after this in my career. Exactly how this situation went down. We're talking with Sean McCarthy and Rich Tomlin, both are cold case detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Homicide Bureau. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation about the two murders that happened in the fall of twenty oh six. But first, this is unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFI AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand, kf I AM six forty
live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is Unsolved. Welcome back to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Homicide Bureau. We're in Monterey Park talking with cold case detectives Rich Tomlin and Sean McCarthy. Before the break, gentlemen, we've been talking about this tragic situation that happened November two, twenty oh six, just before six thirty pm in the twenty one hundred block of East one and seventeenth Street, where twelve year old Janet
Altamurano was killed by a stray bullet from an thieve. You was an eight K forty seven, yes, and then her fifteen year old friend was wounded. Rich. You know, we kind of got off track a little bit because I was curious about some other things going on in that scene that night.
But you were talking about your colleague's confidential informant and that kind of intel that the informant was providing, and you said that the informant actually called in right, correct, and so what was the informant able to provide the amount, the reason behind the shooting, the clarification that it was not the detectives, or to share the police officers were not the targets. Now why is that important? That's huge because now, as again, if it's just a
random police ambush, if you will, you have no idea. It could be somebody who's just angry with getting a ticket. It could be somebody who went to jail three weeks ago. So you really are lost. Now, it narrowed the scope of who our potential suspects were. The informant also stated where he believed well, let me step back. We found witnesses that saw three African American males hopping a fence and running, one carrying an assault rifle.
Now, this informant told us the location where he believed the suspects ran. Two. Based on that information, we were able to get a scent dog, a dog that will track weapons if you will, right, and sure enough, the dog ends up at that location. Now that was several hours later from when we informant called I would say, three hours four hours into our investigation. Okay, so now you're talking the shooting happened at six
twenty. Now you're talking about eleven thirty midnight. We're now calling the canine unit out, we're setting up. We get a search warrant for that location, and we weren't able to find any weapons inside. However, what was interesting we did find AK forty seven bullets and nine millimeter bullets inside the house, so which let us believe, Okay, we're on the right path. So we then later learned again that this was in retaliation for the murder that
Detective McCarthy was investigating. So obviously the next step is we had to talk to detective McCarthy and Laren and find out who was their victim, Did he have any relatives, did he have any friends, who was his close friends? Was it gang related? And Stiff McCarthy can share more on that. So we learned in our our investigation that the motive wasn't specifically gang retaliation.
In our first mirror, we found out that there was a personal grudge between our target, our person that we prosecuted in this case, and Michael Johnson, the victim in this case. And this personal grudge started a few years earlier, and it was in regards to another shooting in the city of Lakewood that involved our victim and our suspect that we prosecuted. And it went back and forth for the next two years, random shootings that were clearly related to
this personal beef, personal grudge. But at the end of the day, when this part of this block party occurred, because I know your listeners are going to say, why did Michael Johnson show up at this party if it was hosted by the guy he had the personal grudge. As I said earlier, these two gangs generally got along, they were ally gangs, and it
was more of a personal grudge. And over that two year period, although there was back and forth, at some point it dies down and Michael, we learned, just made the assumption the beasts over and there's going to be no issues with me going to this party. And he was sadly mistaken because what we learned is that when he arrived, I said, witnesses said, tension, you could feel it in the air. Well. Some of the gang members from one hundred and seventeen Street and that's where our target suspect was
from, they saw Michael arrive. They knew of the personal grudge, and they immediately went to our target who was inside one of his houses, and says, guess who just showed up at the party. And he's like what And he walked over to a to a dresser, picked up a nine millimeter, walked right out of the house and didn't care who saw him with the gun. He had a mission and he was going to kill Michael Johnson and
he did. So this wasn't really a gang shooting, was it. No, And so it has gang aspects to it, but it was a personal and the only aspect is is that they're all members of a gang. But it wasn't a gang sanction hit. If you will, no nothing, I believe that for a minute, any idea what the personal grudge was. As I said before, there was a shooting oh in the neighborhood between the victim
and the suspect. And you know, you're only getting it hearsay. There's no witnesses that come forward or they tell you off the record what happened in Lakewood and you piece it together. But everything that we pieced together is there
was a shooting between the victim and the suspect. Believed in that lake was shooting, that he was shooting at at him, whether he was or not, We'll never know the answer to that, but it doesn't matter because the suspect in our shooting believed that he was shooting at him in Lakewood and he was gonna he was gonna get retaliation at some point. It took two years, but he got his retaliation. I'm talking with detectives Sean McCarthy and Rich
Tomlin with the La County Sheriff's Department's Cold Case Unit. When we come back, we'll continue this case. But first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFIM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand, AFI AM six forty live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is Unsolved. We're talking with detectives Sean McCarthy and Rich
Tomlin at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's departments Homicide barrel. Were in Monterey Park inside the main conference room where we've taped many many episodes, and before the break, we were talking a little about the one of the motives for the first murder we've talked about that took place October twenty eighth, twenty oh six. Just after ten pm in the twenty one hundred block of East one hundred
and seventeenth Street. Detective Tomlin was called into this after Detective McCarthy and his colleagues were shot at by what we're being told now, three men that jumped over a fence across the street from the house was being served as search warrant. So, Detective Tom, you've already told us about some information from an informant, and your colleague had gotten some information, and you found out that there were these three men, these three African American men that jumped over the
fence, and at least one of them had an assault rifle. Correct, Yes, Now with that information, now that you have all of that, what were your next steps Because again, to remind everyone, we're talking about two separate investigations here that are connected, but you're investigating them as separate incidents. Right, absolutely, so, un and my focus is on the twelve year old, right, the twelve year old girl that was hit by a who's strength ending in her own driveway, right and is killed. Right.
So now we have a direction, and it is, lack of a better term, knocking on doors, interviewing people, anybody who lives in that neighborhood who maybe have been arrested. We're going down to the station and interviewing them. Where because of her age, because she was so innocent. I think she was in her soccer uniform. You know, she just came back from soccer practice. I believe. Yeah, because we're only talking just before six
thirty six six thirty, so people were more willing to cooperate. Now, you have to understand during that period of time, that area was truly gang invested, and so you have working people there who are scared. Example is actually Janet. She was in her driveway. Her father had locked the driveway gate so no one would come in off the street. So it was that type of thing. So people are hesitant to talk. But because of her age and because of the outrageousness of it the time of day of it,
people were more apt to cooperate. We feel very comfortable. We've identified three individuals that we feel strongly are involved. One of the individuals is in state prison, one I can't locate, and the other is still around. Some of the frustrating parts of it. At one point we had someone with direct knowledge come forward and unfortunately he was in trouble he had been arrested on another on a robbery charge. But he got with his attorney and he wanted to
what we call a profer. He would tell his story and the district attorney is there and they'll decide whether or not to make a deal. Make a deal. Yeah, well, unfortunately his crime was so heinous. The best deal that he could get with thirty years, okay, And he decided that Vidal after he told us his story. But when it came down to are you willing to make the next step, no, I have to do thirty years with these you know, I cannot be a snitch if you will.
Another individual who came forward died of natural causes. Okay. He was sick and he died in natural causes. A third individual that we had was murdered unrelated a gang, you know, unrelated to this case. But he was a gang member and unfortunately he was murdered. Okay. Let me ask you when you were talking about this is this is this stretched out over time? This is I'm sorry, yes, this is stretched out over years. You're not going to let this thing go. So we're still serving warrants three years
into this thing. Okay. In fact, you know A funny story is we got a phone call one time that it's not funny, but that we thought we knew where the murder weapon is and informant said, hey, there was just a robbery out in Bakersfield. These guys took over a casino or something if I got what it was exactly, and they were arrested. That gun is going to be used. That was the gun used in the murder of Janet. So you get excited. You know, it turned out it
wasn't, but it helped knowing that people are still thinking about it. People are still engaged now as time has gone by, As I said, people are older now, it's kind of not forgotten, but it's on the back burner in a lot of people's minds. What we're hoping today is that people do remember her and someone will step forward with just I mean, we're close, We are very very close. Like I said, if these other three, if bad things didn't happen to these other three individuals, that would have
put us over the top. Yeah, and so we know there are more people than that that are out there that even saw different pieces, saw the guys maybe running down the street with the weapons. These guys apparently some of them were we're talking, you know, right after the shooting, there was an alleged meeting where they explained what they did to a group of people because actually a witness overheard them. Some of the witnesses that we have again,
they're come and working folks. They were scared at the time, and you understand that when you think about it, these guys are just brazen. Yeah, because there were there were no ring cameras back then. No, so you really had to count on eyewitness testimony. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, And so we're hoping that again. You know, I've said this before in your show. It's been sixteen seventeen years. Now, people are older, people now have their own families, People change, and people become braver.
And maybe now someone will after hearing this your show, which you have a lot of listeners, someone will come forward and provide the information that we need. You know what, before we go to break, I want to ask you real quickly, with all your years working gangs, is it common or uncommon for members of a gang to do an unsanctioned shooting. It's more common than you might think. I mean, you know, when we get called to testify as an expert, a gang expert. They want to hear absolute.
It's absolutely when you join a gang you have to get jumped in. That's not true. You can walk into a gang if you have a family member who's a gang member, your legacy, your legacy, you walk into the gang right and when you leave a gang, there's there's some experts that will testify absolutely, you got to be jumped out. Again, totally untrue. So a person can do a shooting on their own without the approval of their gang. They the gang may not approve of it, but it happens
more way, more often than than you might think. Very good. Okay, we're going to talk more about this case. But first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFI AM six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand, I AM six forty live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app. This is Unsolved with Steve Gregory. Welcome back to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau. We're inside the headquarters for the detectives work
twenty four to seven to solve crimes. And then the body of that is also the Cult Case Unit. We're joined by detectives Sean McCarthy and rich Tomlin. We've been talking about a pair of deaths going back to the fall of six and they are separate cases, but they are also connected. And if you don't mind, Steve, I'd like to talk a little bit about the victims in this chase. Going ahead, Jane Alton Morano. We've already talked
about. There's a second victim in that in that tragic shooting. I'm not going to bring up her name, but I think she should be acknowledged because she was a victim in this case too. But what I really wanted to talk about more than anything, is the bottom line in both of these cases is Jane and Altamurano would not have been killed if it wasn't for the first murder. We wouldn't have been there that day if that first murder didn't occur.
And I believe wholeheartedly, and I think the evidence shows that Michael Vittel is the perpetrator of that first murder, and the district attorney felt that way, and we prosecuted him eventually. It took three years, but in twenty ten we ultimately tried him for the murder and if it wasn't for Michael Bettel's actions, we wouldn't have been at twenty one sixty three East one hundred and
seventeenth Street servant a search warn't on November two. Is there any way that Bital could ever be held reliable dow after the fact for the murder of the twelve year old? That's civil liability and that's not our I was curious of you're since you're sitting there kind of laying the blame at the bottom of his feet. I am absolutely yeah, But I just wondered if there was any other culpability on his part for the children. I'm sure that's a possibility,
but I'm not an expert in civil liability. Fair enough, I know if that was my daughter, I would have certainly pursued that avenue, you know, so so so that's why I'm so passionate about the first the first murder is if that one occurred, we had the second murder, and the tragedy of Janet Altimurran would not have it occurred. And I want to talk about, in my opinion, some additional tragedies in this case that if I could
go back in time, we would have done some things differently. And I talked earlier in one of the segments about how we served the search warm, how we brought the occupants gang members out onto the porch, how the porch was backled it by a light, and then it made it unknown to us easier for the suspects to shoot at those guys and ultimately killed Jannimer ult Morano by accident. Right. You know this, I'm sure some of your audience
knows this. Everybody in law enforcement knows this is that in a perfect world, we like to execute search warrants when there's less people around. So generally we tried to schedule them for very early in the morning, three four, five o'clock in the morning, so civilians are in their house, they're sleeping, they're not in harms way, and we can almost assure that someone getting
injured. The odds of that goes way down when you serve a search warrt or that's why we try to do them early in the morning, and we generally do. It's not unheard of to have a search warrant later in the day or in the afternoon. It happens, but in a perfect world, we try to do them early. And that was the plan for this case, We're going to serve those search warrants at three four o'clock in the morning.
But there became a scheduling conflict with some of the thirty members of the law enforcement that executed this search warrant, and there was a lot of discussion about moving this to a different time to accommodate those scheduling conflicts, and me and my partner, not Rich Shannon Learn, we discussed this, and we
discussed this. Do we put this warrant down and do it another day so we can do it in the early morning hour, or do we give in to the scheduling conflicts and do it in the late afternoon, knowing that more civilians are going to be out there and potentially get injured as a result of an ambush like this, an unknowing ambush happening. And I'm going to go to my grave and this, I don't care what your listeners think. It
may sound corny. It was the biggest mistake I've made in my life is rescheduling this, giving into the scheduling conflict, and doing this search warrant in the afternoon, Because if we were done this at four o'clock in the morning, jan and al To Morano would still be here. Yeah, but I know I know what you're gonna say. I know what you're gonna say, and deep down I understand what you're going to say. But you're not sitting in my seat. Okay, fair enough, fair enough? What do you
say to that rich I'm specchiless. There's nothing to say. Okay. So in the last minute or so we have left before the break, uh DETECTI McCarthy. You've mentioned before that the Tall was prosecuted, but was he ever convicted? He was prosecuted. He's tried two different two different occasions, and both times, both times the jury hung and the district attorney at some point has to make a decision. Do we try him a third time? Do
we try them a fourth time? Because as everybody knows, you got to have a unanimous verdict, right, all twelve have to vote guilty or innocent to get an acquittal, for innocence or to get a conviction. In this case, the numbers were somewhere in between. And I'll give you the numbers. Seventh for guilt and five for innocence in the first, six for guilt and six for innocent in the second. Now the district attorney has to make a decision decision do we prosecute him a third time or a fourth time?
And it's very expensive to prosecute. And don't get me wrong, that's not the first, second, or third consideration, but it is a consideration at some point. The bigger consideration is are we ever going to be able to convict them based on those numbers? So wait a minute, this guy is not in prison. No, okay, well that's what the additional tragedy. We're going to talk about this, but we got to take a break. We got to take a break, and I got to get a drink.
This is Unsolved with Steve Gregory. I Am six forty. You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. I Am six forty live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. Welcome back. We're wrapping things up here at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau.
We're talking with cold case detectives Sean McCarthy and rich Tomlin. The big bombshell from the last segment that I've finally pieced together is that Michael v Tall, the man the detective McCarthy said was the shooter that was prosecuted at least twice for the shooting death of Michael Johnson back in October of six, was never convicted. Correct, Correct, So what happened? You have plenty of evidence, didn't you? So? Yes, And I'll briefly discuss the evidence
again. We had an eyewitness who personally knew Michael Vitel, who grew up with him, so we had a good, strong, credible witness. We had cell phone evidence that clearly puts his cell phone on one hundred in the twenty one hundred block of East one hundred and seventeenth Street at the time of the murder. And although it wasn't the slam dunk case, if you will, I felt it was enough evidence certainly to convict him. Did you have
any good forensics? Not a lot of forensics, ballistics, No, the I told you I was excited during the search warm we had a gun, at least one gun that was same caliber. It was examine at our lab and ended up not being the weapon. Okay, but I still felt we had a convictable case, and the district attorney felt the same thing. So we prosecuted him. The first trial. I don't know if your audience, I know some of your audience knows this, but you have what's called a
preliminary hearing. It's a mini trial. Enough evidence, and in the middle of the preliminary hearing, the defense produces a VHS video because Michael Vitel claimed in a custolial interview his alibi was, I was at my grandson's birthday party
in the city of Carson at the time of the murder. Now we had his cell phone on one hundred and seventeenth Street, and they produced this video VHS video, and it had a time and a date, and it showed him him at this birthday party and clearly, and we went to the residence in Carson and he was clearly in that residence at the time. There was
clearly a birthday party and he was in it. And it showed a date and the time, the date of the murder and a time, and we drove that from Carson to one hundred and seventeenth Street, and based on the time on the video, you couldn't make it there in time to do the murder. But our argument was, and we had an expert from I believe it was Connectic could come out and testify. We're talking about the old days
of video recorders, and you have to manually change the time. And remember I told you that it was right around late it was the last few days October twenty eighth. Our argument was they never manually changed the time, and if they would have, there was plenty of time for him to get to one hundred and seventeenth Street and dude murder. And we had the cell phone
evidence and the story. Jury believes it, six five of them in the first trial and six of them in the second Triald bought the alibi and the jury hung Wow, and we never convicted him. Where's he at now? He's on the streets and I checked that yesterday based on databases that I use. He's still on the streets in the same area that this crime occurrent. So he got in your opinion, he got by with murder. There's no
question. It's hard to fathom that all of this work and effort and all this stuff that happened and you have him, for lack of a better phrase, dead rights and you couldn't convince a jury of it. Not you, but the DA's couldn't conf I was partially responsible for convincing the jury. I had to click the evidence. I think it was compelling that evidence, and
I think his alibi was impeached by us. But and this is just my personal opinion, and I've been given probably too many personal opinions today, is JURIES don't like to send somebody to prison for the rest of our life until they're absolutely sure, no doubt. It's not a reasonable it's beyond all doubt. And that happens sometimes, and I believe it happened in this Detective Tomlin.
Though we've got the three guys you were talking about that came over that fence, and I believe you said at least two of them opened fire during the service of that search warrant, which would be the ambush that resulted in the death of the twelve year old girl. Correct, Yes, because recovered at the scene where again AK forty seven or assault rifle shellcasings and also nine milimeters showcasings, and witnesses at the scene said they heard two distinct type of
guns being fired. So now Detective McCarthy has identified the shooter in the in this first murder, you say yours is still unsolved. So do you know who shot based on the information that we were provided from witnesses again some who are too who are deceased, and one who's in state prison. We're very comfortable with who we believe is responsible, as you well know, is not what you believe is what you can prove. Now. One of the individuals,
and I want to clarify something. One of the individuals is in state prison right now. One of the guys, one of the three guys, he's not convicted on this case. He is in state prison on another I believe it's a gun charge. Actually, Okay, one of the individuals is still around, and the third individual I have not been able to track down. I don't know if he left the state or exactly what has happened to him. We're very comfortable, very confident. In that area where the shooting
occurred. People stay. There is generation stay in those homes, a single family residents, and we believe or I believe that with the help of this radio show, someone will come forward, for some ones, several people with information that will put it over the top. We're very close with the with the information that we have to being able to make arrests however, we need
that extra push. We're talking about an incident from November two of twenty oh six at six twenty one pm at twenty one sixty three East one hundred and seventeenth Street and unincorporated Los Angeles. It was an ambush which resulted in the inadvertent shooting death of twelve year old Janet Alta Morano. Gentlemen, thank you
for always bringing us compelling cases, and to you, Detective Tomlin. I hope someone out there remembers the situation or the incident from November two of two thousand and six in the twenty one hundred block of East one hundred and seventeenth Street. Three men come over a fence open fire on what they think was going to be retaliation for the previous smart that happened October twenty eighth of twenty oh six, and instead a twelve year old girl was killed and a fifteen
year old girl was wounded. So, gentlemen, always a pleasure. Thank you so much for being with us again. Thanks Steve for giving us the opportunity to talk about this, and that's going to do it Unsolved with Steve Gregory. The radio show is a production of the KFI News Department for iHeartMedia, Los Angeles, and is produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez. Our field engineer is Tony Sorrentino. To hear this and other episodes, just download
Unsolved with Steve Gregory on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen. This is KFI AM six forty KFI AM six forty on demand