“Detective Kinder, I know we will be hearing from the medical examiner later in the trial, but you testified that you were informed after the autopsy that the time of death of Mrs. Elliot and Mr. Rilz was estimated to be between eleven a.m. and noon on the day of the murders.”
“That is correct.”
“Was it closer to eleven or closer to noon?”
“It’s impossible to tell for sure. That is just the time frame in which it happened.”
“Okay, and once you had that frame, you then proceeded to make sure that the man you had already arrested had no alibi, correct?”
“I would not put it that way, no.”
“Then, how would you put it?”
“I would say that it was my obligation to continue to investigate the case and prepare it for trial. Part of that due diligence would be to keep an open mind to the possibility that the suspect had an alibi for the murders. In carrying out that obligation, I determined according to multiple interviews as well as records kept at the gate at Archway Studios that Mr. Elliot left the studio, driving by himself, at ten forty that morning. This gave him plenty of time to-”
“Thank you, Detective. You’ve answered the question.”
“I haven’t finished my answer.”
Golantz stood and asked the judge if the witness could finish his answer, and Stanton allowed it. Kinder continued in his Homicide 101 tone.
“As I was saying, this gave Mr. Elliot plenty of time to get to the Malibu house within the parameters of the estimated time of death.”
“Did you say plenty of time to get there?”
“Enough time.”
“Earlier you described making the drive yourself several times. When was that?”
“The first time was exactly one week after the murders. I left the gatehouse at Archway at ten forty in the morning and drove to the Malibu house. I arrived at eleven forty-two, well within the murder window.”
“How did you know that you were taking the same route that Mr. Elliot would have taken?”
“I didn’t. So I just took what I considered the most obvious and quickest route that somebody would take. Most people don’t take the long cut. They take the short cut – the shortest amount of time to their destination. From Archway I took Melrose to La Brea and then La Brea down to the ten. At that point I headed west to the Pacific Coast Highway.”
“How did you know that the traffic you encountered would be the same that Mr. Elliot encountered?”
“I didn’t.”
“Traffic in Los Angeles can be a very unpredictable thing, can it not?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you drove the route several times?”
“One reason, yes.”
“Okay, Detective Kinder, you testified that you drove the route a total of five times and got to the Malibu house each time before your so-called murder window closed, right?”
“Correct.”
“In regard to these five driving tests, what was the earliest time you got to the house in Malibu?”
Kinder looked at his notes.
“That would have been the first time, when I got there at eleven forty-two.”
“And what was the worst time?”
“The worst?”
“What was the longest drive time you recorded during your five trips?”
Kinder checked his notes again.
“The latest I got there was eleven fifty-one.”
“Okay, so your best time was still in the last third of the window the medical examiner set for the time of these murders, and your worst time would have left Mr. Elliot less than ten minutes to sneak into his house and murder two people. Correct?”
“Yes, but it could have been done.”
“Could have? You don’t sound very confident, Detective.”
“I am very confident that the defendant had the time to commit these murders.”
“But only if the murders took place at least forty-two minutes after the killing window opened, correct?”
“If you want to look at it that way.”
“It’s not how I am looking at it, Detective. I’m working with what the medical examiner has given us. So, in summary for the jury, you are saying that Mr. Elliot left his studio at ten forty and got all the way out to Malibu, snuck into his house, surprised his wife and her lover in the upstairs bedroom and killed them both, all before that window slammed shut at noon. Do I have all of that right?”
“Essentially. Yes.”
I shook my head as if it was a lot to swallow.
“Okay, Detective, let’s move on. Please tell the jury how many times you began the driving route to Malibu but broke it off when you knew that you weren’t going to make it before that window closed at noon.”
“That never happened.”
But there had been a slight hesitation in Kinder’s response. I was sure the jury picked up on it.
“Yes or no, Detective, if I were to produce records and even video that showed you started at the Archway gate at ten forty in the morning seven times and not five, then those records would be false?”
Kinder’s eyes flicked to Golantz and then back to me.
“What you’re suggesting happened didn’t happen,” he said.
“And you’re not answering the question, Detective. Once again, yes or no: If I introduced records that showed you conducted your driving study at least seven times but have only testified to five times, would those records be false?”
“No, but I didn’t-”
“Thank you, Detective. I only asked for a yes or no response.”
Golantz stood and asked the judge to allow the witness to fully answer the question but Stanton told him he could take it up on redirect. But now I hesitated. Knowing that Golantz would go after Kinder’s explanation on redirect, I had the opportunity to get it now and possibly still control it and turn the admission to my advantage. It was a gamble because at the moment, I felt I had dinged him pretty good, and if I went with him until court adjourned for the day, then the jurors would go home with police suspicion percolating in their brains. That was never a bad thing.
I decided to risk it and try to control it.
“Detective, tell us how many of these test drives you broke off before reaching the house in Malibu.”
“There were two.”
“Which ones?”
“The second time and the last time – the seventh.”
I nodded.
“And you stopped these because you knew you would never make it to the house in Malibu within the murder window, correct?”
“No, that’s very incorrect.”
“Then, what was the reason you stopped the test drives?”
“One time, I was called back to the office to conduct an interview of somebody waiting there, and the other time, I was listening to the radio and I heard a deputy call for backup. I diverted to back him up.”
“Why didn’t you document these in your report on your driving time investigation?”
“I didn’t think they were germane, because they were incomplete tests.”
“So these incompletes were not documented anywhere in that thick file of yours?”
“No, they were not.”
“And so we have only your word about what caused you to stop them before reaching the Elliot house in Malibu, correct?”
“That would be correct.”
I nodded and decided I had flogged him enough on this front. I knew Golantz could rehabilitate Kinder on redirect, maybe even come up with documentation of the calls that pulled Kinder off the Malibu route. But I hoped that I had raised at least a question of trust in the minds of the jurors. I took my small victory and moved on.
I next hammered Kinder on the fact that there was no murder weapon recovered and that his six-month investigation of Walter Elliot had never linked him to a gun of any sort. I hit this from several angles so that Kinder had to repeatedly acknowledge that a key part of the investigation and prosecution was never located, even though if Elliot was the killer, he’d had little time to hide the weapon.