Deputy DA Alex Kennedy said that recently completed DNA analysis on the victim’s clothing revealed a match between a small amount of bodily fluid found on the clothing and a serial rapist named Lucas John Olmer, who was known to be operating in Los Angeles at the time. Olmer was later convicted of sexual assault in several other unrelated cases and died in prison in 2015.
Kennedy said investigators now believe that it was Olmer who murdered Skyler and may also have been responsible for two other murders of young women that police initially suspected Borders of but never filed charges on.
“We think it was Olmer who stalked and murdered her, entering through a balcony door that had been left unlocked,” Kennedy said. “He was a serial offender who stalked victims in that area.”
Court documents obtained by the Times reveal that Borders and his attorney Lance Cronyn have claimed that the jewelry found in Borders’s apartment was planted there by a detective who was the lead investigator on the case.
“This has been a gross miscarriage of justice,” Cronyn said. “Mr. Borders has lost more than half of his life because of this.”
Cronyn and court documents identify the two detectives who conducted the search of the apartment and reported finding the piece of jewelry in a secret compartment as Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch and Francis Sheehan. The Times has learned that Sheehan is deceased and Bosch retired from the LAPD three years ago.
Bosch testified during the trial in 1988 that he found the jewelry — described as a sea-horse pendant — hidden in the false bottom of a bookshelf during the search of Borders’s apartment. Borders, an actor who knew Skyler from auditions and workshops, was arrested shortly after the discovery.
Bosch could not be reached for comment for this story. He was well known as an LAPD detective for more than three decades and was involved in many high-profile investigations. He now works as a volunteer detective for the San Fernando Police Department. Last week he was involved in the investigation of two pharmacists who were murdered during a suspected robbery at a drugstore in the main shopping area of the small town in the San Fernando Valley.
The story jumped inside from there, but Bosch had read enough and was not inclined to unfold the section to the page with his photograph. He was aware that everyone crowded into the room now was watching him and knew what the newspaper report said about him.
He put the paper down on the floor next to his chair. It had no doubt been a hit piece orchestrated by either Cronyn or Kennedy. There was no mention, before the jump at least, of an opposing view of Borders’s innocence. No mention that Mickey Haller had by now hopefully filed a motion seeking to stop the D.A.’s action.
Bosch looked up at the faces lining both sides of the table. Opposite him at the other end was Hovan. And next to him was Joe Smith, his UC trainer.
“Okay, two things before we start,” Bosch said. “I haven’t had a shower since Wednesday and I apologize for that. If you think it’s funky from where you’re sitting, just be glad you’re not where I am. The other thing is that the story today in the Times is complete bullshit. I planted no evidence in that or any other case and Preston Borders will never walk free. You can check back after the hearing Wednesday, and the Times will be running a story that says so.”
Bosch checked the faces in the room. There were a few nods of approval, but for the most part the investigators in the room gave no indication whether they believed him or not. It was what he had expected.
“Okay, then,” he said. “The sooner we get to this, the sooner I get to a shower. How do you want to start?”
He looked down the length of the table to Hovan. It was his agency’s RV. Bosch figured that made him the man in charge.
“We’ll have questions, but I think you can start anywhere you want,” Hovan said. “Why don’t you give us the headlines and go from there?”
Bosch nodded.
“Well, the big headline is that there is no Santos anymore,” he said. “The Russians threw him out of a plane into the Salton Sea. One of them told me that right before they were going to do the same to me.”
“Why would he tell you that?” asked an agent Bosch didn’t know. “Russians don’t usually break so easy.”
“He didn’t break,” Bosch said. “He was about to kill me. He had the upper hand and wanted to gloat, I guess. He also indicated that he and his partner, the one who jumped, killed the father and son in the pharmacy Monday.”
“Indicated?” Lourdes said.
“Yes, indicated,” Bosch said. “I asked him straight out if they had killed the father and son. He didn’t deny it. He said that they got what they deserved. He was smiling when he said it. But soon after that, things changed and I got the upper hand. That’s when I killed him.”
30
They kept him for three hours in the mobile command post, at least half of that time spent going into great detail about what had happened that morning on the plane. All parties except for Edgar, the medical board investigator, had stakes in the death investigation and had questions to cover. Because the actual killing of the Russian occurred in the air over the Salton Sea, it became a jurisdictional dilemma. It was agreed that the National Transportation Safety Board would be apprised of the death, but the LAPD would handle the lead because the plane with the body on board touched land at Whiteman Airport in the city of Los Angeles.
The session in the command post was followed by a two-hour walk-through in the constricted confines of the plane, during which Bosch tried to show the investigators what he had been talking about for the previous three hours. It was agreed at the end that Bosch would make himself available later in the week for follow-up questions from all agencies. He was released at about the same time as the body of the Russian he had referred to as Ivan was removed from the plane and transported to the Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsy.
Meanwhile, he was told, the DEA was putting together a raid team to hit the encampment near Slab City and gather up the remaining players in the drug operation. It was decided that a media blackout would be kept tight on the case until that raid had concluded.
Bosch was given a ride back to the SFPD station by Lourdes. He had left his Jeep there as well as his real ID and cell phone. She also had to collect his bloody clothes as evidence in the use of the deadly force investigation. He lowered the window as they drove because he couldn’t stand his own stink.
“You going to talk to Mrs. Esquivel about all of this?” he asked.
“I think we should wait until we get the all clear from the DEA,” Lourdes said. “You want to go with me?”
“Nah. She’ll be more comfortable with you and speaking Spanish. It’s your case.”
“Yeah, but you cleared it.”
“I won’t feel certain of that until they find Igor.”
“Right, well, more salt, more buoyancy. They’ll find him one way or the other.”
She knew who both Ivan and Igor were from the debriefing. Assigning names to the various principals had made it easier to tell the story, but the truth was, no one knew the real names of any of the individuals. Bosch thought about that and remembered the woman with the stars on her hand, another person he didn’t have a real name for.
“What happened with the woman Edgar and Hovan popped at the pharmacy on Saturday?”