Arcadia: April 2008 Archives

Arcadia police released a photo Wednesday of a man suspected of participating in a bank robbery that netted $3,600.

The robbery, which occurred about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday occurred in the HSBC Bank at 1107 S. Baldwin Avenue.

Pasadena Star-News city editor did a little enterprising reporting on the arraignment of Brandon Landreth at the Pasadena courthouse this a.m.

Landreth is acused of killing Justo Cesar Morlaes then skating off from the scene of the crime on Canyon Drive in Arcadia.

Here's what Hector found out(this comes from an IM Hector sent):

From the notebook ...

One of the unique features of the vast Los Angeles County bureaucracy can be found in the Department of Coroner.

Unlike most other California counties, the coroner is not elected and the head medical examiner doesn’t report to the Sheriff’s Department.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s when Dr. Thomas Noguchi headed the department, that separation sometimes caused local politicians and law enforcement tons of headaches. Noguchi, known as “coroner to the stars,” did press conferences, held public inquests, and sometimes made rulings that flew in the face of conventional wisdom.

Two, even three decades later, the memory of Noguchi looms large in many ways. Even if nothing (except the retro concrete buildings on North Mission) else is remotely the same.

“There’s way more technology,” said Ed Winter, a former Arcadia police officer who is now the Department of Coroner’s assistant chief of operations. “You can’t just make guesses anymore. I’m not saying Noguchi guessed, but we have much more data and much more information now.”

Even with all that technology, and all those new forms of information, medical examiners and investigators apparently have been unable to determine how Liya “Jessie” Lu died, according to prosecutors in the case.

Lu, 31, disappeared in August after being dropped off at her boyfriend’s home in San Gabriel. Police pleaded for help locating the woman. A couple of weeks later her body was found stuffed into a plastic trash can and covered with kitty litter.

Her boyfriend, Isaac Campbell, 32, became the object of a nationwide manhunt. He turned up hiding out in a low-budget motel on the outskirts of Minneapolis in mid-September. Campbell fought extradition to California and lost.

But, he’s been able to stave off arraignment in the case because of the lack of a coroner’s report, officials said.

Last week, Superior Court Judge Carlos Uranga postponed arraignment in the case until May 6, primarily because of the lack of information.

On Monday, Winter said the coroner’s report and autopsy results for Lu remain on a security hold. He was unable to discuss the specifics of either. Case watchers will have to hold their collective breath another month to see where this one goes.

X X X

Hey readers, I want you to know that I analyze all the e-mails you send — as well as cards and letters. Thanks to all of you for some timely tips; you guys are the eyes and ears of the Crime Scene Blog and column on the streets of the SGV and I really appreciate the input.

That said, I must apologize to several of you for my tardiness responding to e-mails. Guess that makes it about time for a New Year’s resolution.

Brandon Michael Landreth, suspected in the Sunday slaying of Justo Morales holds a California state teaching credential and was teaching at Muir High when arrested in the case, according to preliminary information.

A commenter here said Landreth and Morales were involved in a love triangle that went sour. We have no evidence of that, however Landreth and his wife recently divorced.

Neighbors on Canyon Road in Arcadia where Morales was killed were guarded when speaking to reporter Robert Hong who visited the scene this afternoon.

In Monrovia, where Landreath and his estranged wife lived, neighbors said little about the couple.

For now Ladreath is being held at the Twin Towers jail on a no bail warrant. He will be arraigned Friday, authorities said.

Arcadia police announced they've made an arrest in the shooting death of Justo Cesar Morales, 25, of Arcadia. Officers found Morales at about 1:40 p.m. Sunday, dead inside his parents' home in the 2200 block of Canyon Road.

Brandon Michael Landreth, 30, of Monrovia was arrested in Pasadena last night in connection with the killing he is being held in Twin Towers without bail. Arraignment is scheduled for Friday.

We were tipped to this information from a Crime Scene reader. Thank you.

Arcadia police officers, who had no problem talking to us during their contract dispute, refused to discuss the case beyond the basics with reporter Robert Hong.

That's OK though, we're still going to get the whole story for tomorrow's paper.

What a week.

Violence erupted on our freeways. Crooks took pot shots at police officers and the cops shot back. Someone executed an Arcadia man inside his parents' home. The Department of Coroner attempted to sort out the details surrounding the strange death of a Pico Rivera man found dead in a Ford sedan the morning after his wedding.

Two kindly grandfathers working as car salesmen in East Los Angeles were herded into a back room and blasted. Twenty minutes later, and a block or so away, two other guys were killed in a drive-by.

Oh, and the parents of Moe the chimp encountered a purse snatcher Sunday at a Target store in West Covina.

On Wednesday afternoon, St. James and LaDonna Davis held a press conference at attorney Gloria Allred's office in a Wilshire Boulevard highrise overlooking the Hollywood Hills to discuss the incident.

"How could she do this to me?" St. James said. "I keep asking myself 'why, why, why do I have such bad luck?'"

This is news.

As proof, TMZ.com was streaming live and KTLA, KABC, KCBS, KCAL and KTTV all sent their heaviest hitters.

There's a huge file of stories about Moe the chimp in the newspaper's morgue dating back a decade or so. Most have pictures. The saddest shows St. James Davis wailing as his "son" is carted away from the family's West Covina home in September 1999.

The most recent mention comes from 2005. Chimps attacked and mauled St. James on the grounds of Moe's new home, the Animal Haven Ranch in Caliente.

As a result of the attack and 60 surgeries, St. James' face is disfigured and he is confined to a wheelchair. He could only sit and watch Sunday as LaDonna's purse was taken from their shopping cart. On Wednesday, 15 of my colleagues were there to chronicle this latest twist of the Davises.

After all, who doesn't like monkeys or stories about monkeys? (Yes I know Moe's a chimp — but in a generic sense he's a monkey.)

Monkeys are funny. It's in their genes. Every time I think about the chain-smoking Mr. Teeny, Krusty the Clown's sidekick on "The Simpsons," I smile. I put Ronald Reagan right up there in the pantheon of presidents, but who can remember a single movie of his other than "Bedtime for Bonzo"?

I must admit, I stifled a grin when I saw how much attention the Davises' case got.

In that context, who can blame Allred for using the chimp to make chumps of the local media?

"They are on a fixed income and are still coping with the life-changing consequence of the attack by the chimps," Allred said. "LaDonna spends her days caring for St. James, feeding him, bathing him, helping him in and out of his wheelchair and taking him to doctors."

For most of us, a purse snatching winds up with the police taking a report, and the bank and credit card companies taking their sweet time to return your lost plastic.

Don't forget the line at the DMV taking a century or so to navigate just to get a paper license and a new picture.

I know. My wife, Rosie, and I lived this once. When our son Matthew was born at San Gabriel Valley Medical Center, he had to spend the first week of his life in the neonatal ward in an induced coma.

It's one of those secure and supposedly clean wards of the hospital. Everyone has to scrub down. Purses and other personal items need to be left on a table away from the sick babies.

One Sunday when we were visiting the little guy, someone walked off with Rosie's purse. I think we called in a report to the police.

Eventually the wallet came back, with a note that said, "sorry." But the plastic and the money was gone. I guess someone needed it more than we did.

And that was that.

Maybe we would have scored it all back if Matt had been born a monkey.

I received the email below after posting this entry on the homicide in Arcadia. I've redacted the writer's name because its unimportant.

Here's the letter:  

I think it's interesting how very glib you are being about this murder.  Have you been to the area of the crime, Canyon Road?  Do you really think it's "ritzy"?  What a ridiculous word to describe an area of canyon homes- they are for the most part not ostentatious, not shiny, not over the top.  The word  "ritzy" immediately sets you up to look immature and not objective.   Is this murder any less horrifying because it happened in Arcadia?

Get over yourself.