“It was her stage name, I guess you would call it. She was an actress. She changed her name. Her real name was Jody Krementz.”
The judge interrupted and asked Bosch to spell the names for the court reporter, then Langwiser continued.
“Tell us the circumstances of the call out. Walk us through it, Detective Bosch. Where were you, what were you doing, how did this become your case?”
Bosch cleared his throat and had reached to the microphone to pull it closer when he remembered what happened the last time. He left the microphone where it was and leaned forward to it.
“My two partners and I were eating lunch at a restaurant called Musso and Frank’s on Hollywood Boulevard. It was Friday and we usually eat there if we have the time. At eleven forty-eight my pager went off. I recognized the number as belonging to my supervisor, Lieutenant Grace Billets. While I was calling her, the pagers of my partners, Jerry Edgar and Kizmin Rider, also went off. At that point we knew we had probably drawn a case. I got ahold of Lieutenant Billets and she directed my team to one-thousand-one Nichols Canyon Road, where patrol officers had earlier responded along with paramedics to an emergency call at that location. They reported a young woman was found dead in her bed under suspicious circumstances.”
“You then went to the address?”
“No. I had driven all three of us to Musso’s. So I drove back to the Hollywood station, which is a few blocks away, and dropped off my partners so they could get their own vehicles. Then all three of us proceeded separately to the address. You never know where you might have to go from a crime scene. It’s good procedure for each detective to have his or her own car.”
“At this time did you know who the victim was or what the suspicious circumstances of her death were?”
“No, I did not.”
“What did you find when you got there?”
“It was a small two-bedroom house overlooking the canyon. Two patrol cars were on the scene. The paramedics had already left once it was determined the victim was dead. Inside the house were two patrol officers and a patrol sergeant. In the living room there was a woman seated on the couch. She was crying. She was introduced to me as Jane Gilley. She shared the house with Ms. Krementz.”
Bosch stopped there and waited for a question. Langwiser was bent over the prosecution table whispering to her co-prosecutor, Roger Kretzler.
“Ms. Langwiser, does that conclude your questioning of Detective Bosch?” Judge Houghton asked.
Langwiser jerked upright, not having noticed that Bosch had stopped.
“No, Your Honor.”
She moved back to the lectern.
“Go on, Detective Bosch, tell us what happened after you entered the house.”
“I spoke to Sergeant Kim and he informed me that there was a young woman who was deceased in her bed in the bedroom to the right rear of the house. He introduced the woman on the couch and he said that his people had backed out of the bedroom without disturbing anything once the paramedics determined that the victim was dead. I then went down the short hallway to the bedroom and entered.”
“What did you find in there?”
“I saw the victim in the bed. She was a white female of slim build and blond hair. Her identification would later be confirmed as Jody Krementz, age twenty-three.”
Langwiser asked permission to show a set of photographs to Bosch. Houghton allowed it and Bosch identified the police evidence photos as being that of the victim in situ – as the body had been seen at first by police. The body was face up. The bedclothes were pulled to the side to reveal the body to be nude with the legs spread about two feet apart at the knees. The large breasts held their full shape despite the body being in a horizontal position, an indication of breast implants. The left arm was extended over the stomach. The palm of the left hand covered the pubic region. Two fingers of the left hand penetrated the vagina.
The victim’s eyes were closed and her head rested on a pillow but at a sharp angle to her neck. Wrapped tightly around her neck was a yellow scarf with one end looped up and over the top crossbar of the bed’s headboard. The end of the scarf came off the crossbar and extended to the victim’s right hand on the pillow above her head. The end of the silk scarf was wrapped several times around the hand.
The photographs were in color. A purplish-red bruise could be seen on the victim’s neck where the scarf had tightened against the skin. There was a rouge-like discoloration in and around the eye sockets. There was also a bluish discoloration running down the complete left side of the body, including the left arm and leg.
After Bosch identified the photographs as being that of Jody Krementz in situ, Langwiser asked that they be shown to the jury. J. Reason Fowkkes objected, stating that the photos would be highly inflammatory and prejudicial for jurors to see. The judge overruled the objection but told Langwiser to choose just one photo which would be representative of the lot. Langwiser chose the photo taken closest to the victim and it was handed to a man who sat in the first seat of the jury. While the photo was slowly passed from juror to juror and then to the alternates, Bosch watched their faces tighten with shock and horror. He pushed back on his seat and drank from a paper cup of water. After he drained it he caught the eye of the sheriff’s deputy and signaled for a refill. He then pulled himself back close to the microphone.
After the photo made its way through the jury, it was delivered to the clerk. It would be returned to the jurors, along with all other exhibits presented during the trial, during deliberation of a verdict.
Bosch watched Langwiser return to the lectern to continue the questioning. He knew she was nervous. They’d had lunch together in the basement cafeteria of the other court building and she had voiced her concerns. Though she was second seat to Kretzler, it was a big trial with potential career enhancing or destroying aspects for both of them.
She checked her legal pad before going on. “Detective Bosch, did there come a time after you had inspected the body that you declared the death to be subject to a homicide investigation?”
“Right away – before my partners even got there.”
“Why is that? Did it not appear to be an accidental death?”
“No, it -”
“Ms. Langwiser,” Judge Houghton interrupted. “One question at a time, please.”
“Sorry, Your Honor. Detective, did it not appear to you that the woman may have accidentally killed herself?”
“No, it did not. It appeared to me that someone attempted to make it look that way.”
Langwiser looked down at her pad for a long moment before going on. Bosch was pretty sure the pause was planned, now that the photograph and his testimony had secured the full attention of the jury.
“Detective, are you familiar with the term autoerotic asphyxia?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Could you please explain it to the jury?”
Fowkkes stood up and objected.
“Y’Honor, Detective Bosch may be a lot of things but there has been no proffer made to the court that he is an expert in human sexuality.”
There was a murmur of quiet laughter in the courtroom. Bosch saw a couple of the jurors suppress smiles. Houghton hit his gavel once and looked at Langwiser.
“What about that, Ms. Langwiser?”
“Your Honor, I can make a proffer.”
“Proceed.”
“Detective Bosch, you said you have worked hundreds of homicides. Have you investigated deaths that turned out not to be caused by homicide?”
“Yes, probably hundreds of those as well. Accidental deaths, suicides, even deaths by natural causes. It is routine for a homicide detective to be called out to a death scene by patrol officers to help in making a determination as to whether a death should be investigated as a homicide. This is what happened in this case. The patrol officers and their sergeant weren’t sure what they had. They called it in as suspicious and my team got the call out.”
“Have you ever been called out or investigated a death that was ruled, either by you or the medical examiner’s office, an accidental death by autoerotic asphyxia?”
