The Scarecrow

While we were making the rounds and the introductions in the police headquarters at Parker Center we picked up a nice little murder story in the Open-Unsolved Unit. A twenty-year-old rape and murder of an elderly woman had been cleared when DNA collected from the victim in 1989 was unearthed in case archives and run through the state Department of Justice’s sex crimes data bank. The match was called a cold hit. The DNA collected from the victim belonged to a man currently doing time at Pelican Bay for an attempted rape. The cold case investigators would put together a case and indict the guy before he ever got a chance at parole up there. It wasn’t that flashy, because the bad guy was already behind bars, but it was worth eight inches. People like to read stories that reinforce the idea that bad people don’t always get away. Especially in an economic downturn, when it’s so easy to be cynical.

When we got back to the newsroom I asked Angela to write it up-her first story on the beat-while I tried to run down Wanda Sessums, my angry caller from the Friday before.

Since there was no record of her call to the Times switchboard and a quick check with directory assistance had turned up no listing for Wanda Sessums in any of L.A.’s area codes, I next called Detective Gilbert Walker at the Santa Monica Police Department. He was the lead investigator on the case that resulted in Alonzo Winslow’s arrest in the murder of Denise Babbit. I guess you could say it was a cold call. I had no relationship with Walker, as Santa Monica didn’t come up very often on the news radar. It was a relatively safe beach town between Venice and Malibu that had a pressing homeless problem but not much of a murder problem. The police department investigated only a handful of homicides each year and most of these weren’t newsworthy. More often than not they were body dump cases like Denise Babbit’s. The murder occurs somewhere else-like the south end of L. A.-and the beach cops are left to clean up the mess.

My call found Walker at his desk. His voice seemed friendly enough until I identified myself as a reporter with the Times. Then it went cold. That happened often. I had spent seven years on the beat and had many cops in many departments that I counted as sources and even friends. In a jam, I could reach out. But sometimes you don’t get to pick who you have to reach out to. The bottom line is you can never get them all in your corner. The media and the police have never been on comfortable terms. The media views itself as the public watchdog. And nobody, the police included, likes having somebody looking over their shoulder. There was a chasm between the two institutions into which trust had fallen long before I was ever around. Consequently, it made things tough for the lowly beat reporter who just needs a few facts to fill out a story.

“What can I do for you?” Walker said in a clipped tone.

“I’m trying to reach Alonzo Winslow’s mother and I was wondering if you might be able to help.”

“And who is Alonzo Winslow?”

I was about to say, Come on, Detective, when I realized I wasn’t supposed to know the suspect’s name. There were laws about releasing the names of juveniles charged with crimes.

“Your suspect in the Babbit case.”

“How do you know that name? I’m not confirming that name.”

“I understand that, Detective. I’m not asking you to confirm the name. I know the name. His mother called me on Friday and gave me the name. Trouble is, she didn’t give me her phone number and I’m just trying to get back in-”

“Have a nice day,” Walker said, interrupting and then hanging up the phone.

I leaned back in my desk chair, noting to myself that I needed to tell Angela Cook that the nobility I mentioned earlier did not reside in all cops.

“Asshole,” I said out loud.

I drummed my fingers on the desk until I came up with a new plan-the one I should have employed in the first place.

I opened a line and called a detective who was a source in the South Bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department and who I knew had been involved in the Winslow arrest. The case had originated in the city of Santa Monica because the victim had been found in the trunk of her car in a parking lot near the pier. But the LAPD became involved when evidence from the murder scene led to Alonzo Winslow, a resident of South L.A.

Following established protocol, Santa Monica contacted Los Angeles, and a team of South Bureau detectives intimately familiar with the turf were used to locate Winslow, take him into custody and then turn him over to Santa Monica. Napoleon Braselton was one of those South Bureau guys. I called him now and was flat-out honest with him. Well, almost.

“Remember the bust two weeks ago for the girl in the trunk?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s Santa Monica,” he said. “We just helped out.”

“Yeah, I know. You guys took Winslow down for them. That’s what I’m calling about.”

“It’s still their case, man.”

“I know but I can’t get a hold of Walker over there and I don’t know anybody else in that department. But I know you. And I want to ask about the arrest, not the case.”

“What, is there a beef? We didn’t touch that kid.”

“No, Detective, no beef. Far as I know, it was a righteous bust. I’m just trying to find the kid’s house. I want to go see where he was living, maybe talk to his mother.”

“That’s fine but he was living with his grandmother.”

“You sure?”

“The information we got in the briefing was that he was with the grandmother. We were the big bad wolves hitting grandma’s house. There was no father in the picture and the mother was in and out, living on the street. Drugs.”

“Okay, then I’ll talk to the grandmother. Where’s the place?”

“You’re just cruising on down to say hello?”

He said it in a disbelieving tone and I knew that was because I was white and would likely be unwelcome in Alonzo Winslow’s neighborhood.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take somebody with me. Strength in numbers.”

“Good luck. Don’t get your ass shot until after I go off watch at four.”

“I’ll do my best. What’s the address, do you remember?”

“It’s in Rodia Gardens. Hold on.”

He put the phone down while he looked up the exact address. Rodia Gardens was a huge public housing complex in Watts that was like a city unto itself. A dangerous city. It was named after Simon Rodia, the artist who had created one of the wonders of the city. The Watts Towers. But there wasn’t anything wonderful about Rodia Gardens. It was the kind of place where poverty, drugs and crime had cycled for decades. Multiple generations of families living there and unable to get out and break free. Many of them had grown up having never been to the beach or on an airplane or even to a movie in a theater.

Braselton came back on and gave me the full address but said he had no phone number. I then asked if he had a name for the grandmother and he gave me the name I already had, Wanda Sessums.

Bingo. My caller. She had either lied about being the young suspect’s mother or the police had their information wrong. Either way, I now had an address and would hopefully soon put a face with the voice that had berated me the Friday before.

After ending the call with Braselton I got up from my cubicle and wandered back into the photo department. I saw a photo editor named Bobby Azmitia at the assignment desk and asked if he had any floaters currently out and about. He looked down at his personnel log and named two photographers who were out in their cars looking for wild art-photographs unconnected to news events that could be used to splash color on a section front. I knew both of the floaters and one of them was black. I asked Azmitia if Sonny Lester could break free to take a ride with me down the 110 Freeway and he agreed to offer the photographer up. We made arrangements for me to be picked up outside the globe lobby in fifteen minutes.

Back in the newsroom I checked with Angela on the Open-Unsolved Unit story and then went over to the raft to talk to my ace. Prendergast was busy typing up the day’s first story budget. Before I could say anything he said, “I already got a slug from Angela.”

A slug and budget line were a one-word title for a story and a line of description that was put on the overall story budget so when editors gathered around the table in the daily news meeting they would know what was being produced for the web and print editions and could discuss what was an important story, what wasn’t, and