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TwitThisAn Unlikely Tip
The backlog of cold cases grows longer each year. Of the more than 560 homicides committed annually in Los Angeles, almost 50 percent go unsolved.Lisa Kahn, head of the DA's forensic sciences division, and David Lambkin of LAPD's cold case unit, are leading the effort to crack the city's cold cases by using modern technology, including tracking software, DNA evidence (blood, hair and semen) and computerized databases of fingerprints and ballistics records. The work began in 2001 with a $50 million state grant to cover the costs of examining DNA in unsolved sexual assault cases. The grant allowed detectives to review cases using a state database containing 300,000 DNA samples from known offenders. To date, investigators in L.A. have solved 28 cold cases and are hopeful of solving another 50 this year.
Kahn first became fascinated with forensics when she tried a double rape case in the late '80s. It was the first case in L.A. County in which DNA was entered as evidence, and it introduced Kahn to the world of genetic profiling. Because the rapist wore a mask, his victims could not identify him. Kahn obtained blood samples from the suspect that, when tested against semen left in the victims' bodies, produced a DNA match.
"I look at an old case like a big forensic puzzle," says Kahn. "You can tell a lot from DNA testing -- whether there were multiple perpetrators, for example, or whether a victim was killed, or dumped, at the scene."
Not all cold cases are solved using DNA. Fingerprint evidence can be a helpful tool, and it would prove key in the El Segundo officers' murder case. Before computerized fingerprint databases were developed in the mid-'80s, detectives had to come up with a suspect and then compare prints on file, often with limited results.
With advances in technology, however, fingerprints can now be scanned directly into huge computer systems. "We can take a fingerprint from a crime scene, process it and search it against prints in the database," says Lambkin, "which can tell us who the suspect is instead of vice versa."
That's precisely what happened in the 1957 case, which was reopened in the fall of 2002 after investigators, out of the blue, received a tip. A man dying of cancer informed police that his kid brother, years earlier, had boasted of killing the El Segundo officers. When detectives checked out the kid brother, they determined that he wasn't credible.
"He took credit for all sorts of crimes," says Deputy DA Levine, "including killing Robert Kennedy. But the tip, though irrelevant, stirred up interest in the case."
By then, fingerprint analysis had come a long way. In July 1999, the FBI completed compiling its Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), a nationwide fingerprint database containing some 40 million prints of known offenders. Detectives assigned to the 1957 case ran its composite of the prints from the Ford through the database, then waited expectantly to see what would come back.
"I'll never forget the moment when I got the phone call from the crime lab analyst who said we had a match," recalls Lt. Craig Cleary, head of El Segundo's detective unit. "I thought he was kidding. 'Are you sure?' I asked."
"I'm certain," the analyst said.
The print belonged to a man named Gerald F. Mason who lived in Columbia, South Carolina. In 1956, a year before the officers' killings, a then-22- year-old Mason had been arrested in South Carolina for commercial burglary (the only other crime on his record), so his fingerprints were on file in that state. But those prints did not make their way to the national database until many years later.
Detectives began tracking Mason and soon learned more details about him. He was 68, weighed 195 pounds, had been married for 40 years, and had two grown children and several grandchildren. After working in gas stations in his youth, he had eventually bought a service station chain, an investment that made him a wealthy man. In fact, he was well known and respected in Columbia. Upon retiring a few years earlier, he had begun spending much of his time bowling and playing golf.
The first call Cleary made after identifying Mason was to the family of Officer Milton Curtis. "I was intrigued but wary," says Keith Curtis, who today works for a heavy equipment company, is married and has a 19-year-old daughter. Cleary also phoned Richard Phillips's family. By then, his widow was in her 70s, and his three children were middle-aged. "I talked to her son, and he almost hung up on me," Cleary says. "He thought it was a prank call. But the more I talked, the more he realized this might be true."
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