The Collapse of a Conviction: How an LAPD Cop and Two Journalists Unraveled the Case Against Bruce Lisker

Episode Notes

Transcript

Michael Semanchik :

Welcome to today’s round table discussion on the wrongful conviction of Bruce Lisker in 1983, Bruce was just 17 years old when he discovered his mother murdered in their Sherman Oaks home. Instead of being treated as a grieving son, he quickly became the prime suspect. Two years later, he was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. To hear the complete story in Bruce’s own words, check out the previous episode. Now live in the podcast feed. As we now know, Bruce was innocent, faulty police work, unreliable, forensics, and an overlooked alternate suspect led to his wrongful conviction. He would spend more than 26 years behind bars before a federal judge overturned his conviction. In 2009, Bruce’s story might’ve remained buried. If not for the work of journalists who questioned the official narrative, their reporting not only exposed serious flaws in the case, it also helped pave the way for his freedom. Today I’m joined by Matt Lait and Scott Glover, the Los Angeles Times reporters, whose investigation changed the trajectory of Bruce’s case. And Jim Gavin, whose work investigating Detective Monsu adds another crucial layer of context to how Bruce’s innocence came to light. Thank you all for joining.

Matt Lait:

Thank you. Thank you.

Michael Semanchik :

So to get started, Matt and Scott, you’ve shared that the case came onto your radar through a memo from Bruce’s private investigator. Can you talk about receiving that document and what stood out to you in it?

Matt Lait:

Sure. I’ll take the first crack at it. At the time, Scott and I had been covering a police corruption scandal known as the Rampart corruption scandal, and we had been receiving voluminous correspondence from inmates saying that they were innocent. And we assess those letters like is there anything we can add to those cases? Do they provide any evidence? Simply stating that they were innocent may be true, but it would be very difficult for us to invest time to figure out where that would go. In this case, Paul Ingles, Mr. Lister’s private investigator, detailed a really compelling letter why he thought Bruce was innocent and provided leads for us to pursue leads that Jim Gavin at the LAPD as an internal affairs sergeant had identified, actually had uncovered. The main one was that there was a bloody shoe print found at the murder scene that did not match Bruce Lister’s shoe. And that was only done at Gavin’s request when Bruce had filed a complaint against the detective, so that some 20 some odd years later, there was an analysis on that shoe print, which was never done at the time of trial. And that was the key piece of evidence that got me. Scott, interested in the case,

Michael Semanchik :

Jim, when you receive complaints, is it that you always follow up on them and that Internal Affairs does an investigation? I mean, I imagine a lot of people complain about their investigations once they’ve been convicted. Was this just a rare occurrence or do you follow up on them or how does that process work?

Jim Gavin:

To be honest, that was the first time I’ve ever come across a case like that where the allegations were against the investigating detective. Normally I was handling, the officer looked at me, I didn’t like his attitude, they didn’t have a right to come in my house. Those were the types of cases. And then all of a sudden, this thing, which it was probably that thick of paper, landed on my desk one Monday morning,

And it just so happened that I had completed all my other investigations or those investigations. I was waiting for additional paperwork. So I had time to go and read this thing and just take a look at it. And a couple of my friends in the office were saying, ah, just close it out, other judicial review. He already had his opportunity with the jury. The appellate courts looked at it, just let it go. But he named a couple people that appeared to me would be easy to interview real quick, and they would substantiate what my friends at work said. There’s nothing there inside the letter. It was they recently found money in the at. So I took steps that you normally would take as a investigator to check if that money had been booked, any entry and there was nothing. So then when I interviewed the new homeowner who happened to be a city attorney, he does not recall ever finding any money in the home. His wife was dying of cancer, was bedridden for 18 months. So he basically said there’s no way she climbed up into an attic and found that money. So that right there, comparing that to the parole letter that Detective Monsu had written, brought into question, maybe there’s something here. Was Detective

Michael Semanchik :

Monsu on anyone’s radar prior to this

Jim Gavin:

Case? No, no. He had promoted, he was in charge of the detectives downtown and central division. There was nothing that anybody thought was wrong with what he had done.

Michael Semanchik :

So in going to do your investigation, you said it’d be easy to do a couple of interviews. You call him in for an interview.

Jim Gavin:

No, I did not call him in for an interview right away. You always try to interview the accused last.

So once you’ve gotten your whole picture together, then you bring them in. So what I did is I requested copies of all the crime scene pictures because that’s one thing that Bruce and his investigator Paul could not get their hands on is actual colored photos of the crime scene. They had all these photocopied pictures. And so I was able to get ahold of the crime scene pictures and just kind of started putting together the description of the crime and how it was conducted. I could not find the homicide book that was missing and I could not find Bruce’s taped recorded interview. The only thing I had was a paraphrased interview done by Detective Monsu. All the other tapes were there of all the other interviews, but not Bruce, which when you’re an internal affairs investigator, those are now red flags. You’re wondering, okay, that doesn’t make sense. And then this happens. And so just one red flag after another red flag started popping up and brought my attention to look a little deeper.

Michael Semanchik :

So Scott, you kind of catch wind of this. You read about this investigation into Detective Monsu. Detective Monsu doesn’t have any connection to Rampart, right? So what makes you think like, oh, we should jump into this. Was it kind of the stuff that Jim’s talking about?

Scott Glover:

Well, I mean, first off, going back to Paul’s letter and what separates it from the boxes and boxes of other letters that we had at the time, this guy is an ex-cop. He’s saying, I have never gone to bat for an imprisoned guy who says he’s innocent before. And he provides some specifics with respect to the bloody shoe prints. But even with all of that, I would say that we spent the first two weeks basically just trying to knock the story down. You know what I mean? We don’t want to end up spending months and months on something that’s going to go nowhere. So it’s been 20 years, and I don’t have a vivid memory of all of this, but our standard practice would be to see if these key elements hold up. And they did. So in that first couple of weeks, we were able to learn about what Jim had done and the status of the case, and it seemed like something that was worthy of an investment of time.

Jim Gavin:

And I think right before you guys got involved, I had looked at the crime scene photos and I can see where Monsu was saying, okay, this footprint matches the footprints inside the house. So I’m thinking, Hey, shouldn’t we have a crime analysis guy that could look at that stuff? So I got ahold of the people downtown and I made an appointment. And so I brought the photos down to this guy and he had this big huge magnifying glass, and I’m like, Hey, I got these pictures. Here’s the footprints going down the side of the house. The detective during the murder trial said that those footprints matched those footprints inside the house and they match his shoe. But I found this other footprint right next to it, and I thought at the time, the one footprint was Bruce going in one direction and the other footprint in the opposite direction. So he looks at everything, looks at everything, and he goes, yeah, the footprint that he testified to is not the footprint that made the prints inside the house. And I’m like, oh, wow, wow. And then he goes, however, the one you found is the footprint inside the house. And I went when I realized, oh, this is getting bad. This isn’t going the way I thought it was going to go.

Michael Semanchik :

So Monsu testified to it being the same at trial though without ever having an expert do it. And that all came in.

Jim Gavin:

Wow. Yes. I think like Matt and Scott, we learned a lot about the procedures of the department, about homicide investigations all at pretty much the same

Michael Semanchik :

Time. So then what do you do with it? At that point you find out that’s the exclusion sounds like in somebody else’s footprint. So where do you go from there?

Jim Gavin:

So then I go back to internal affairs. I went and talked to my bosses and they said, Nope, we’re closing this thing out. You’re not doing it anymore. And my lieutenant says, that motherfucker is going to stay in prison. Do you understand me? And I walked away and I went, this is definitely not going the way I thought it would go. So then I got ahold of Paul and we went and we had lunch, and I showed him the report done by our scientific investigation people, and he goes, Jim, you realize this is what’s going to get him out of prison? And I said, yeah, I kind of have been thinking about that the last couple of days. He goes, I need a copy of it. And I go, I can’t give you a copy. He goes, how about if you say you went to the bathroom and I stole it? And I go, no, I can’t do that, Paul. I said, integrity is everything we have. If they catch me lying, I’m done. So then I took a deep breath and I just handed him a copy.

Michael Semanchik :

Wow.

Jim Gavin:

He says, you’re going to probably get in trouble. I go, yep, I know I am. But at that point, I was just like, do I do the right thing? Do I just ignore everything and live my life, but this guy’s in prison, what do I do? And so I gave him a copy of it.

Michael Semanchik :

You think without a doubt, if you don’t do that, they kill it. And Bruce is still in prison.

Jim Gavin:

I can say without a doubt, we would not be speaking right now, and Bruce would still be trying to get out of prison. For some reason, they were just hell bent on keeping him behind bars. And I can only speculate that you have the detective from the LAPE that was arrested and convicted of murder after 20 something years that happened, right? During the Bruce Lisker case, You Had two other people who accused the LAPD of putting a charge of murder on them. They were convicted and they were sentenced to prison. So you had at least four people during that same time that were accusing the LAPD of shoddy work involving murder investigations. I think in the eyes of the news media and the public, they were afraid of the outcome. I mean, that’s me back 20 years.

Michael Semanchik :

You think it’s more reputation than it is thinking like civil suits or some combination of the two or,

Jim Gavin:

Oh, I think it’s a reputation and civil suits. Gotcha.

Michael Semanchik :

What did you suffer from turning that piece of paper over? What did they do to you? I assume they did something.

Jim Gavin:

Oh yeah. They immediately transferred me out of there and they sent me to training division. So everybody knows that internal affairs is like the golden ticket. You’re there to stamp, oh, I’ve done administrative work. I’ve gone and I’ve investigated possibility of bad cops, so now they’re going to trust me in bigger assignments and more influential assignments. That didn’t happen, and they just shipped me off to training division. I mean, it was a long process, but I ended up as the homicide lieutenant for the San Fernando Valley when I retired the last year I was there.

Michael Semanchik :

So ultimately it worked out for you.

Jim Gavin:

Ultimately it worked out. Obviously, I wanted to promote to Captain Commander, whatever. That never happened. My whole thing was just when I took over detectives, it was just making sure these people had solid, solid cases. There wasn’t this pressure from management to solve a crime. I just didn’t go for that. So I did my service by making sure there was not another Bruce Lisker,

Michael Semanchik :

We’ll be right back after this break. Matt and Scott, where do you go in your investigation? So you’ve done your two weeks, you’ve kind of made sure that everything Paul’s told you is in fact true. Where do you go from there?

Scott Glover:

So we decided if we’re going to delve into this at the time, what 20, 30-year-old murder case, the first thing we needed to do was understand everything there was to know about the original case. So we spent a couple of weeks reading the murder book and the trial transcript, which there’d been a number of appeals that had bounced along for all these years. So things like that were attainable. We got ’em and Matt, I don’t know what couple, two, three weeks, I think we just kind of hunkered down and read up on all that stuff. So we had a firm grasp of what the prosecution set at the time. That was our first step.

Jim Gavin:

Yeah, this is when those two started harassing me. I was going

Michael Semanchik :

To ask, when did the communication start? Objection.

Jim Gavin:

It happened on a Sunday night. I get a phone call from Scott and he’s going, Hey, this is Scott Glover from the Los Angeles Times. I just want to let you know that Chief Burow is going to look for criminal charges against you for releasing confidential information. What did say is tomorrow you’re going to be relieved of duty, then you’re going to be assigned home. And I’m thinking, no way. Not me. I had worked in the chief’s office. I go to work the next day, I get a tap on the shoulder. The captain wants to see you. I sit down in the captain’s office. Yeah, we decided that we’re going to assign you home. Oh, okay. And I did it just like that. And she goes, well, you’re not taking it that bad. And I go, well, I got a phone call from the LA Times saying this was going to happen. I had plenty of time to get ready for it. Nobody knew about this. Well, obviously they did. And sure enough, I got assigned home and then I think on my way home, or maybe after I called and I said, what do you want? And I gave him everything I had.

Matt Lait:

Well, from there, after getting the case file, the transcripts and going through that and having our conversations with Jim, we also wanted to reach out to the prosecutor in the case, Philip Racha, who had recently retired, and we also wanted to talk to Monsu. We additionally wanted to speak with Bruce, but kind of in the order of it, we wanted to hit Bruce last. We wanted to understand as much as we could, and we’re not working for Bruce, we’re not on his side. We’re trying to get to the truth of the matter. And so we called Au, asked if he would be willing to sit down and meet with us. We told him about the bloody shoe print and he agreed, which we thought was surprising, but also impressive. He wanted to hear about it, and we understood that this was an old case and his memory wouldn’t be up to date.

So we sat down, we explained what we are working on. He had asked us if we had certain files, which we did certain transcripts. He wanted to see his openings, he wanted to see his closings, he wanted to see certain witnesses testimony. And so we provided all that to him and agreed to have another conversation. After he had gone through that material, it was clear he was unsettled by the footprint, but he thought there was other evidence that made for a strong case. So while that was going on, we also then called up Monso. And again, to our surprise, he was willing to sit down with us. And unlike Racha who was taking it seriously and reflective and trying to understand the evidence of the case, I think my impression, and maybe Scott shares it, was that he was shooting more from the hip. He had the facts wrong.

He contradicted himself. We asked him, Hey, we understand it’s a long time. Do you want to take a look at the file, refresh your memory and then have another conversation? And he wanted none of it. He was very dismissive and kind of confrontational and was not happy that he had been accused of misconduct. So he had all that going as well. We walked away from that interview thinking he didn’t really have a full grasp the evidence, and that was the last time that he agreed to speak with us. And then we went and saw Bruce. How did that go?

Scott Glover:

I mean, like Matt said, we made clear to Bruce from the outset, we are not your buddies. We’re not your defense counsel. We’re not your advocates. We’re here because we are pursuing a story that seems to indicate that you may be wrongfully convicted, and we want to do all the research that we need to do to try to find out if that’s the case and nail that down. And we’re like, please, whatever you do, don’t lie to us because we won’t be back. You can’t look at a human being and tell if they’re lying or not, but you can tell if they’re suggestible. You know what I mean? If they are looking to see what you want to hear, that kind of thing. And Bruce was not, we did not detect any of that kind of behavior. As I recall, he had some sort of rudimentary website at the time where he had made, it’s like a statement of fact, statement of the case, and there were a number of points that he made on there.

And so we were looking for any divergence from that. We saw none. I believe to this day, there’s not a single statement on there that is false, that is provably false, which I think is impressive given that he’s a 17-year-old on drugs on the day of the crime, and he’s locked into a statement in the early hours afterwards. So that is something that had always kind of caught our attention, but I think it was in Mule Creek State Prison. We met with him for maybe an hour. And again, it was just to sort of size him up and we walked away without any particular reservations.

Michael Semanchik :

When was that roughly? What year do you think?

Scott Glover:

Late 2004,

Michael Semanchik :

Early 2005. Wow. So he’s been in at this point for 20 years approximately.

Scott Glover:

Yeah, 20. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah.

Jim Gavin:

I went up there twice to meet with him once from 10 o’clock in the morning until five, and then the next time for about four hours and just went over every piece of document he had so I could get a better understanding. What you want to do is lock people into their statements. I’m sure that’s like what you guys do. Scott and Matt lock ’em into their statement and then see if I can take it apart. And so one of the things that came up is he talked about his friend, the alternate suspect, Mike Ryan, you go from when I took over homicide, I sat and watched every interview, and every interview starts this way. Please tell me who you are. Tell us about this. And they just kind of get these people to be relaxed and feel comfortable. Do you want a drink? Do you want to smoke? Well, when Mike Ryan got pulled in, Monsu goes, Hey, look. I’m Andy Monsu. I’m a detective from the Los Angeles Police Department. I work Van Nuys division. I’m here to investigate the murder of Tor Lisker. I already have a suspect in custody. All I need to do is eliminate you as a suspect. So why don’t you tell me what’s going on? And by the way, I already know you went to a motel in Hollywood.

Michael Semanchik :

Wow.

Jim Gavin:

Okay. So during that interview when he was obviously lying, obviously misleading Monsu kept on reminding him, I only have one ticket to get home on. And that’s for me. I’m just here to eliminate you. Oh, okay. Well, if you find any blood in my room, I stabbed a black man the night before. And by the way, you didn’t check into that room at three o’clock in the afternoon. You checked in at 11. So there were so many, they just stood out lies by Mike Ryan that Mon didn’t pick up on, didn’t want to pick up on. I’m not sure

Michael Semanchik :

That was going to be my next question. Is it that he was locked in? This is tunnel vision, he’s locked into his story, or is there some malice here? I always try to put myself in their shoes and understand why you might do a particular thing. Okay, so I know he was

Jim Gavin:

A detective trainee before he went to homicide as a detective. So a detective trainee is somebody that’s showing interest in becoming a detective, and they let you work a couple tables to see how well you’re organized, your interview skills and so on. So there was an assault with a deadly weapon, like a road rage that occurred eight months, nine months before the murder. And Bruce Lisker was the suspect in that case. So Monso was given that case to investigate. So that’s the first interaction between the two of them was June before the murder. And nothing really ever came of that case, and it just moved on. But then when Monsu saw Bruce that day of the murder, I’m sure that he realized who he was dealing with. Just a punk ass kid addicted to drugs, and it just went south from there.

Michael Semanchik :

Following this case, did anyone go back? Was there a systemic review ordered of Monsu cases or was LAPD’s position this was like the rare one case Monsu screwed up? Boy, I don’t know. I don’t know Scott. Matt, do you know

Matt Lait:

The department’s position was that Lisker was guilty and they continued to fight it. So it wasn’t like they had some great revelation after our story or after he was even released from prison. You had asked the question about why did he do it? I mean, and this is just my opinion, but I felt like it was very sloppy police work from the bloody shoe print that Jim found or analyzed. That seemed like it would be a basic step. He made some assumptions about lister’s, alibi and what he could do, how he could see into the house. He didn’t identify the phone call that was made like an hour before this lane, which very closely matches Mike Ryan’s mother’s phone number. He claimed that there was money missing when in fact, we discovered that the money was actually in the purse the whole time. So there was a lot that just did not go fully investigated.

Scott Glover:

Most notable, I think, is that we can’t know what was in Mon Sue’s head, but there’s that post-it note in the murder book that has Ryan’s date of birth wrong, some numbers transposed. And so likely at this time, at this key time, he believes that Ryan has no previous criminal record. We were able to find out that he did have an incident a few months prior to doca lister’s murder where he held a knife to the throat of a fellow teen over a few dollars, definitely exhibited some violent behavior that I think would’ve caught the eye of an open-minded investigator at that time. And he seemingly was unaware that, and of course, Ryan went on to engage in other crimes and attacked a stranger on a muni train in San Francisco and went to prison for that, had various other episodes before he killed himself.

Michael Semanchik :

I mean, there was a lot of other evidence that could have been discovered or maybe was known, but then kind of just ignored.

Jim Gavin:

Well, I think one of the things these two pointed out was Rabichow. When you talked to Rabichow, I asked him, did you listen to the tapes? And he goes, oh, no, no. I left that up to Monsu. And Monsu says he eliminated Mike Ryan. There was no other issues involved. So was Rabichow. Was he overworked? And he relied on the IO to do his job, and then the IO failed him because there were some stuff that just, I think the three of us would agree that just stood out. And I really believe after watching all of the interviews I’ve seen since then, I really believe they would’ve cracked this little kid into confessing to this homicide, Mike Ryan.They Had every avenue, all the lies, the misleading statements. He was put on a bus by the Mississippi Probation Department, I forget which county to go to, Ventura County. And they were transferring his probation from Mississippi to Ventura County. And he was given a court order to report upon arrival, and he never reported. He had done some damage at his dad’s place of business, and his father was done with him. And so they were transferring him to California to live with mom in Ventura. And that’s where that phone number comes from too. So you have to wonder, I mean, all of a sudden he appears at Bruce ER’s parents’ house the night before the homicide, and then all of a sudden he disappears again. Where did he go? And all of that was right there for Monso to see, but he just failed to see it.

Michael Semanchik :

There’s another player in this case. So the federal found that Bruce also received ineffective assistance of counsel. It’s the defense attorney’s job to also go through and listen to all these interviews. And so that have been a way that this all gets exposed. And did you all ever talk to Bruce’s defense attorney, trial attorney?

Matt Lait:

We attempted to. He had become a superior court Judge declined to meet with us. I think he ultimately testified at Bruce’s evidentiary hearing in support of his petition.

Jim Gavin:

So I guess, again, correct me guys, Bruce’s dad was heavily involved in the music industry or in Hollywood. He was an attorney. He had a lot of people that he knew. When I spoke to his attorney who became the Superior Court judge, he said there was a guy that was heavily involved, a friend of the father that kept on telling him, just plead guilty. You’ll get out by 25, plead guilty, you’ll get out by 25.

Matt Lait:

Yeah, I think there was a family friend who was an attorney who I think was advising Bruce and his dad as to the state of the evidence and the, I guess, cost benefit of pleading guilty so he could serve a term in juvenile detention.

Scott Glover:

As I recall, that really came to the fore with the emergence of Robert Hughes, the jailhouse informant. You see, you now had somebody inside jail saying that Bruce had confessed. And if I recall Bruce telling it, it was at that time where he’s like, you’re going to get convicted of first degree murder and you’re going to go to prison for the rest of your life. And Bruce was dead set against pleading guilty, but was convinced otherwise around that time.

Michael Semanchik :

That’s a tough thing, especially given the time to overcome. I think if that’s what you have today, it’s a different thing. But

Matt Lait:

Yeah, we did a whole thing on the whole story investigation into the informant and how he had miraculously heard the confessions of two or three other inmates and seeking reduction in his prison terms.

Michael Semanchik :

It’s always interesting how that you get those repeat snitch offenders, if you will.

Jim Gavin:

Well, they did a large Los Angeles County investigation on informants, And They discovered a lot of flaws and missteps in that whole process.

Scott Glover:

It

Matt Lait:

Was a grand

Scott Glover:

Jury investigation. That was one where they had some guy, some jail inmate, 60 minutes to the segment where this guy was able to demonstrate how you could gather information and then fabricate a confession. It was a huge scandal back in the day. I don’t know, late eighties, maybe

Matt Lait:

It was around this time period.

Jim Gavin:

Yeah.

Matt Lait:

Yeah.

Michael Semanchik :

I think it continued all the way through.

Jim Gavin:

What was nice is I got dropped, kicked out, sent to training division, and basically these two took over the investigation and discovered even more stuff.

Michael Semanchik :

Well, that’s actually what I was going to ask. Yeah. So how many stories did you publish in total? And obviously you continue to follow this. What did you continue to discover as you kept going?

Matt Lait:

Well, after our story, we had already planned to do this, but we were going to reach out to the jurors who sat, and a number of them spoke to us and said they never would’ve convicted. Bruce, had they known the evidence that was in the article that we wrote as I reflected on this case and our role. But I also, I think that the role of so many others things went so wrong for Bruce at the beginning, and then in the end, given the odds of trying to overturn a conviction, they went so right. He wouldn’t be here. Were it not for Jim Gavin. He wouldn’t be here, were it not for Paul Engles. He wouldn’t be here, not for Phil Rabau who actually took it seriously, I mean, reflected on what the original case was, but wasn’t afraid to confront the evidence as it was changing

Jim Gavin:

Matt. And I think that alone cleared my conscience of being this overzealous IA investigator because I was getting labeled as I was too involved in the case that I lost my investigative hat. And now it was like I had to prove this. And that was so far from the truth. But I think with Rabichow, coming forward and making those comments helped me tremendously in my own mental health because it was like, okay, it’s not just me.

Matt Lait:

It really, it showed me what happens when people take their jobs seriously and do the right thing. And it’s not about winning or losing, but we obtained some internal LAPD emails years later that showed what they were thinking and how they were approaching this. At the time that Scott and I were doing this, and it’s revealing, I think that their mindset at the department was really not to review it with an open mind was to try to lock it down, was to try to wish it went away and not engage with it. And that to me seems it’s disturbing. It should be about whether somebody is actually guilty or not,

Jim Gavin:

Because they had told you that they had the footprints reviewed again, and they did not.

Matt Lait:

That was the shoe impression on the victim’s head, which was another thing that was like toward the end when we were about to publish, they said they had done another review of the evidence and discovered new evidence in the coroner’s photos that revealed a shoe pattern on the victim’s head. And they told us that it matched Bruce Lister’s shoes. And we’re like, well, wait a second. So we have the scientific analysis from the shoe print in the house. Where is it on the head? Show us that. Prove it to us that you actually have done that work and matched it. And to their credit, they said they would do that, and they did. But it was a kind of nerve wracking period of like, well, maybe there’s evidence that shows that Bruce stepped on her head. That would be a tough one to explain. Away toward the end of our investigation, we were brought into the LAPD and we were escorted into a conference room with half a dozen to a dozen other LAPD leaders.

And they wouldn’t give us the report, but they read us the report, and when they read it, we’re trying to follow along the shoe impression in photograph G versus photograph F. And when they were done, we’re like, well, wait a second. So what you’re saying is the shoe impression on the victim’s head and the shoe impression in the blood do not match Bruce’s shoe. And they said, yes. And we’re like, well, then what does that, isn’t that the end of it? And they said, well, it muds the waters, but we still think Bruce did it. And that just seemed odd.

Michael Semanchik :

Was the purpose of that meeting to try to get you to not report anymore? What was their thought

Matt Lait:

There? No, they had to disclose that to the DA and the attorney General

Michael Semanchik :

Because

Matt Lait:

It was new evidence that they had found and they were compelled to, and they knew that we were on them about it. And so as much as we had a, I would say somewhat adversarial relationship with them at times, it was also professional in that they provided that information to us.

Michael Semanchik :

How shocked were you, Scott, when you, and I’m going to read the email because I read the set of emails that came out later. How shocked were you when you guys got your hands on it and realized what they were talking about and that your names were being tossed into emails like that?

Scott Glover:

I’m always so conservative in these situations. I mean, it was certainly gratifying to read and sort of this amazing look behind the curtains. You always wonder what’s in the minds of others. And here you see it committed to writing. So it was very interesting in that regard. But I wanted to take, forgive me because I’m going to repeat a little bit what Matt said, but it’s like the one thing that I wrote down, so I want to make sure to say it when I look back on this, what I am most struck by is the extraordinary confluence of events that were required to have this happen. This is not a DNA case. There’s nothing, there’s single piece of evidence that says he didn’t do it. So I will repeat a little bit of what Matt said, but maybe add to it a little bit, which is the people and things required.

It starts with Bruce himself. He was an excellent advocate for himself in the way that he spent his time behind bars trying to prove his innocence. It was Paul writing this letter and the way that he wrote it that got our attention, it was Jim not looking the other way and doing his job, laying the foundation for this to move forward. It was au who I would say rather courageously engaged in this. The easy thing to do for him is no comment, or I’m retired, I don’t have time, whatever it might be to just not engage. And then the magistrate, Ralph Reky, this guy rolled up his sleeves and dug into this case. You know what I mean? And granted an evidentiary hearing that I think is a very low percentage sort of thing. Most of these things do not get hearings. I don’t know what it is, can confirm, right?

As an attorney, I mean, it’s like what, 5%, 10% less? I mean, okay, it’s tiny. And so Zaki really kind of meaningfully, he knew the case. I’ve never met the man, but I could tell from his rulings and his analysis and all that he really deeply delved into the case. Bruce’s lawyers, bill Jango and Vicki Poky, I mean just tremendous attorneys who frankly dismantled the case. And we watched that happen absent really all of those players, this never happens. And what’s scary about that is when you think about the boxes and boxes of letters that Matt and I had after writing about Rampart, some of them were easily dismissed. Others very, you don’t know, but you can’t justify delving into this thing that in likelihood is not going to result in a story, is not going to lead somewhere because you don’t have these other things going on.

And so that is kind of what I am most struck by. As far as what we brought to the table, I think the most meaningful thing was the recreation. And that led from AU being willing to engage. And actually this is some backstory. We gave him that stuff. We gave him time to read about it or whatever. And there was a point in our story where he said, look, I remember why I was so convinced that Bruce did it. And he had gone to archives and pulled out photos and all that kind of stuff, even though he was retired and he had a photo that he showed us that he’s like, there’s no way Bruce could have seen what he said he saw. And the photo really, it seemed that way we were concerned, but what it caused us to do, and Matt did this, is talk to the homeowners to see if they’d be up for letting us come out and take a look and kind of do a recreation.

And so we spent some time extracting all the details from the court file, what was the size of the carpet, where was the blood on the carpet, where was the carpet in the foyer? And got everything placed just so there was a planter that was no longer there. So we built a wood frame to approximate that, and we came out with their permission after Matt convinced them, we did a recreation and looked through those windows and we were stunned. I mean, it wasn’t even close. He could see what he says he saw, at least on the day that we were there. And then Rabbit Chow once again, to his credit, agreed to come out there with us after first agreeing that all of those measurements were correct, we had it right, and we did this little creation. And he came out and acknowledged that. Yeah, he definitely could have seen what he said he saw, and I wish I’d come out here 30 years ago, something to that effect.

Matt Lait:

Well, that’s another person to add to the list was the homeowner. I mean, imagine getting a call from a reporter saying, Hey, there was a murder in your house some 20 years ago, and I’d like to come in there and do an experiment. And it was kind of touch and go. And really the bottom line is I think what sold it was a saying, look, I get it. It’s a weird thing and I know it’s an unsettling thing, but somebody’s freedom hangs in the balance here, and it could help one way or the other. So they agreed. We’ll be right back.

Michael Semanchik :

I am going to read the excerpt. This is from an email from LAPD’s internal affairs commander talking about their options and whether or not to investigate lister’s allegations of monsu. Our second option is to do nothing, which is what we would do if late and Glover were not on this.

There have been enough court appeals that lister’s conviction would not be overturned, pending some major piece of evidence, which is unlikely since Ryan is dead as well as our victim. I mean, it’s very clear you all pushed them to do more than they otherwise would have. I think that’s abundantly clear. The three of you really, Jim, if you don’t hand ’em that piece of paper, Matt Scott, if you don’t continue to publish stories, Bruce, you’re right, Scott. You’re right, Matt. Unfortunately, of the 3,500 people that have been exonerated since 1989 in this country, I would say the vast majority of them are the lucky ones. Some are just, we went and did the DNA NA testing we should have done, but most are the lucky ones.

Matt Lait:

The thing that struck me, just one last thing that always struck me after this experience was that even after our story came out, even after the jurors said what they said, even after the judge ruled the way he ruled the da, then refiled charges against Bruce. And I mean they ultimately had to dismiss them because they had no evidence. But just that mindset and that refusal to look at the case and the evidence was disheartening

Michael Semanchik :

Since Bruce’s exoneration, well, since they dismissed the charges and since that timeframe, there’s been a bunch of conviction integrity units and conviction review units pop up around the country. Some are in name only, some actually have resulted in exonerations. Do you think that there’s been a shift in the country and the legal system as we’ve seen these exonerations happen, and since Bruce’s case even?

Scott Glover:

I mean, I don’t really feel qualified to answer that. I mean, Matt and I, our beat sort of morphed into the underbelly of law enforcement at one point, but that was a long time ago, and I’ve not been steeped in that part of the criminal justice system in more recent years. So I would say a factor that occurred to us at the time when we were doing that sort of reporting is that prosecutions are supposed to be in the interest of justice, and there’s this pressure that prosecutors will talk about privately to win cases and to file and to get numbers and all that kind of stuff. And until that culture has changed, you’re going to have this tension. So you hear talk about it for sure. And I think that you see some evidence of more progressive offices and so on, but how much the needle is moved? I don’t really know.

Michael Semanchik :

Jim, you have any thoughts on it?

Jim Gavin:

I would say you would need to get these law enforcement organizations to actively participate in these types of investigations. The biggest stumbling block that Bruce had was not getting the colored pictures and not getting all the reports. And the only way he was able to get that is through me and my ability to take a look at everything. But once they cut me off, then it was left up to these two guys to take it and run. But I think you have to get all of the cooperation, whether it’s the prosecutors, the homicide investigators, or the individual departments that are being accused of a faulty investigation, have to in good faith, participate in these.

Scott Glover:

When it comes to the most courageous characters in this story, I would definitely put Jim right up there with Rabbit Chow. I mean, these are the people that had the most to lose in deciding to do what they did. Totally

Matt Lait:

Agree with that.

Michael Semanchik :

The last thing I want to do, I see we’re just about at time here. I wanted to ask each of you two final thoughts. How did this case change your careers? How did it change your lives, and how did you see Bruce change over the course of your work on this case all the way through to today? Because I know Matt Scott, you are still teaching your class with Bruce on an annual basis.

Scott Glover:

I’ll take the how did it change our careers because it allows me to share an anecdote that I wanted to share, which is we won a national journalism award for our reporting on Bruce, and we were in Washington DC to receive that award. And at that very time, we were waiting for Zakys report to come out on the evidentiary hearing. It had been, I forget now because it’s been 20 years, but we’ve been waiting to hear what’s this federal magistrate going to say about all this? We’ve laid it all out in the paper. Our reputations are on the line, Jim’s, everybody else’s. And here we are. We’re in DC receiving this award, and we’re both getting ready to travel back to Los Angeles when word comes out that the report is out. And as a source conveyed to us after a quick look, something along the lines of it didn’t look good.

Yes. And Matt’s already on the plane, and I am rushing to get to my plane, and this is back in the days when the LA Times owned the Baltimore Sun. And I skip my flight, go to the Baltimore Sun scrambling, did a copy of this thing on deadline because we have to write story about it. And it’s just this stomach churning feeling about what are the details of this report? And long story short, the person who had the quick look initially took it the wrong way. The Reky very strongly expressed opinions that were critical of the evidence in the case, and kind of felt that Bruce did not receive a fair prosecution.

Matt Lait:

Yeah, I spent five hours on the plane thinking that Bruce Bruce’s petition was denied.

Scott Glover:

We were looking for, and of course, as a reporter, you’re looking like, okay, how are they going to say that we got it wrong? Where did we make a misstep? That sort of thing is a nerve wracking experience. For example, when the ags office went out and did their recreation, this was prior to the evidentiary hearing, right, Matt?

Matt Lait:

Yeah,

Scott Glover:

The California Attorney General who’s defending the conviction. They went out to the house as well with laser beams and precise measuring equipment and all this other stuff. And so we’re wondering how is our little junior detective reenactment going to compare? And in the end, we were solid, but it’s definitely something that you worry about.

Jim Gavin:

I know you asked about Bruce. I think he came out in 2009 as a 17-year-old kid, completely unaware of how everything has changed in society.

Michael Semanchik :

And did you all have communication with him right as he got out or

Jim Gavin:

I talked to him that day that he got out.

Matt Lait:

Yeah, I was there the day he got out and I rode back with him and his private investigator, Paul, back from Mule Creek to Sherman Oaks where he had a place to stay. And it was very surreal. I think it was surreal for him. He got out of prison. There were a lot of television cameras. They did a press conference, and then I get in the car with him and his private investigator and we drive back, and the first thing that he wanted to do was go to a international house of pancakes. He had been dreaming about that in prison. And so everybody that was part of his release entourage went the house of pancakes at pancakes. And then we went on our journey, and there was another time when it was for lunch, and we went to a Subway or Togo’s or something like that.

What struck me was that Bruce gets ready to order, and unlike prison food where they just flop it on your plate, he has all these options. They’re like, well, what kind of bread do you want? And he’s like, what do you mean? And they’re like, oh, Parmesan and Rosemary white bread. And they’re like, okay, what kind of cheese do you want? And it’s like he was stunned by that. He had the power to choose what went on his sandwich, and there was a photographer who went with us on this journey documenting it as well. And at one point after lunch, Bruce goes into the restroom and I’m like, okay, the guy gets some space, but not for the photographer who went in there and there were no faucet handles. It was one of those motion sensors, and he didn’t know how to run the faucet.

And the photographer says, you got to rub your hands underneath it. So he does, but it’s like all these things are just kind of new to him, cell phones, everything. It just kind of taken over. So it was kind of interesting. And now you look at Bruce, he’s a very smart person. I think he’s adjusting well. He is very gracious with this time and our students who are very interested in what he experienced and how he managed to go from that to where he is today. In terms of it changing my life, I don’t know so much about that other than it just underscored to me the importance and value of investigative reporting.

Michael Semanchik :

As you’re talking about all your experience with choices as people have come home, I’ve seen the exact same thing. When you strip people of choices and then you give them back. It’s overwhelming, and it certainly takes time. But Brews haven’t been home for a good chunk of time. Now. I think he’s acclimated, and it’s great to see him grow from his awful experience into who he is today. So Jim, how did it change your life? And I think it changed Bruce’s.

Jim Gavin:

Wow. For me, it really questioned the LAPD because here my wife was third generation and she was on the department with me. Not only did it affect her, it affected me. It affected my kids, it affected my extended family. After the report came out in the LA Times, my dad was an executive at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the FBI was doing an investigation, and they asked, Hey, do you want us to look into that Bruce Lisker thing too? And my dad’s like, Uhuh, just leave it. Because enough had already been done. All I did is I just looked forward and said, you know what? People will know who I am just based upon me. And I just continued to be myself. And I think that helped me in the long run because I still had 15 years to go. And quite frankly, I used to tell people it was just a little bump in the road.

I don’t care where you’re at, you’re always going to have that bump. And it’s how do you respond to it? Do you get up? Do you keep moving forward or you fall down and give up? And so I used to have to go to meetings with quite a few of these people, and I used to just go out of my way and put my hand out. I’m still here. How are you doing? And I used to tell Carol, it was hilarious because they would see me coming and they knew they had to be on their best behavior. And all I would do is say, good morning, good afternoon, and put my hand out to shake. There was one time when they brought back a guy from Japan, you guys may remember this. It was a cold case where he had killed his girlfriend and he was back in Japan, and they extradite him back to the United States.

They put him in the downtown jail. They put me in charge of the outside perimeter. He gets put in there, and later that night he kills himself. So I get called because I’m the central watch commander. I get there and all the people that were involved in the Bruce Lisker case are standing there, and then Chief Becks there, they whisper into his ear. He turns and looks at me and they go, Lieutenant, will you excuse us? And I had to leave, and I called my wife. I go, you’re not going to believe what happened just now.

Scott Glover:

Jim, let me ask you this. I don’t know the answer to this. I mean, are there people, and I’m thinking more of higher ups, not buddies at your level or whatever, but who eventually came to you and said, Hey, you had it right on this, and I’m sorry.

Jim Gavin:

Yes. The ones that attended your ethics class at the Command School.

Matt Lait:

That sounds familiar,

Jim Gavin:

Because a deputy chief came up to me one time and said, you’re that guy. I really got to commend you for what you did. But when I got to Central, that’s where Monsu was stationed before I got there, and somebody handed me Mon Sue’s old uniform the day that the article came out the next day, he said, that’s not going to scare me away. And later that afternoon, he called everybody together and said, I’m retiring and it has nothing to do with that. And he went upstairs into the locker room and threw his uniform into the trash, and somebody picked it up and said, oh, this will be worth something one day. And they gave it to me. But I had a lot of people at Central compliment me for getting rid of him. But then again, I mean, look, I got put in charge of detectives at Van Nuys since 2014.

I had 30 homicide detectives that reported to me. And so I looked at that and said, okay, they have forgiven me, or they would not have done that. I went from being this loose cannon, doesn’t know what he’s doing, uncontrollable to now we’re putting you in charge of this premier assignment. And I think that really helped me in my transition into retirement because okay, I’m no longer bitter because I got up and I moved forward because I kept a happy face because I never gave the idea that I was a disgruntled employee, that it helped tremendously. Now, there were a couple things that I happened. One time I was, when I was just made lieutenant at Central, this officer was working the front desk and the desk is feet away, and he’s just being abusive to a citizen. And I pulled him into the Watch Commander’s office and I go, I don’t know what’s going on in your life, but I can tell you the LAPD bent me over and me and I still come to work every single day. So that’s what I expect from you. Whatever happened to you, those people don’t deserve it. And he totally changed.

So I used to do that with people all the time. Say, please tell me what happened to you that gives you the right to be bitter, because I got a big story to tell you. So I don’t hold any bitterness anymore. I really enjoyed my career. I look back at this whole thing and just say, okay, I did the right thing. I hope more people would do that, even though it could cost you something. If I was to do it again, I would do it again.

Scott Glover:

That is definitely an evolution for you. I remember a time when we talked during one of the very raw times

Jim Gavin:

Where

Scott Glover:

You were like, if I was to do it again, I would not do it again.

Jim Gavin:

No,

Michael Semanchik :

You’re right. You’re absolutely right.

Scott Glover:

Yeah.

Michael Semanchik :

Well, I can say, because I’ve had a couple of cases out of Van Nuys, didn’t know you at the time, Jim, but the folks that I’ve dealt with, you certainly had an impact on them because they have the same approach that you do truth seekers.

Jim Gavin:

Well, that’s

Michael Semanchik :

Good. I am sure it’s because of the way that you carried yourself forward from this case.

Jim Gavin:

I used to preach that to those guys. Everybody all the time. All the time is, you know what? Just because you think you’re done with it, there may be other information out there. We have to keep an open mind.

Michael Semanchik :

Thank you, Jim Gavin, Scott Glover, and Matt Lait for joining the show. If you liked what you heard, please share and tune into future episodes. My name is Michael Semantic, executive director of the Innocence Center, and you’ve been listening to For The Innocent For the Innocent is produced by myself and Adam Lockwood. Our assistant producer is Ally Kvidt. Our theme song is by exoneree William Michael Dillon For the Innocent is a proud part of the Talk Network, an InfoTrack company.

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