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True Crime Documentary - The Hunt for the Boneyard Killers： California's Most Infamous Murder Case · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:05
Speaker 1: In the summer of 1984, San Francisco is gripped by fear. Neighbors, family,
0:14
Speaker 1: and friends are vanishing without a trace. Police are perplexed.
0:22
Speaker 1: The investigation takes a deadly turn when a killing field
0:25
Speaker 1: is uncovered high in the California mountains. As the body
0:30
Speaker 1: count climbs, the evidence points to an elusive killer. To
0:35
Speaker 1: bring this murderer to justice, a small-town prosecutor must take
0:39
Speaker 1: a long, dark journey into the mind of a serial killer.
1:06
Speaker 1: On the morning of October 26th, 1998, the longest and
1:10
Speaker 1: most expensive criminal trial in California history got underway. With
1:16
Speaker 1: an investigation spanning 13 years and a case file weighing
1:20
Speaker 1: over two tons, the burden of prosecuting one of California's
1:24
Speaker 1: most notorious killers would fall on Peter Smith, the district
1:28
Speaker 1: attorney of Calaveras County.
1:31
Speaker 2: A prosecutor's job is to seek justice. I think many
1:35
Speaker 2: people look at prosecutors and think their job is to
1:38
Speaker 2: convict and put people in jail or prison, and that's
1:42
Speaker 2: part of the job, too. But it really is our
1:44
Speaker 2: responsibility to make sure the justice system, particularly the criminal
1:49
Speaker 2: justice system, is carried out fairly to the point where
1:56
Speaker 2: justice is always sought.
2:04
Speaker 1: On June 2nd, 1985, a South San Francisco dispatch operator
2:09
Speaker 1: received a call. A theft was in progress at South
2:13
Speaker 1: City Lumber.
2:14
Speaker 3: 3141, 1087 Robert 1 at South City Lumber Railroad and
2:20
Speaker 3: Spruce on a 488 shoplifting.
2:26
Speaker 1: Officer Daniel Wright of the South San Francisco Police Department
2:29
Speaker 1: responded to the call.
2:31
Speaker 4: I had just one year on the street at that time,
2:35
Speaker 4: You know, my thoughts were, you know, officer safety, be careful.
2:39
Speaker 4: Like any call you go to, things could go awry
2:42
Speaker 4: at any time.
2:43
Speaker 1: A witness told Wright he had seen an Asian male
2:56
Speaker 1: stealing a $ 75 table vice. He said the thief, when confronted,
3:02
Speaker 1: tossed the vice into the trunk of a brown Honda
3:05
Speaker 1: and fled on foot. Inside the Honda, Wright spotted a
3:10
Speaker 1: suspicious-looking case.
3:12
Speaker 4: I opened up the case and found a. 22 Ruger
3:16
Speaker 4: with a cylinder-shaped object that was probably six to nine
3:21
Speaker 4: inches long. And through my training, I observed it to
3:24
Speaker 4: be a silencer.
3:31
Speaker 1: The gun was illegally modified. As Wright took a closer look,
3:35
Speaker 1: An agitated man burst from the store. He told the
3:41
Speaker 1: officer he paid for the vice his friend had taken.
3:44
Speaker 1: Wright's supervisor, Sergeant Paul Ziemer, arrived on the scene. The
3:52
Speaker 1: gun in the Honda made both officers suspicious. The car
3:57
Speaker 1: was impounded.
3:58
Speaker 4: At that time, we told him that he was going
4:00
Speaker 4: to be going down to the station to give a
4:02
Speaker 4: statement about the weapon. and he was handcuffed and placed
4:06
Speaker 4: into Officer Ziemer's vehicle and brought to our station.
4:12
Speaker 1: On the way to the station, the man told Ziemer
4:14
Speaker 1: the shoplifter's name was Charles Ng. The officer used his
4:25
Speaker 1: radio to request a background check on Ng. They got
4:31
Speaker 1: a hit. Ng was a former Marine born in Hong Kong.
4:37
Speaker 1: He'd been convicted in military court for stealing automatic weapons
4:40
Speaker 1: from a military base in Hawaii. He had once escaped
4:44
Speaker 1: from a military prison. At the South San Francisco police station,
4:51
Speaker 1: the subject was placed in a secure holding room. He
4:54
Speaker 1: told the officer his name was Leonard Lake. He said
4:59
Speaker 1: he was a fugitive from justice and offered to make
5:01
Speaker 1: a statement. But first, he wanted a piece of paper,
5:08
Speaker 1: a pencil, and a glass of water.
5:13
Speaker 5: Write your statement.
5:14
Speaker 6: I'll be back in a few.
5:19
Speaker 7: Minutes.
5:20
Speaker 1: Seymour left the room to summon Gary Hopper, the on-call detective,
5:24
Speaker 1: that Sunday. When they returned, Lake was on the floor
5:28
Speaker 1: convulsing wildly. Detective Hopper called the paramedics.
5:33
Speaker 8: He was flopping around on the floor. It was very violent,
5:37
Speaker 8: like a fish flapping out of water, uncontrollable. We had
5:42
Speaker 8: no idea what was happening at the time, whether it
5:45
Speaker 8: was like an epileptic seizure or just what was going on.
5:49
Speaker 1: Detective Hopper called the paramedics.
5:53
Speaker 8: Once the paramedics got him to the emergency hospital, we
5:56
Speaker 8: found out a little later that they were fighting no
6:00
Speaker 8: activity at all in his brain, that he.
6:02
Speaker 1: Was apparently brain dead. An autopsy later revealed that Lake
6:08
Speaker 1: had ingested capsules containing cyanide.
6:12
Speaker 9: The doctor told me and the lab technicians told me
6:15
Speaker 9: that it took about 20 to 25 minutes for the
6:18
Speaker 9: gel cap to dissolve before the cyanide actually hit his system.
6:23
Speaker 9: and that that would probably coincide fairly well with the
6:26
Speaker 9: amount of time between he was at the lumber yard
6:29
Speaker 9: and brought to the police station.
6:32
Speaker 1: Rather than writing a statement, Lake had written a note
6:35
Speaker 1: to a woman named Lynn. The note read, Dear Lynn,
6:41
Speaker 1: I love you. I forgive you. Freedom is better than
6:45
Speaker 1: all else. I'm sorry, Mom, Patty, and all. I'm sorry
6:52
Speaker 1: for all the trouble. Love, Leonard. Police were perplexed. Why
6:59
Speaker 1: had the suspect taken his own life? Whatever secrets Leonard
7:03
Speaker 1: Lake held, he took to the grave. The answer might
7:08
Speaker 1: lie with Lake's companion, Charles Ng. Police issued a warrant
7:13
Speaker 1: for Ng's arrest for shoplifting. Then they processed the car
7:18
Speaker 1: Lake had been driving when they ran the serial number
7:21
Speaker 1: on the Honda's engine block. Investigators discovered that the car
7:24
Speaker 1: belonged to Paul Cosner. Cosner, a Bay Area resident, had
7:30
Speaker 1: been missing for seven months.
7:36
Speaker 2: Hello?
7:37
Speaker 1: Detective Irene Brunn of the San Francisco Police Department investigated
7:41
Speaker 1: Cosner's disappearance. Cosner's sister had reported him missing months earlier.
7:47
Speaker 10: I'll be in in a half hour. And she was
7:49
Speaker 10: quite distraught. Her brother had disappeared. He had had a
7:53
Speaker 10: date that evening with his girlfriend for dinner, who also
7:56
Speaker 10: lived in the same apartment building where he lived. He
7:59
Speaker 10: failed to show up for that dinner date, and in
8:02
Speaker 10: speaking to the girlfriend, Paul was going to show a
8:06
Speaker 10: car that he was selling through an advertisement in the paper.
8:11
Speaker 1: Cosner was only one of many strange cases involving missing
8:14
Speaker 1: persons in the Bay Area. Detective Brunn was also investigating
8:19
Speaker 1: the disappearance of an entire family. On July 25th, 1984,
8:28
Speaker 1: San Francisco police responded to a frantic call for help.
8:34
Speaker 1: Harvey Dubs, his wife and their 16-month-old son, Sean, hadn't
8:39
Speaker 1: been seen for several days. Police had to climb through
8:46
Speaker 1: a window to gain access to the Dubs' apartment.
8:48
Speaker 11: San Francisco Police Department, anybody on the premises?
8:53
Speaker 1: The Dubs family had indeed disappeared that the signs of
8:56
Speaker 1: a struggle were apparent. Days earlier, Harvey Dubs had placed
9:02
Speaker 1: an ad in the newspaper to rent out his video equipment.
9:07
Speaker 1: That equipment was now missing. Missing person cases usually fit
9:14
Speaker 1: a certain profile. They often involve teenage runaways or people
9:20
Speaker 1: who disappear without telling anyone, only to return a few
9:23
Speaker 1: days later In the case of the Dubs, it was
9:28
Speaker 1: clear the family hadn't left voluntarily. Detective Brunn feared they
9:34
Speaker 1: would never return.
9:36
Speaker 10: In the house, there were things that were unusual and
9:39
Speaker 10: out of order. The baby's room was out of order.
9:43
Speaker 10: Deborah's medication was left at home, and it was something
9:45
Speaker 10: she had to take every day. So there were a
9:49
Speaker 10: lot of things that just didn't look right. They left
9:51
Speaker 10: their cats locked in the house unattended, and they wouldn't
9:54
Speaker 10: have done that.
9:56
Speaker 1: It is unusual for people like Paul Cosner or the
9:59
Speaker 1: Dubs family to simply vanish without a trace. Without leads,
10:05
Speaker 1: both cases had gone cold.
10:08
Speaker 10: To be realistic, we get 500 a month. We had
10:11
Speaker 10: one family disappeared July 25th. Now we're up to November 2nd.
10:16
Speaker 10: So because of the caseload, you know, you're not trying
10:18
Speaker 10: to pin cases together. The only similarity was a newspaper ad.
10:26
Speaker 1: Based on the discovery of Paul Cosner's brown Honda, Brunn
10:29
Speaker 1: and her partner reopened his case and searched the vehicle
10:33
Speaker 1: for clues. They found a driver's license belonging to a
10:39
Speaker 1: man named Scott Stapley. They found a stun gun and
10:45
Speaker 1: several unspent bullets on the floor of the car. A
10:52
Speaker 1: recent electric bill addressed to an unknown woman named Claralyn
10:55
Speaker 1: Balazs was found under the passenger seat. And in the
11:01
Speaker 1: roof of the car, investigators found a single bullet hole.
11:06
Speaker 12: Can you see that front there, partner?
11:08
Speaker 1: The trajectory of the bullet indicated the shot was fired
11:11
Speaker 1: from the back seat. The investigators sprayed luminol around the
11:18
Speaker 1: interior of the vehicle. Luminol reacts with proteins in blood,
11:23
Speaker 1: making even traces of blood fluoresce. High-velocity blood spatter associated
11:29
Speaker 1: with a gunshot wound appeared on the roof next to
11:32
Speaker 1: the front passenger seat. Brunn and her partner now suspected
11:37
Speaker 1: they would never find Cosner alive. With Leonard Lake dead,
11:43
Speaker 1: and his partner Charles Ng at large, Investigators could only
11:47
Speaker 1: wonder how many more victims they might find at the
11:50
Speaker 1: end of this trail of blood. Leonard Lake's mysterious suicide
11:56
Speaker 1: had now launched a full-scale police investigation. Brown and her
12:02
Speaker 1: partner drove to the home of Leonard Lake's mother, who
12:05
Speaker 1: lived about an hour outside of San Francisco. At the house,
12:11
Speaker 1: they were surprised to find Clara Lynn Balazs, the woman
12:14
Speaker 1: whose name appeared on the electric bill found in Cosner's car.
12:22
Speaker 1: Clara Lynn Balazs was Lake's ex-wife. They had been married
12:26
Speaker 1: for three years, but divorced a year earlier. Detectives suspected
12:32
Speaker 1: she might be the woman Lake addressed in his suicide note.
12:37
Speaker 1: They asked Balazs how an electric bill in her name
12:39
Speaker 1: wound up in Paul Cosner's car. Balazs explained the address
12:44
Speaker 1: on the bill was for a cabin her family owned
12:46
Speaker 1: in Calaveras County in Northern California. Although Braun and her
12:51
Speaker 1: partner were eager to search the cabin, Balazs claimed she
12:55
Speaker 1: was too busy to take them there until the next day.
13:01
Speaker 1: The detectives postponed their search until the following morning and
13:05
Speaker 1: instructed Balazs not to visit the property in the meantime.
13:14
Speaker 10: So we called the Calaveras Sheriff's Department and told them
13:19
Speaker 10: that we were going to be coming up the following
13:21
Speaker 10: morning and why we were going and if it was
13:24
Speaker 10: possible for them to have somebody keep an eye on
13:27
Speaker 10: the property.
13:30
Speaker 1: Calaveras County covers over 1,100 square miles of wild terrain.
13:37
Speaker 1: A force of 34 officers protected the entire county in 1985.
13:40
Speaker 1: There hadn't been need for more. The sheriff sent two
13:49
Speaker 1: deputies to watch the cabin, which was located outside the
13:52
Speaker 1: town of Willsieville. A metal gate prevented them from driving
13:57
Speaker 1: onto the property.
13:59
Speaker 10: Because of their manpower shortage, they couldn't have somebody sit
14:02
Speaker 10: there for the next 24 hours, but they would make
14:04
Speaker 10: passing calls, which was reasonable.
14:08
Speaker 1: The following morning, Brun and her partner arranged to meet
14:11
Speaker 1: Claralyn Balazs outside the Wilseyville post office. They were surprised
14:19
Speaker 1: when she arrived with Lake's mother.
14:22
Speaker 10: And at that point, Claralyn admitted that they had driven
14:25
Speaker 10: up the night before. And, um, The pretext was that
14:31
Speaker 10: Leonard was very untidy and they wanted to tidy up
14:36
Speaker 10: the cabin.
14:38
Speaker 1: Concerned that Balazs and Lake's mother might have compromised evidence
14:42
Speaker 1: at the cabin, Brunn, her partner, and the Calaveras County
14:46
Speaker 1: sheriffs followed them to the property. The detectives asked Balazs
14:54
Speaker 1: about a cinderblock bunker near the cabin. She said she
14:58
Speaker 1: didn't have the key and would not give them permission
15:00
Speaker 1: to search it. Lacking sufficient probable cause for a warrant,
15:07
Speaker 1: the detectives would have to limit their search to the
15:09
Speaker 1: cabin alone.
15:12
Speaker 10: But at this point, we were still more interested in
15:14
Speaker 10: getting into the house, so we didn't want to antagonize
15:16
Speaker 10: her because this was a consent search. Other than that,
15:20
Speaker 10: we would have had to stop and go get a
15:21
Speaker 10: search warrant at that point.
15:31
Speaker 1: While her partner questioned Balazs, Detective Bruns searched the house.
15:36
Speaker 11: I came up last night just for a few minutes.
15:37
Speaker 1: She noticed something odd about the bed. There were holes
15:42
Speaker 1: drilled into the bedposts and the floor. It seemed designed
15:47
Speaker 1: to tie someone up.
15:49
Speaker 10: And I was standing in front of this bookcase and
15:50
Speaker 10: I happened to turn around and all of a sudden
15:53
Speaker 10: I recognized a piece of equipment. And then it dawns
15:58
Speaker 10: on me where I had seen it.
15:59
Speaker 13: It was the Doves.
16:02
Speaker 1: The video equipment, Brunn recalled, had been stolen from the
16:05
Speaker 1: home of Harvey Dubs, the San Francisco man who vanished
16:08
Speaker 1: with his family 11 months earlier.
16:12
Speaker 10: So I went over and called my office. I said,
16:15
Speaker 10: would you mind checking our inventory and read me the
16:19
Speaker 10: serial number? He proceeded to start reading the serial number,
16:24
Speaker 10: and then I gave him the last three numbers from
16:26
Speaker 10: the piece of paper that I had in my hand.
16:29
Speaker 10: And so at that point, we realized that Now this
16:31
Speaker 10: is even getting bigger. It's not just Mr. Cosner, now
16:34
Speaker 10: we have the Dubs. And at that point, Clara Lynn
16:38
Speaker 10: got very nervous and said, you've been here long enough,
16:41
Speaker 10: I want you to leave.
16:45
Speaker 1: To learn what other secrets the isolated cabin held, Detective
16:49
Speaker 1: Brunn would need to obtain a search warrant. The investigators
16:53
Speaker 1: left the property, but this time they made certain the
16:56
Speaker 1: cabin would be secure until they returned. As investigators conducted
17:06
Speaker 1: a search of Leonard Lake's cabin in Calaveras County, they
17:09
Speaker 1: had discovered video equipment that belonged to a family who
17:12
Speaker 1: had been missing for nearly a year. This gave them
17:18
Speaker 1: sufficient probable cause to petition the judge for a warrant.
17:23
Speaker 1: Ron McFall led the investigation for the Calaveras County Sheriff's Office.
17:28
Speaker 14: We did get one that day, and later that afternoon
17:31
Speaker 14: we went back to the residence to conduct a search
17:34
Speaker 14: of the residence. and the property and what looked like
17:38
Speaker 14: a tool shed at first.
17:41
Speaker 1: The tool shed was a cinder block structure that bordered
17:44
Speaker 1: the driveway. Claralyn Balazs referred to it as a fallout shelter.
17:49
Speaker 3: Got it.
17:51
Speaker 15: Good, good.
17:53
Speaker 1: Leonard Lake had been a survivalist, and this was his
17:56
Speaker 1: fortress against nuclear holocaust. As the heavy door swung open,
18:07
Speaker 1: investigators could only wonder what they might find inside.
18:11
Speaker 14: And we went into the turtle shed, and we saw
18:14
Speaker 14: 21 photos of young ladies, 18 to 23 years old.
18:22
Speaker 16: And so we were, at that point, really concerned about,
18:24
Speaker 16: who are these females? Who are these ladies?
18:28
Speaker 1: Many of the photos were of young girls in various
18:30
Speaker 1: stages of undress. Some were nude. It was unclear who
18:36
Speaker 1: the subjects were or where they had been photographed. Everyone
18:41
Speaker 1: feared the pictures might be trophies, such as those serial
18:45
Speaker 1: killers often keep of their victims. They also found a
18:51
Speaker 1: journal written by Leonard Lake. In it, he wrote of
18:56
Speaker 1: The Collector, a novel about a butterfly collector who captures
19:00
Speaker 1: his ultimate prize, a young girl named Miranda. In his journal,
19:07
Speaker 1: Lake writes, the collector, has it really been near 20
19:12
Speaker 1: years I've carried this fantasy? And Miranda, how fitting, my
19:19
Speaker 1: lovely little prisoner of the future. In other entries, Lake
19:25
Speaker 1: referred to a series of operations under the heading of
19:27
Speaker 1: the Miranda Project. The investigators could only speculate as to
19:34
Speaker 1: what this meant. but it seemed ominous. 100 yards from
19:43
Speaker 1: the bunker, Ron McFall and the other investigators noticed the
19:47
Speaker 1: ground had been scarred by a series of several fires.
19:51
Speaker 16: We noticed at that point approximately seven different burn sites
19:54
Speaker 16: on the property. We decided to look at the burn
19:58
Speaker 16: sites a little further, and we found what we thought
20:01
Speaker 16: may be bone fragments, but we really weren't sure.
20:05
Speaker 1: If the piles of ash did contain human bone fragments...
20:09
Speaker 1: Someone had attempted to conceal an unspeakable horror. Now desperate
20:15
Speaker 1: for answers, investigators ran the license plates of a truck
20:19
Speaker 1: parked near the cabin. It belonged to Lonnie Bond, Lake's neighbor.
20:27
Speaker 1: Lonnie Bond lived with his wife and 18-month-old son in
20:30
Speaker 1: a house about 50 yards from Lake's cabin. Officers walked
20:35
Speaker 1: next door to speak with Bond.
20:39
Speaker 17: Hello?
20:40
Speaker 7: Anybody here?
20:40
Speaker 5: Anybody home?
20:47
Speaker 1: The smell of decayed food thickened the air. The house
20:51
Speaker 1: appeared to have been empty for some time, perhaps months.
20:57
Speaker 1: Although it seemed the occupants departed abruptly, there was no
21:00
Speaker 1: sign of foul play. Another vehicle found on Lake's property
21:07
Speaker 1: belonged to Robin Scott Stapley. Stapley had been missing for
21:12
Speaker 1: some time, and his driver's license was found in Paul
21:15
Speaker 1: Cosner's car.
21:17
Speaker 10: Leonard Lake had used Scott Stapley's driver's license because they
21:21
Speaker 10: were both big fellas, and he had been trying to
21:23
Speaker 10: pass himself off as Scott Stapley. So we're contacting Southern
21:27
Speaker 10: California to see, you know, where is Scott Stapley? And
21:30
Speaker 10: it turns out that he had been living at the
21:33
Speaker 10: cabin next door. and no one has seen them either.
21:38
Speaker 1: Investigators intensified their search. Cadaver dogs, known for their acute
21:46
Speaker 1: sense of smell, were brought in to help. Authorities now
21:50
Speaker 1: suspected that eight missing people from Northern California were linked
21:54
Speaker 1: to the cabin. If they had been murdered, as police feared,
21:59
Speaker 1: perhaps their bodies were buried on the property. One of
22:08
Speaker 1: the dogs recovered a piece of bone. The deputies working
22:15
Speaker 1: the scene knew immediately that this was not an animal bone.
22:25
Speaker 1: With the discovery of human remains, what had been a
22:28
Speaker 1: missing persons case now became a homicide investigation. Investigators declared
22:34
Speaker 1: Leonard Lake's property a crime scene and assembled a task
22:38
Speaker 1: force to process the cabin and surrounding property. Due to
22:46
Speaker 1: the expanding scope of the case, the Calaveras County Sheriff's
22:50
Speaker 1: Office called in additional help. Specialists from the San Francisco
22:55
Speaker 1: Police Department and the California Department of Justice arrived to
22:59
Speaker 1: help with the investigation. Three days after Leonard Lake's suicide,
23:10
Speaker 1: a convoy of law enforcement vehicles descended on the property.
23:17
Speaker 1: Now that this was a murder investigation, police knew that
23:20
Speaker 1: all material recovered from the site could become vital to
23:23
Speaker 1: the eventual prosecution of the case. Each section of the
23:28
Speaker 1: property was assigned to a specific team, The teams began
23:34
Speaker 1: a thorough search of the two acres surrounding the cabin.
23:42
Speaker 1: In a clearing about 100 yards from the cabin, officers
23:45
Speaker 1: found a trench with loose dirt. They found the trench
23:52
Speaker 1: had been filled with personal belongings and debris.
23:57
Speaker 18: Hey, Officer Ballard, I got something.
24:03
Speaker 1: Sergeant Larry Copeland, an investigator for the Calaveras County Sheriff's Office,
24:07
Speaker 1: joined in the search for clues.
24:10
Speaker 19: Every button, zipper, jewelry even, everything that was taken out
24:15
Speaker 19: of there was turned on to the evidence officer who
24:17
Speaker 19: took each one and individually photographed each and every piece
24:21
Speaker 19: of it. And we're talking hundreds.
24:26
Speaker 1: Everything excavated from the property was potential evidence. All of
24:31
Speaker 1: the items were collected and sent to the Calaveras County
24:33
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office. They were meticulously cataloged. Investigators hoped that somewhere
24:40
Speaker 1: in this vast collection of evidence, they would find the
24:43
Speaker 1: clue that would untangle the mysteries hidden on Lake's property.
24:49
Speaker 19: If we felt there was any chance of it being
24:52
Speaker 19: used or something that either ourselves or the defense could use,
24:56
Speaker 19: we took it and booked it.
24:59
Speaker 1: Investigators sorted through the survival gear and supplies Lake had
25:03
Speaker 1: stockpiled in his so-called fallout shelter. Lieutenant Ron McFall remembers
25:11
Speaker 1: that during this phase of the search, they made a
25:14
Speaker 1: surprising discovery. There was a secret door inside the bunker.
25:20
Speaker 14: It was a false door. You really couldn't tell just
25:23
Speaker 14: by looking at it, but there was shelving units, and
25:26
Speaker 14: after you wiggled the shelves down, You saw that the
25:29
Speaker 14: door actually popped open.
25:32
Speaker 1: Beyond the shelves was a double door leading to a
25:35
Speaker 1: hidden room. Off to the side was another three-foot by
25:41
Speaker 1: six-foot compartment. The cramped space contained a homemade wood cot,
25:49
Speaker 1: a crude shelf holding some toiletries, and a roll of
25:52
Speaker 1: toilet paper. A small hole had been cut into the
25:56
Speaker 1: wall near the ceilings possibly for ventilation. A typed list
26:01
Speaker 1: of rules was affixed to one wall. They included, I
26:06
Speaker 1: must always be ready to service my master and must
26:10
Speaker 1: never speak unless spoken to. I must always be obedient
26:15
Speaker 1: and never look my master in the eye. From outside,
26:22
Speaker 1: investigators could see into the small room through a two-way mirror.
26:27
Speaker 1: They also noticed that the hinges of the door had
26:30
Speaker 1: been damaged.
26:33
Speaker 20: You'll further notice the hinges are bent from obviously pressure
26:40
Speaker 20: from inside the door pushing out, trying to get the
26:42
Speaker 20: door open, both the.
26:43
Speaker 21: Top and bottom hinges.
26:44
Speaker 1: Remembering Lake's journal, investigators feared that Lake had acted upon
26:48
Speaker 1: his fantasy of kidnapping and holding captive a human slave.
26:56
Speaker 1: Forensic specialists dusted for fingerprints and latent evidence. They hoped
27:00
Speaker 1: that if Lake had indeed kept a prisoner here, he
27:03
Speaker 1: or she had left behind some clue of their presence.
27:08
Speaker 1: They found nothing. As the search of the property outside
27:15
Speaker 1: the bunker continued, an investigator noticed some loose soil next
27:19
Speaker 1: to the driveway. There they found a five gallon plastic
27:26
Speaker 1: paint container. As darkness fell, the task force suspended its search.
27:40
Speaker 1: Inside the cabin, the investigators viewed one of the videotapes
27:44
Speaker 1: they had found buried in the plastic container. They could
27:49
Speaker 1: hardly believe what they were seeing. This case was becoming
27:54
Speaker 1: more frightening with each piece of evidence they uncovered. But
27:59
Speaker 1: nothing could prepare them for what lay ahead. After two
28:06
Speaker 1: days of searching Leonard Lake's cabin, investigators feared more than
28:10
Speaker 1: eight people had been killed and possibly buried on the property.
28:16
Speaker 1: On the second night, the task force moved inside the
28:18
Speaker 1: cabin to view the videotape found buried in a plastic container.
28:24
Speaker 1: The tape depicted two women suffering extreme verbal and psychological
28:28
Speaker 1: abuse at the hands of Leonard Lake and his accomplice,
28:31
Speaker 1: who demanded sexual submission under the threat of violence.
28:36
Speaker 14: We also observed an Asian male on the tape, and
28:41
Speaker 14: he had a knife in his hand, and he was
28:42
Speaker 14: cutting the clothing. This would be the blouse, the top,
28:47
Speaker 14: as well as the bra strap, removing clothes from the female.
28:53
Speaker 1: The Asian male was identified as Charles Ng, a shoplifter
28:57
Speaker 1: Leonard Lake had identified just prior to his suicide. The
29:02
Speaker 1: Homicide Division of the San Francisco Police Department launched a
29:06
Speaker 1: full-scale manhunt for Charles Ng. Investigators started with a search
29:10
Speaker 1: of Ng's San Francisco apartment. They collected some video equipment
29:15
Speaker 1: and a number of videotapes. Everything was tagged as evidence
29:20
Speaker 1: and sent for analysis. San Francisco homicide detective Ed Erdelatz
29:27
Speaker 1: led a task force that investigated the year-old disappearance of
29:30
Speaker 1: the Dubs family. The equipment Lake and Ng had used
29:35
Speaker 1: to videotape their captives had once belonged to Harvey Dubs.
29:40
Speaker 22: Investigators had obtained his California driver's license photo and had
29:45
Speaker 22: made up a photo collage, showed it to neighbors, and
29:48
Speaker 22: identified him as one of the people coming out of
29:52
Speaker 22: the Dubs' home.
29:54
Speaker 1: One of the Dubs' neighbors told investigators that the night
29:56
Speaker 1: before the family was reported missing, She saw two men
30:00
Speaker 1: leaving their residence. One of the men was carrying a
30:04
Speaker 1: large duffel bag. It was dark, but she said she
30:09
Speaker 1: could identify him. The eyewitnesses' critical identification of Charles Ng
30:16
Speaker 1: gave investigators probable cause to issue an arrest warrant. Clara
30:24
Speaker 1: Lynn Balazs, Leonard Lake's ex-wife, was questioned about her ex-husband's
30:29
Speaker 1: association with Charles Ng. She agreed to talk, but only
30:35
Speaker 1: after her attorney convinced the district attorney's office to grant
30:39
Speaker 1: her immunity from prosecution. Balazs claimed she didn't know anything
30:44
Speaker 1: about the murders. She did tell them that after the
30:49
Speaker 1: shoplifting incident, Ng walked to her house.
30:54
Speaker 5: What kind of trouble are you in?
30:57
Speaker 1: The two drove back to the lumber yard to see
30:59
Speaker 1: if Lake was all right. When they saw him talking
31:04
Speaker 1: to the police, they returned to her house. There they waited,
31:10
Speaker 1: expecting a call from Lake, who was now in police custody.
31:15
Speaker 1: When he didn't call, Claralyn drove Ng to his apartment.
31:21
Speaker 1: Ng told Claralyn he had to get out of.
31:23
Speaker 22: Town She said that she thought he would probably go
31:27
Speaker 22: to Chicago, that he had mentioned that he would go
31:29
Speaker 22: to Chicago if he had to get out of town.
31:35
Speaker 22: And she claims that that was the last that she
31:37
Speaker 22: saw of him.
31:40
Speaker 1: Because Ng was wanted for murder and there was reason
31:42
Speaker 1: to believe he had fled the state, the California investigators
31:46
Speaker 1: asked for assistance from the FBI. In response, the Bureau
31:51
Speaker 1: launched a massive manhunt for Charles Ng. At San Francisco
31:56
Speaker 1: International Airport, agents learned that a passenger fitting Ng's description
32:00
Speaker 1: had boarded a plane to Chicago, traveling under the name
32:04
Speaker 1: Mike Kimoto. In Chicago, agents worked to track Ng's movements.
32:11
Speaker 1: They started with an extensive background check.
32:16
Speaker 5: Hey Leonard, how you doing?
32:17
Speaker 12: Charlie!
32:18
Speaker 1: Investigators learned that Charles Ng was born in Hong Kong
32:22
Speaker 1: and entered the United States on a student visa in 1979.
32:27
Speaker 1: He enlisted in the Marine Corps, but was eventually arrested
32:30
Speaker 1: for stealing weapons. He escaped from prison, and on the
32:35
Speaker 1: advice of a friend, hid out with Leonard Lake and
32:38
Speaker 1: his wife Claralyn. Ng stayed with Lake and his wife
32:42
Speaker 1: for six months in Philo, California. At the same time,
32:51
Speaker 1: ATF agents were building a case against Lake for possession
32:54
Speaker 1: of illegal firearms. In the spring of 1981, they arrested
33:01
Speaker 1: both Lake and Ng. Lake skipped bail and began his
33:07
Speaker 1: life as a fugitive. Ng was sent back to prison
33:12
Speaker 1: to serve the remainder of his original sentence.
33:15
Speaker 22: Ng was released from prison in 1984. and immediately came
33:20
Speaker 22: back to the San Francisco Bay Area, was picked up
33:23
Speaker 22: at the airport by Clara Lynn Balazs, and rejoined his
33:28
Speaker 22: buddy Leonard Lake.
33:31
Speaker 1: Charles Ng was an experienced fugitive with a wide network
33:35
Speaker 1: of friends who could help him. To develop more leads,
33:41
Speaker 1: the FBI placed Ng on their 10 Most Wanted list.
33:45
Speaker 1: For the time being, Agents focused on Ng's friends and
33:49
Speaker 1: acquaintances in the Chicago area. As the investigation into Charles
33:57
Speaker 1: Ng expanded, the body count in Calaveras County continued to climb.
34:05
Speaker 1: Not far from Lake's cabin, investigators unearthed two intact bodies
34:10
Speaker 1: wrapped in sleeping bags. Calaveras County Coroner Terry Parker was
34:15
Speaker 1: on the scene.
34:17
Speaker 6: They were mostly skeletal remains that were wrapped. Couldn't really
34:22
Speaker 6: make out if they were men or women because of
34:26
Speaker 6: the time that the bodies had been there.
34:31
Speaker 1: Due to the deterioration of the bodies, Parker could make
34:34
Speaker 1: only a cursory examination at the site. It appeared both
34:39
Speaker 1: victims had been gagged and handcuffed. He asked for help
34:42
Speaker 1: from the San Francisco Medical Examiner.
34:45
Speaker 6: San Francisco has a very good forensic department, and he
34:49
Speaker 6: was more than happy to come up and assist us.
34:53
Speaker 6: We removed the bodies and transported them to his office
34:57
Speaker 6: for the forensic work where that was done.
35:01
Speaker 1: At autopsy, the San Francisco medical examiner determined both victims
35:05
Speaker 1: were males and that they had been shot to death.
35:10
Speaker 1: Using dental records, he identified the men as Lake's neighbors,
35:14
Speaker 1: Monty Bond, and Scott Stapley. In Chicago, the FBI got
35:21
Speaker 1: their first lead. They learned that after serving time on
35:26
Speaker 1: the weapons charge, Ng had kept in touch with his
35:29
Speaker 1: former cellmate. The man described how he had driven Ng
35:35
Speaker 1: first to Detroit, then to the border town of Chatham. There,
35:41
Speaker 1: he said, they split up. A witness came forward and
35:47
Speaker 1: told agents that he had seen Ng board a bus
35:50
Speaker 1: in Chatham, bound for Toronto. Agents were aware that Ng's
35:55
Speaker 1: sister lived there. The FBI deployed a surveillance team at
36:01
Speaker 1: her apartment house, but the fugitive never showed. After days
36:06
Speaker 1: of following Ng, the trail grew cold. a suspected serial
36:12
Speaker 1: killer was now roaming free in Canada. As word of
36:20
Speaker 1: the multiple murders spread, the news media descended on a
36:23
Speaker 1: property in Calaveras County. Don Lassiter is a true crime
36:28
Speaker 1: author who wrote a book on the Charles Zane case.
36:32
Speaker 23: And of course the media, when they first heard of this,
36:35
Speaker 23: rushed to the site and daily the news Media coverage
36:41
Speaker 23: grew and it got coverage all over California and soon
36:47
Speaker 23: all over the United States and certainly even in Canada.
36:50
Speaker 1: The investigators agreed to let the media on the property.
36:55
Speaker 1: They showed them the site and allowed them to videotape
36:58
Speaker 1: some of the evidence they had collected.
37:01
Speaker 3: Up until this point, we've really relied on our imaginations
37:04
Speaker 3: to visualize this story. But today, we have pictures. Pictures
37:08
Speaker 3: that will probably leave many people with an everlasting image
37:11
Speaker 3: of the horror that occurred at the end of this road.
37:14
Speaker 3: These are some of the bone fragments that have been found,
37:17
Speaker 3: and investigators say there are countless fragments just like those
37:20
Speaker 3: scattered over a third of an acre here. The California
37:23
Speaker 3: Conservation Corps has been recruited to pick up the bones.
37:26
Speaker 3: Most of them worked on their hands and knees, raking
37:28
Speaker 3: the ground with their fingers. Investigators came up with 10
37:32
Speaker 3: pounds of bones. The local coroner says five bodies have
37:36
Speaker 3: been found here so far. The Calaveras County Sheriff once
37:39
Speaker 3: told me, though, he believes there are as many as
37:41
Speaker 3: 20 victims, though, buried on the property.
37:46
Speaker 1: Investigators were counting on the media exposure to help identify
37:50
Speaker 1: the 21 women depicted in the photographs tacked to the
37:53
Speaker 1: wall of Lake's bunker.
37:56
Speaker 16: We certainly want to know the circumstances of the photos,
37:59
Speaker 16: when they were taken.
38:02
Speaker 24: We're interested in knowing anything we can about Mr.
38:06
Speaker 21: Lake and Mr.
38:07
Speaker 3: Eng.
38:09
Speaker 1: A telephone hotline was set up by the Calaveras Sheriff's Department,
38:12
Speaker 1: and calls soon began pouring in. Detectives believed Leonard Lake
38:19
Speaker 1: and Charles Ng crossed paths with as many as 25
38:22
Speaker 1: people who were later reported missing. Working under San Francisco
38:30
Speaker 1: investigator Ed Erdelatz, the task force tried to piece together
38:33
Speaker 1: any leads that would locate Ng or help identify the
38:37
Speaker 1: growing list of victims.
38:40
Speaker 22: Anybody that had anything to do with either Lake or Ng,
38:42
Speaker 22: we attempted to identify and find out if they were
38:45
Speaker 22: still alive. and if they were, what their relationship was.
38:49
Speaker 22: And it was through that process that we began to
38:52
Speaker 22: identify different victims.
38:55
Speaker 1: Members of the task force were sent around with photos
38:58
Speaker 1: of personal belongings found on the property in an effort
39:01
Speaker 1: to identify anyone who had been at the cabin. Relatives
39:06
Speaker 1: and friends of the missing realized their loved ones might
39:09
Speaker 1: be among the dead. There was the Dubs family from
39:15
Speaker 1: San Francisco who placed an ad in the newspaper to
39:19
Speaker 1: rent their video equipment and were never heard from again.
39:27
Speaker 1: Randy Jacobson, a friend of Leonard Lake's, was found buried
39:30
Speaker 1: near a chicken coop behind the cabin. Jeff Gerald, who
39:37
Speaker 1: worked with Ng at a San Francisco moving company, disappeared
39:40
Speaker 1: along with his friend Clifford Peranto, who worked at the
39:43
Speaker 1: same company. Ng's longtime friend, Mike Carroll, and his girlfriend,
39:52
Speaker 1: Kathleen Allen, had disappeared. Lake's neighbors were also missing. Lonnie Bond,
40:03
Speaker 1: Brenda O'Connor, and their 16-month-old child, Lonnie Jr. Their friend,
40:09
Speaker 1: Robin Scott Stapley, had vanished with them. And finally, Paul Cosner.
40:15
Speaker 1: whose car had originally led investigators on this trail of
40:19
Speaker 1: kidnapping and murder. The task force received one bit of
40:25
Speaker 1: good news.
40:26
Speaker 23: We finally caught a break on this one. We were
40:30
Speaker 23: able to ID all these women and they're.
40:31
Speaker 24: All still alive.
40:33
Speaker 1: Finding the girls alive was a relief, but Lake's property
40:37
Speaker 1: still held many mysteries. Agents feared they would never know
40:41
Speaker 1: the complete story of the Calaveras County murders. unless they
40:45
Speaker 1: found Charles Ng. After weeks of searching, they still had
40:52
Speaker 1: not located the fugitive. Then on July 6th, 1985, a
41:01
Speaker 1: boy riding his bicycle in a Canadian park spotted the
41:05
Speaker 1: perfect place for a play fort. He was surprised to
41:11
Speaker 1: see a man living there he went to the police
41:15
Speaker 1: and told them he had found a campsite and had
41:18
Speaker 1: seen a man who looked like Charles Ng. The boy
41:21
Speaker 1: recognized him from wanted posters. He led police to the
41:30
Speaker 1: makeshift shelter, only to find that Ng had fled.
41:33
Speaker 19: Later that same day, Charles Ng.
41:42
Speaker 1: Would make the mistake investigators had been waiting for. Ironically,
41:48
Speaker 1: it was the same mistake that started the police investigation
41:50
Speaker 1: a month earlier. A security guard confronted a young Asian
41:57
Speaker 1: male as he slipped stolen merchandise into his knapsack in
42:00
Speaker 1: a Calgary department store. As the security guard struggled with
42:10
Speaker 1: the gunman, he was shot in the hand. Still, he
42:14
Speaker 1: managed to wrestle the weapon from the shooter and hold
42:17
Speaker 1: him until police arrived. Charles Ng was captured and booked
42:22
Speaker 1: on charges of attempted murder, robbery, and possession of a firearm.
42:28
Speaker 21: This is Channel 10 Eyewitness News.
42:32
Speaker 5: Night watch. Good evening. Popping Night Watch. Charles Ng is
42:39
Speaker 5: in a Canadian jail tonight, and the worldwide manhunt has
42:42
Speaker 5: ended for the prime suspect.
42:43
Speaker 1: News of Ng's arrest in Canada reached the sheriff's office
42:46
Speaker 1: in Calaveras County. After more than a half an hour,
42:49
Speaker 1: Ng was.
42:50
Speaker 5: Captured by security guards in a Calgary department store, but
42:53
Speaker 5: not before he engaged them in a brief gun battle
42:55
Speaker 5: and wounded one of the guards. Ng was quickly subdued
42:59
Speaker 5: by store patrons and was taken into police custody.
43:04
Speaker 1: San Francisco Police Inspector Ed Erdelatz was eager to question
43:08
Speaker 1: the suspect. He flew to Calgary, where Ng was being
43:12
Speaker 1: held in a maximum security prison.
43:15
Speaker 22: And we spent quite a few hours with Charles in
43:19
Speaker 22: the detention center in Calgary. And although he did talk
43:23
Speaker 22: with us, most of his responses were one- and two-word answers,
43:29
Speaker 22: very little dialogue, and primarily denial. We could have gone
43:35
Speaker 22: into a lot of things had he been willing to
43:39
Speaker 22: talk to us about those things, but that didn't occur.
43:44
Speaker 1: The murders, Ng claimed, were all the work of Leonard Lake.
43:49
Speaker 1: When pressed, Ng did admit to Erdelatz that he had
43:52
Speaker 1: helped Lake dispose the bodies of Lonnie Bond and Scott
43:55
Speaker 1: Stapley the day after they were murdered. In Calaveras County,
44:03
Speaker 1: The district attorney's office indicted Ng on 12 counts of
44:06
Speaker 1: first-degree murder, making it possible for the prosecution to seek
44:10
Speaker 1: the death penalty. But Ng's flight to Canada had created
44:15
Speaker 1: a significant obstacle. District attorney Pete Smith explains.
44:21
Speaker 2: There was an extradition treaty between the United States and
44:23
Speaker 2: Canada at the time, and in that extradition treaty, there
44:29
Speaker 2: was a condition that nobody would be extradited from Canada
44:33
Speaker 2: back to the United States who faced the death penalty.
44:38
Speaker 1: There were some exceptions to the treaty, however.
44:40
Speaker 23: Do you think we can work around that?
44:42
Speaker 1: If the district attorney's office could prove to a Canadian
44:45
Speaker 1: court that Ng was guilty of multiple murders, Canada would
44:49
Speaker 1: be required to hand over the suspected killer. Before the
44:55
Speaker 1: extradition hearing could begin, Ng would have to stand trial
44:58
Speaker 1: in Canada on shoplifting and assault charges. In order to
45:03
Speaker 1: delay his extradition, Ng waived his right to a jury
45:06
Speaker 1: trial and asked for a speedier bench trial. He received
45:12
Speaker 1: a four and a half year sentence. Until he completed
45:16
Speaker 1: that sentence, the Calaveras County District Attorney could not initiate
45:19
Speaker 1: the complicated extradition process. Even if they could prove their case,
45:26
Speaker 1: they would have to wait over four years before they
45:29
Speaker 1: could begin. While the Calaveras County District Attorney's Office built
45:36
Speaker 1: their case against Charles Ng, the search for evidence continued
45:40
Speaker 1: at Leonard Lake's cabin. By this time, five bodies had
45:46
Speaker 1: been found and identified. Hundreds of personal effects had been recovered.
45:55
Speaker 1: More than 40 pounds of unidentifiable human remains had been unearthed.
46:02
Speaker 1: investigators believed that as many as 25 missing persons had
46:05
Speaker 1: been moved to the cabin. As the evidence against Ng
46:12
Speaker 1: continued to grow, he used his time in a Canadian
46:15
Speaker 1: prison to try to fend off any attempts at extradition.
46:19
Speaker 1: He knew if he was successfully extradited back to the
46:22
Speaker 1: United States, he would have to face a murder trial
46:25
Speaker 1: and the possibility of the death penalty. He began to
46:30
Speaker 1: educate himself on the American legal system.
46:33
Speaker 23: For a boy with limited education raised in Hong Kong,
46:37
Speaker 23: he was remarkably adept at knowing the legal system here
46:41
Speaker 23: and how to deal with it.
46:48
Speaker 1: A guard reported to the prison warden he overheard Ng
46:51
Speaker 1: say to a fellow inmate, if you want to delay
46:54
Speaker 1: the system, you just have to fire your lawyers. On
47:02
Speaker 1: October 17th, 1988, the extradition hearings finally began. Ng lost
47:08
Speaker 1: the case and appealed all the way to the Canadian
47:11
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. His appeal was denied.
47:19
Speaker 2: Within the same day, Charles Ng was placed on an
47:22
Speaker 2: airplane in Canada and flown back to California.
47:28
Speaker 1: But the pursuit of justice was far from over. Charles
47:32
Speaker 1: Ng had used his time in Canada to arm himself
47:35
Speaker 1: with enough legal knowledge to wage an all-out war on
47:39
Speaker 1: the American judicial system. On September 26, 1991, suspected serial
47:48
Speaker 1: killer Charles Ng was finally returned to California. The Calaveras
47:54
Speaker 1: County District Attorney charged Ng with 12 counts of murder,
47:58
Speaker 1: Detective Sergeant Randy Grassmuck transported Ng daily from the California
48:02
Speaker 1: Department of Corrections to the Calaveras County Courthouse.
48:06
Speaker 12: We had high security. We had our SWAT team up
48:09
Speaker 12: on the roof for a while. We had heard that
48:13
Speaker 12: somebody wanted to kill Charles Ng. Let's face it, the
48:16
Speaker 12: last thing we wanted to do as Calaveras County Sheriff's
48:19
Speaker 12: Department was lose Charles Ng.
48:22
Speaker 1: Calaveras County was not prepared to handle a prisoner like
48:25
Speaker 1: Charles Ng. Their courthouse wasn't secure enough to hold a
48:30
Speaker 1: maximum security prisoner. The county had to build a special
48:35
Speaker 1: cage to house Ng during his legal proceedings. From the
48:40
Speaker 1: moment Ng arrived in the county, he was intent on
48:43
Speaker 1: wreaking havoc and creating delay. He began by trying to
48:50
Speaker 1: fire his attorneys and complaining about his treatment. He filed
48:55
Speaker 1: motions for better food, and a shorter commute from the prison.
49:00
Speaker 1: He demanded to have his cage dismantled. Although each motion
49:05
Speaker 1: was frivolous, it sapped the resources of the Calaveras County
49:08
Speaker 1: District Attorney's Office.
49:13
Speaker 2: I didn't realize how truly huge this case was. We're
49:17
Speaker 2: very small. We have five attorneys. including myself. There's the
49:22
Speaker 2: assistant district attorney, and then I have three deputy district attorneys.
49:26
Speaker 2: We have two investigators, and we have three support staff,
49:31
Speaker 2: and that's it in our criminal division. It's like a
49:36
Speaker 2: very small law firm.
49:41
Speaker 1: The prosecution battled Charles Ng for a full year before
49:44
Speaker 1: his preliminary hearing even started.
49:47
Speaker 8: Your Honor, at this point in time, we would like
49:49
Speaker 8: to present photos, affidavits, and videotapes into evidence against the defendant.
49:58
Speaker 1: The purpose of this proceeding was simply to determine whether
50:01
Speaker 1: the prosecution had sufficient evidence to try Ng for the
50:04
Speaker 1: 12 murders.
50:05
Speaker 21: Against the defendant for moving forward to trial.
50:09
Speaker 1: Although the burden of proof is not as strict as
50:11
Speaker 1: that of an actual trial, the prosecution had little direct
50:15
Speaker 1: evidence linking Ng to the murders. Lacking eyewitnesses, fingerprints, and
50:22
Speaker 1: blood evidence, the prosecution would have to present its case
50:25
Speaker 1: mostly on circumstantial evidence. Their strongest evidence was the videotape
50:33
Speaker 1: found at the cabin entitled M Ladies. The preliminary hearing
50:39
Speaker 1: was the first time the tape was played for the public.
50:42
Speaker 1: On the tape, Lake and Ng were seen torturing two women,
50:47
Speaker 1: one of whom was Brenda O'Connor. Inspector Erdelatz explains the
50:53
Speaker 1: impact of the videotaped evidence.
50:56
Speaker 22: Brenda O'Connor is a woman who lived on the adjacent
50:58
Speaker 22: property with her boyfriend and his friend and their little baby.
51:05
Speaker 22: And You see her on film, she's handcuffed, and she's
51:09
Speaker 22: begging Leonard Lake and Charles Ng for her baby back.
51:13
Speaker 22: She wants her baby back, and she's crying. Of course,
51:17
Speaker 22: they killed this little baby, and it's such a sad
51:22
Speaker 22: thing to see her asking for this little baby back.
51:28
Speaker 1: The tapes were incriminating, but with so little physical evidence
51:33
Speaker 1: directly linking Ng to the murders... the prosecution would have
51:37
Speaker 1: to rely on the testimony of another criminal.
51:41
Speaker 10: Hey!
51:43
Speaker 1: Maurice Laberge had served time with Ng in Canada. To
51:49
Speaker 1: pass the time, Ng entertained Laberge with crudely drawn cartoons
51:54
Speaker 1: depicting his crimes and with stories of what had happened
51:57
Speaker 1: at Lake's cabin in California. To gain favor with his
52:03
Speaker 1: parole board, Laberge turned over the cartoons and told authorities
52:07
Speaker 1: the details of his conversations with Ng. One of the
52:12
Speaker 1: most damning cartoons depicted Ng killing a baby. Laberge testified
52:18
Speaker 1: at Ng's extradition hearing, detailing everything Ng had confessed during
52:22
Speaker 1: their jail time together. Laberge's testimony was presented as evidence.
52:32
Speaker 1: On November 13, 1992, the court found sufficient grounds to
52:37
Speaker 1: try Charles Ng on 12 counts of murder. The judge
52:42
Speaker 1: set his trial date for January 12, 1993.
52:47
Speaker 2: We felt that the case would be tried and over
52:50
Speaker 2: with by 93, but no later than 1994. Well, that
52:57
Speaker 2: didn't happen. What did happen was delay.
53:03
Speaker 1: Now that Ng knew he would stand trial for his crimes,
53:06
Speaker 1: he began a desperate attempt to delay the proceedings in
53:09
Speaker 1: any way possible. He filed a motion alleging that his
53:13
Speaker 1: court-appointed attorneys were incompetent. He succeeded in firing them, and
53:19
Speaker 1: the court appointed him new counsel. Because pretrial publicity made
53:26
Speaker 1: it impossible to find an impartial jury in Calaveras County,
53:30
Speaker 1: Ng's new defense team filed a motion to move the trial.
53:36
Speaker 1: The judge granted the motion, moving the trial to Orange
53:39
Speaker 1: County in Southern California. A fully loaded 36-foot truck delivered
53:46
Speaker 1: a mountain of case material to Ng's new counsel, the
53:50
Speaker 1: Orange County Public Defender's Office. The material included hundreds of
53:55
Speaker 1: boxes of records documenting eight years of courtroom hearings witness testimony, investigative, medical,
54:02
Speaker 1: and police reports, and thousands of evidence photographs. William Kelly,
54:09
Speaker 1: Ng's newly appointed counsel, asked for and received two and
54:13
Speaker 1: a half years to prepare his client's case. The prosecution
54:21
Speaker 1: made the move from Calaveras County, 400 miles south to
54:24
Speaker 1: Orange County, and prepared for the largest case of their careers.
54:32
Speaker 1: The years of delay worried prosecutor Peter Smith.
54:36
Speaker 2: As you know, in any case, memories fade, witnesses die,
54:42
Speaker 2: things of that nature. And so when you tack on
54:44
Speaker 2: six years to the life of a criminal case, that's
54:49
Speaker 2: a long time to delay a case from going to trial.
54:55
Speaker 7: Good morning, gentlemen.
54:56
Speaker 11: Have a seat.
54:57
Speaker 1: As the prosecution and defense attorneys finalized their trial preparations,
55:02
Speaker 1: Ng again attempted to delay the process. But Judge John
55:09
Speaker 1: Ryan put a stop to his tactics. The case was
55:12
Speaker 1: finally going to trial. A prosecution team from Calaveras County
55:21
Speaker 1: worked out their strategy with Charlene Honaka, the Deputy Attorney
55:25
Speaker 1: General for the state of California.
55:29
Speaker 2: She's a tremendous lawyer and a better person. She was,
55:34
Speaker 2: in essence, the heart and soul for this case and
55:37
Speaker 2: for the prosecution.
55:41
Speaker 1: As prosecutors prepared to begin jury selection, the team suffered
55:45
Speaker 1: a devastating setback. Maurice Laberge was killed in a car
55:50
Speaker 1: accident while on parole. He was the only person to
55:56
Speaker 1: whom Ng had confessed his crimes. The prosecution had just
56:00
Speaker 1: lost its key witness. 13 years had passed since investigators
56:07
Speaker 1: began finding bodies at a mountain cabin in Calaveras County, California.
56:15
Speaker 1: Although they eventually linked 25 missing people to Lake's property,
56:19
Speaker 1: they only had enough evidence to charge Charles Ng with
56:22
Speaker 1: 12 counts of murder. Ng had managed to delay his
56:27
Speaker 1: trial for more than a decade, but could delay no longer.
56:31
Speaker 1: The murder trial of Charles Ng was finally about to begin.
56:37
Speaker 1: The accused serial killer's fate would now rest with a
56:41
Speaker 1: jury of his peers. Peter Smith's job was to select
56:46
Speaker 1: that jury.
56:47
Speaker 2: Because the case was going to take so long, we
56:50
Speaker 2: had to time-qualify jurors. We had to bring in over 2,000
56:54
Speaker 2: people from Orange County to ask them, basically, can you
56:58
Speaker 2: commit to the time it'll take to try this case?
57:03
Speaker 1: While counsel was in the midst of qualifying the jurors,
57:07
Speaker 1: Ng grew agitated.
57:07
Speaker 11: Please restrain yourself.
57:10
Speaker 1: Shouting obscenities, he tried to halt the proceedings, telling the
57:14
Speaker 1: judge that he did not want a trial. Judge Ryan
57:21
Speaker 1: ordered Ng to wear an electric stun belt for the
57:23
Speaker 1: duration of the trial. The bailiff could trigger the device
57:28
Speaker 1: by remote control if he became violent again. Attorneys from
57:35
Speaker 1: the prosecution and the defense took a month to choose
57:38
Speaker 1: a jury of eight women and four men, along with
57:41
Speaker 1: six alternates. To protect their identities, each member of the
57:46
Speaker 1: jury was assigned a number. On Monday, October 26th, 1998,
57:51
Speaker 1: the trial began with opening statements. For both the prosecution
57:59
Speaker 1: and the defense, opening statements serve as an outline telling
58:02
Speaker 1: the jury what they are trying to prove and how
58:05
Speaker 1: they intend to prove it. With the years of waiting over,
58:12
Speaker 1: Charlene Hanaka rose to make the opening statement for the prosecution.
58:19
Speaker 18: What the evidence in this case is going to show
58:21
Speaker 18: is that this defendant, with Leonard Lake, planned and committed
58:27
Speaker 18: the 12 charged murders in this case. This is a
58:31
Speaker 18: chart which lists the 12 counts. The evidence will show
58:37
Speaker 18: that between a time frame from July 1984 until 1985,
58:42
Speaker 18: these 12 victims disappeared from the face of the earth.
58:51
Speaker 18: And this trial will tell you the story of what
58:55
Speaker 18: happened to them.
58:56
Speaker 1: Onaka described the property in Calaveras County as a killing
59:00
Speaker 1: field and a mass graveyard. She then told the jury
59:06
Speaker 1: about the M. Ladies tape found buried near the cabins.
59:10
Speaker 1: and how they depicted a partially nude Ng demanding massages
59:14
Speaker 1: from Kathleen Allen and cutting the clothes off of Brenda O'Connor.
59:21
Speaker 18: We're gonna play for you two segments from that videotape
59:27
Speaker 18: as a means of demonstrating the evidence and and in
59:31
Speaker 18: helping you understand.
59:32
Speaker 1: The videotape was the centerpiece of the prosecution's case. It
59:41
Speaker 1: showed the jury exactly who Charles Ng was, a man
59:45
Speaker 1: who not only tortured women, but who recorded his acts
59:48
Speaker 1: on videotape so he could relive them again and again.
59:52
Speaker 2: The videotape's dramatic. It is the most.
59:58
Speaker 2: It is the most incriminating piece of evidence I've ever
1:00:02
Speaker 2: used in a case. It is also the most emotional
1:00:07
Speaker 2: piece of evidence I've ever used in a case. You
1:00:13
Speaker 2: can sense the terror and the fear those two victims
1:00:21
Speaker 2: had when they realized the situation they were in.
1:00:25
Speaker 1: Because this was the strongest physical evidence linking Ng to
1:00:28
Speaker 1: the murders, the prosecution planned to use the videotape throughout
1:00:32
Speaker 1: the trial to prove Charles Ng's guilt. William Kelly, Ng's
1:00:42
Speaker 1: court-appointed attorney, scarcely mentioned the defendant in much of his
1:00:46
Speaker 1: opening statement. His strategy was to shift the focus of
1:00:52
Speaker 1: the accusations from his client, Charles Ng, to the late
1:00:56
Speaker 1: Leonard Lake.
1:00:59
Speaker 21: The defense in this case is really simple. That is,
1:01:04
Speaker 21: Leonard Lake had a motive for murder. Leonard Lake also
1:01:09
Speaker 21: had a plan for murder.
1:01:15
Speaker 1: Kelly asserted that Lake's plan for murder was outlined in
1:01:18
Speaker 1: his diary under the heading The Miranda Project. He then
1:01:22
Speaker 1: read the jury excerpts from Leonard Lake's journal. Kelly suggested
1:01:27
Speaker 1: that Lake's conspirator was not Ng, but Carolyn Balazs, Lake's ex-wife.
1:01:34
Speaker 1: He asserted that she knew about the Miranda Project and
1:01:37
Speaker 1: even recruited potential victims.
1:01:40
Speaker 21: Nobody's going to walk in here, sit down in that
1:01:43
Speaker 21: jury box, point a finger at Charles Ng and say,
1:01:47
Speaker 21: I saw Charlie Ng murder somebody. It's not going to happen.
1:01:55
Speaker 1: With very little physical evidence placing Ng at the murders,
1:01:59
Speaker 1: Kelly intended to discredit the prosecution's circumstantial case and prove
1:02:03
Speaker 1: it was Leonard Lake, not Charles Ng, who murdered the
1:02:06
Speaker 1: 12 victims. He asserted that Ng killed no one. The
1:02:14
Speaker 1: prosecution called Sergeant Larry Copeland of the Calaveras County Sheriff's
1:02:18
Speaker 1: Department to the stand. He told the jury about a
1:02:22
Speaker 1: startling discovery he made while analyzing the videotapes confiscated from
1:02:26
Speaker 1: Ng's San Francisco apartment.
1:02:30
Speaker 19: So I'd put this tape in and push play, and
1:02:34
Speaker 19: it started with the credits. So I thought, well, gee whiz,
1:02:37
Speaker 19: someone didn't rewind this tape. So I pushed rewind, but
1:02:41
Speaker 19: I didn't push stop first. I just pushed rewind, so
1:02:44
Speaker 19: it started playing in reverse. And then all of a sudden,
1:02:47
Speaker 19: right at.
1:02:47
Speaker 3: The end of the tape, it went.
1:02:50
Speaker 1: What Copeland discovered was a still image of two bodies
1:02:54
Speaker 1: in a wheelbarrow. The image was entered into evidence. The
1:03:01
Speaker 1: medical examiner was sworn in. He was asked to identify
1:03:06
Speaker 1: two photographs of bodies found at the cabin.
1:03:12
Speaker 25: Yes, I believe that's the remains of Scott Stabley.
1:03:17
Speaker 5: And this next one?
1:03:21
Speaker 25: Those remains are from Lonnie Bond.
1:03:26
Speaker 1: He went on to explain the way in which Lonnie
1:03:28
Speaker 1: Bond and Scott Stapley were bound, gagged, and wrapped in
1:03:31
Speaker 1: sleeping bags. The sleeping bags matched those on the tape.
1:03:37
Speaker 1: The medical examiner testified that the bodies on the tape
1:03:40
Speaker 1: were in full rigor mortis. Rigor mortis occurs shortly after
1:03:47
Speaker 1: death when the blood flow is interrupted. It only lasts
1:03:51
Speaker 1: for a few hours until the body begins to decay.
1:03:57
Speaker 1: In Canada, Ng told Inspector Ertelatz he helped bury Bond
1:04:01
Speaker 1: and Stapley 24 hours after they were murdered. Whoever had
1:04:08
Speaker 1: taken the picture had done so immediately after they were killed.
1:04:13
Speaker 1: The single frame on the videotape found at Ng's apartment
1:04:16
Speaker 1: linked him to the murder of Lonnie Bond and Scott Stapley.
1:04:21
Speaker 1: Because so few of the remains found on the property
1:04:24
Speaker 1: could be identified, the prosecution relied on hundreds of personal
1:04:28
Speaker 1: effects discovered at Ng's apartment and the cabin to link
1:04:32
Speaker 1: him to the victims. These items were photographed and entered
1:04:36
Speaker 1: as evidence. The district attorney's lead investigator, Mitch Hrdlicka, was
1:04:42
Speaker 1: in charge of witnesses' testimony for the prosecution.
1:04:46
Speaker 18: Well, we had.
1:04:47
Speaker 24: Over 200 pieces of evidence that we used in the
1:04:51
Speaker 24: guilt phase of the trial, and we had about 75
1:04:54
Speaker 24: witnesses that we had to bring in from various parts
1:04:57
Speaker 24: of the country as well as Canada to prove that
1:05:01
Speaker 24: those items belonged to the people who had gone missing
1:05:04
Speaker 24: and the victims in our case.
1:05:06
Speaker 1: The prosecution then attempted to establish a link between Kathleen
1:05:10
Speaker 1: Allen and Charles Ng. Kathleen Allen was one of the
1:05:15
Speaker 1: women on the M-Ladies tape who was tortured by Lake
1:05:18
Speaker 1: and Ng. Although her body was never found, several of
1:05:22
Speaker 1: her personal effects were unearthed near the cabin. The prosecution
1:05:28
Speaker 1: asked her sister to identify a heart-shaped pendant.
1:05:31
Speaker 2: Ms.
1:05:31
Speaker 26: Allen, I know this may be very difficult for you,
1:05:35
Speaker 26: but I want you to look very closely at this
1:05:37
Speaker 26: necklace and tell me if you recognize it.
1:05:44
Speaker 25: It's a necklace Kathy used to wear all the time.
1:05:48
Speaker 18: Thank you.
1:05:49
Speaker 26: Your Honor, we'd like the record to show that the
1:05:52
Speaker 26: witness identified the necklace as belonging to the victim, Kathy Allen.
1:05:55
Speaker 5: So ordered.
1:05:57
Speaker 26: And at this time, the people would like to move
1:05:59
Speaker 26: that we place this in evidence.
1:06:02
Speaker 1: The prosecution then began to construct the timeline of Kathleen
1:06:06
Speaker 1: Allen's disappearance to explain how she got.
1:06:08
Speaker 26: To the cabin.
1:06:10
Speaker 1: Her former supervisor discussed an odd phone conversation she had
1:06:14
Speaker 1: while at work.
1:06:16
Speaker 26: And can you tell us about that conversation?
1:06:19
Speaker 27: Yes. She said she got a call and she said
1:06:22
Speaker 27: she wanted to join her boyfriend because he got a
1:06:26
Speaker 27: gunshot wound.
1:06:29
Speaker 1: Kathleen Allen worked at a grocery store in Milpitas, California.
1:06:34
Speaker 1: Her boyfriend, Mike Carroll, had met Charles Ng while serving
1:06:37
Speaker 1: time in Leavenworth Federal Prison. Mike called Kathleen to say
1:06:42
Speaker 1: he was in Lake Tahoe and had been shot. He
1:06:45
Speaker 1: was sending a friend to pick her up and bring
1:06:47
Speaker 1: her to him. Kathleen told her supervisor what Mike had
1:06:51
Speaker 1: said and asked for some time off.
1:06:55
Speaker 26: And what happened after that?
1:06:57
Speaker 27: A man came by to pick her up.
1:07:00
Speaker 26: In a what?
1:07:04
Speaker 27: Brown or bronze Honda, I think.
1:07:08
Speaker 26: Did you have an opportunity to see the driver?
1:07:11
Speaker 27: A little, a little, yes.
1:07:13
Speaker 14: Can you tell us what he looked like?
1:07:16
Speaker 27: He was in his 40s, bald, dark hair, and he
1:07:22
Speaker 27: had a beard. That's all I remember.
1:07:29
Speaker 1: A prosecution then showed the jury Kathleen Allen's videotaped ordeal.
1:07:34
Speaker 1: John Crawford investigated her disappearance.
1:07:38
Speaker 25: The videotape picks up from there and shows that Kathy
1:07:42
Speaker 25: is brought into the residence, into the living room of
1:07:45
Speaker 25: the residence in Willisville. She is handcuffed and she is
1:07:49
Speaker 25: seated in a chair. Kathy was told, if you don't
1:07:54
Speaker 25: agree with us right now, We're going to take you
1:07:56
Speaker 25: into the bedroom, tie you to the bed, rape you,
1:08:00
Speaker 25: take you outside and put a bullet in your head
1:08:02
Speaker 25: and bury you in the same place we buried Mike,
1:08:06
Speaker 25: who was her boyfriend, Mike Carroll.
1:08:09
Speaker 26: Did you ever hear from her again?
1:08:11
Speaker 1: Kathleen was never seen or heard from again. Her manager
1:08:16
Speaker 1: later received a typewritten letter saying she had gotten a
1:08:19
Speaker 1: job in Lake Tahoe and didn't intend to return. The
1:08:23
Speaker 1: letter was dated May 6th. three weeks after she left
1:08:27
Speaker 1: the grocery store. Many of the victims' coworkers, families, and
1:08:37
Speaker 1: friends received typewritten letters from the victims to explain their absence.
1:08:42
Speaker 1: A comparison of the letters showed they all originated from
1:08:47
Speaker 1: the same typewriter. An Olympia typewriter found in the cabin
1:08:53
Speaker 1: was analyzed by forensic document examiners. They concluded that it
1:08:58
Speaker 1: was the one on which the letters were written. The
1:09:02
Speaker 1: prosecution entered the typewriter into evidence. The prosecution next tried
1:09:10
Speaker 1: to prove that Charles Ng was responsible for the abduction
1:09:13
Speaker 1: and murder of the Dubs family.
1:09:14
Speaker 18: Miss Tuck, you told us that your last contact with
1:09:19
Speaker 18: Deborah Dubs was.
1:09:20
Speaker 1: They called Karen Tuck. who was asked to testify about
1:09:23
Speaker 1: the last time she spoke with her friend, Debra Dubs,
1:09:25
Speaker 1: on the telephone.
1:09:27
Speaker 18: Well, Debra's expecting someone to come over to talk to
1:09:29
Speaker 18: Harvey or see his video equipment.
1:09:31
Speaker 13: And then the doorbell rang, or someone knocked, and we
1:09:35
Speaker 13: terminated the conversation.
1:09:36
Speaker 18: So someone came to her door while you were in
1:09:38
Speaker 18: the phone conversation with her?
1:09:40
Speaker 26: Right.
1:09:42
Speaker 2: Hi.
1:09:42
Speaker 3: Hi.
1:09:42
Speaker 6: Want to hear about the video equipment?
1:09:44
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:09:46
Speaker 1: Harvey Dubs, a part-time wedding photographer, had placed an ad
1:09:49
Speaker 1: in a newspaper offering to rent his video equipment. Karen
1:09:57
Speaker 1: Tuck told the court she tried to call Deborah Dubs
1:10:00
Speaker 1: the next day, but no one answered the phone. The
1:10:04
Speaker 1: Dubs family disappeared on July.
1:10:06
Speaker 3: 25th, 1984.
1:10:06
Speaker 1: Their bodies were never found. Karen Tuck was the last
1:10:18
Speaker 1: person to speak with Deborah Dubs on the day she
1:10:21
Speaker 1: and her family were abducted from their San Francisco home.
1:10:26
Speaker 1: After placing an ad in the newspaper to rent some
1:10:29
Speaker 1: video equipment, Harvey Dubs, his wife, Deborah, and his son
1:10:32
Speaker 1: Sean had been robbed and taken from their home. The
1:10:37
Speaker 1: family was never seen again. Detective Irene Brunn found an
1:10:43
Speaker 1: inventory of Harvey Dubs' equipment at his home.
1:10:47
Speaker 10: Harvey was meticulous in keeping records and photographs, and he
1:10:51
Speaker 10: kept the original receipts from when he purchased them. He
1:10:54
Speaker 10: had serial numbers, brand names for everything that he had.
1:11:01
Speaker 1: Harvey Dubs' detailed records enabled investigators to trace his equipment
1:11:05
Speaker 1: to Leonard Lake's cabin. but some video equipment was also
1:11:09
Speaker 1: found in Charles Ng's apartment. One of these pieces matched
1:11:14
Speaker 1: Harvey Dubs' inventory. The prosecution entered the video equipment into evidence.
1:11:23
Speaker 1: Since the Dubs' bodies were never found, the prosecution's strategy
1:11:27
Speaker 1: was to use overwhelming circumstantial evidence to tie Ng to
1:11:31
Speaker 1: the missing family.
1:11:33
Speaker 2: The case is like a puzzle. You have to start
1:11:36
Speaker 2: putting the pieces together so that the jury can get
1:11:39
Speaker 2: a clear understanding of what took place. And to prove
1:11:44
Speaker 2: a case, you have to fit enough pieces of the
1:11:46
Speaker 2: puzzle together so that a jury believes beyond a reasonable
1:11:50
Speaker 2: doubt that a particular defendant murdered or committed a crime.
1:11:54
Speaker 15: Sergeant Larry Copeland was called back to the stand.
1:11:57
Speaker 1: He testified about the seven burn sites they had found.
1:12:07
Speaker 1: He also described the hundreds of bone fragments he found,
1:12:10
Speaker 1: many of which had been crushed, burned, and scattered around
1:12:14
Speaker 1: the property. Judging from the size and number of burn sites,
1:12:20
Speaker 1: investigators suspected Lake and Ng had used fire to dispose
1:12:23
Speaker 1: of the bodies of many of their victims. The condition
1:12:27
Speaker 1: of the remains would make it impossible to identify all
1:12:30
Speaker 1: the victims. No one had witnessed any of these crimes.
1:12:36
Speaker 1: But the prosecution's next move was to put Ng's confessor
1:12:40
Speaker 1: on the stand. During his Canadian prison term, Ng told
1:12:46
Speaker 1: Maurice Laberge he helped Lake abduct victims and burn their bodies.
1:12:51
Speaker 1: Laberge was the prosecution's key witness. His first person account
1:12:57
Speaker 1: on the drawings Ng gave him would cement their case.
1:13:02
Speaker 1: But Laberge died before the trial began. At the extradition
1:13:08
Speaker 1: hearing in Canada, Laberge testified about everything Ng had told him.
1:13:15
Speaker 1: In a calculated move, the prosecution argued to have the
1:13:18
Speaker 1: written transcripts of Laberge's Canadian testimony read into the record.
1:13:25
Speaker 1: Despite the defense's strong objections, the judge ruled to admit
1:13:29
Speaker 1: the transcript. Sergeant Raymond Monroe, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
1:13:38
Speaker 1: took the stand and read Laberge's prior testimony. In the transcript,
1:13:45
Speaker 1: Laberge described how Ng gave him the grotesque cartoons and
1:13:49
Speaker 1: spoke of the crimes he committed, including the videotaped sessions
1:13:54
Speaker 1: with Kathleen Allen and Brenda O'Connor.
1:13:57
Speaker 5: Following statement.
1:14:01
Speaker 7: He told me that the videotape shows a female complaining
1:14:04
Speaker 7: that it's too warm, and he had had a butterfly knife,
1:14:06
Speaker 7: he called it. He flicked it open and cut her
1:14:08
Speaker 7: clothes off.
1:14:10
Speaker 11: Thank you.
1:14:13
Speaker 1: Maurice Laberge was a career criminal who served repeated terms
1:14:16
Speaker 1: for robbery and sexual assault. On cross, Kelly attacked Laberge's credibility.
1:14:24
Speaker 21: Isn't it true that Maurice Laberge had an extensive criminal history?
1:14:27
Speaker 5: Objection, Your Honor. We've already established that.
1:14:30
Speaker 6: Overruled. Thank you.
1:14:34
Speaker 21: Sir, isn't that correct?
1:14:35
Speaker 18: Yes, sir.
1:14:37
Speaker 21: And isn't it also true that as part of an
1:14:40
Speaker 21: agreement with the Canadian government to enter the Witness Protection
1:14:44
Speaker 21: Program that Maurice LaBerge received $ 36, 000? I believe that was
1:14:50
Speaker 21: the deal that we struck.
1:14:51
Speaker 7: With him, yes.
1:14:54
Speaker 1: Kelly implied that LaBerge's testimony had been bought and paid for.
1:14:58
Speaker 21: Sexual assault and robbery?
1:15:00
Speaker 13: Yes, it is.
1:15:01
Speaker 21: And do you recall offhand... What if any contents were
1:15:07
Speaker 21: retrieved from the automobile at the site of the accident?
1:15:11
Speaker 7: There was $ 20, 000 in cash found in the vehicle.
1:15:16
Speaker 21: $ 20, 000 in cash?
1:15:19
Speaker 1: Kelly's cross-examination had been successful in insinuating that LaBerge would
1:15:24
Speaker 1: say anything for money.
1:15:26
Speaker 21: You're a career police officer, isn't that correct?
1:15:28
Speaker 1: If the prosecution's key witness had taken the stand by proxy...
1:15:32
Speaker 1: They now feared the defense attack had destroyed his credibility.
1:15:35
Speaker 21: Isn't it true?
1:15:37
Speaker 1: Sergeant Monroe was one of the prosecution's last witnesses. After
1:15:42
Speaker 1: presenting their case for 12 days, the prosecution rested. On
1:15:48
Speaker 1: November 17, 1998, William Kelly began presenting Ng's defense to
1:15:53
Speaker 1: the jury. He had a relatively simple strategy. to prove
1:16:00
Speaker 1: that Leonard Lake was the real killer and Ng was
1:16:03
Speaker 1: just a bystander. First, Kelly called a series of women
1:16:10
Speaker 1: to the stand. Each testified as to their bizarre sexual
1:16:17
Speaker 1: encounters with Leonard Lake. The women spoke of his interest
1:16:21
Speaker 1: in bondage and taking lurid photographs. One woman had a
1:16:26
Speaker 1: year-long relationship with Lake and posed for dozens of photos.
1:16:32
Speaker 1: She explained she left him because of his frightening fantasies
1:16:35
Speaker 1: involving sex and death.
1:16:37
Speaker 22: So that would have been 15 years ago.
1:16:42
Speaker 1: Another woman testified that Lake had threatened to rape her
1:16:45
Speaker 1: and that he believed in human sacrifice. The testimony painted
1:16:51
Speaker 1: Lake as the monster and established that none of the
1:16:54
Speaker 1: witnesses had even met Charles Ng. Thank you. Another witness
1:17:02
Speaker 1: testified that he had seen Lake verbally abuse Ng, helping
1:17:09
Speaker 1: the defense establish that Ng was subservient to Lake. By
1:17:13
Speaker 1: calling witnesses who had often seen Balazs with Lake at
1:17:16
Speaker 1: the cabin, the defense attempted to show that Balazs herself
1:17:20
Speaker 1: was an accomplice to Lake. Kelly also used this testimony
1:17:26
Speaker 1: to demonstrate that Ng spent little time at Leonard Lake's cabin.
1:17:31
Speaker 1: The defense's strongest proof that Lake planned to kidnap, torture,
1:17:35
Speaker 1: and murder his victims was his journal. It was here
1:17:40
Speaker 1: that Lake outlined the so-called Miranda Project. While the jury
1:17:46
Speaker 1: was out, Kelly moved to enter an edited version of
1:17:49
Speaker 1: the journal into evidence. Because the edited version eliminated references
1:17:55
Speaker 1: to Charles Ng, the judge resisted.
1:17:59
Speaker 11: I believe the court should eliminate misleading evidence. And this
1:18:03
Speaker 11: edited diary could do just that. If it is intended
1:18:07
Speaker 11: to show that Leonard Lake killed all 12 victims without
1:18:12
Speaker 11: the help of Charles Ng, I believe the diary needs
1:18:16
Speaker 11: to be excluded. Most of it is just pure junk.
1:18:19
Speaker 21: But the diary shows that Lake was thinking of the
1:18:22
Speaker 21: fantasy for 20 years.
1:18:25
Speaker 11: The jury knows what Lake planned. This edited diary is inadmissible.
1:18:33
Speaker 1: Kelly's attempt to put Leonard Lake on trial appeared blocked.
1:18:39
Speaker 1: But he countered the prosecution's strategy with his next witness.
1:18:46
Speaker 1: In his opening statement, Kelly asserted Clara Lynn Butler knew
1:18:51
Speaker 1: of the Miranda Project and helped Lake recruit women to photograph.
1:18:57
Speaker 1: Kelly believed she played a far more active role than
1:18:59
Speaker 1: she admitted and asserted it was Balazs, not Ng, who
1:19:03
Speaker 1: was Lake's accomplice. The prosecution had not called her as
1:19:08
Speaker 1: a witness, So as Balazs took the stand, everyone in
1:19:12
Speaker 1: the courtroom, including the prosecution, wondered what she would say.
1:19:19
Speaker 1: Then Kelly read the immunity agreement.
1:19:21
Speaker 21: I'll read it to the jury. This is an immunity
1:19:25
Speaker 21: agreement between the state of California and Clara Lynn Balazs.
1:19:31
Speaker 21: The state of California promises witness transactional immunity for all crimes,
1:19:36
Speaker 21: including but not limited to murder, conspiracy to commit murder,
1:19:41
Speaker 21: aiding and abetting murder, theft and received stolen property related
1:19:46
Speaker 21: to the victims. No questions.
1:19:58
Speaker 1: In a stunning move, Kelly chose not to question Balazs.
1:20:04
Speaker 1: He created the appearance she had something to hide. And
1:20:08
Speaker 1: since she had not spoken on the stand, the prosecution
1:20:11
Speaker 1: could not cross-examine her. Balazs made her immunity deal with
1:20:16
Speaker 1: the prosecution, but in the end, she provided them with
1:20:19
Speaker 1: little information and became a witness for the defense. Kelly
1:20:26
Speaker 1: then called another witness who could not be cross-examined. He
1:20:30
Speaker 1: played a tape made by Leonard Lake describing his rationale
1:20:34
Speaker 1: for the Miranda Project.
1:20:37
Speaker 13: What I want is an off-the-shelf sex partner. I want
1:20:42
Speaker 13: to be able to use a woman whenever and however
1:20:46
Speaker 13: I want. And when I'm tired or satiated or bored
1:20:53
Speaker 13: or not interested, I simply want to put her away.
1:20:59
Speaker 1: With a final glimpse into the mind of Leonard Lake,
1:21:02
Speaker 1: the defense rested its case. Peter Smith made the final
1:21:08
Speaker 1: closing argument for the prosecution. He reminded the jury of
1:21:13
Speaker 1: the evidence they had seen and asked them to return
1:21:16
Speaker 1: a guilty verdict. Then the trial took its most surprising turn.
1:21:24
Speaker 1: After hearing the prosecution sum up their case against him,
1:21:28
Speaker 1: Ng filed a handwritten motion demanding he be allowed to
1:21:31
Speaker 1: testify on his own behalf. When Kelly tried to convince
1:21:36
Speaker 1: his client otherwise, Ng threatened to fire him. Against the
1:21:41
Speaker 1: advice of his attorneys, Charles Ng would be taking the
1:21:44
Speaker 1: witness stand. Observers in the Charles Ng trial were stunned
1:21:52
Speaker 1: when they entered the courtroom on January 27th, 1999. The
1:21:57
Speaker 1: accused serial killer himself was now on the witness stand.
1:22:03
Speaker 1: Ng was charged with killing 12 people, and after three
1:22:06
Speaker 1: months of listening to his case, he demanded to testify
1:22:10
Speaker 1: on his own behalf. Assuming the prosecution would use LaBerge's
1:22:17
Speaker 1: testimony to corner Ng, Deputy Public Defender Clapp decided to
1:22:22
Speaker 1: take the offensive and prove that LaBerge had lied.
1:22:29
Speaker 15: Did you tell him that, with regard to Brenda O'Connor,
1:22:33
Speaker 15: Kathy Allen, that you shot them in the head while
1:22:37
Speaker 15: they were handcuffed and blindfolded?
1:22:40
Speaker 6: No.
1:22:42
Speaker 1: Ng testified that he had helped to imprison Brenda O'Connor
1:22:45
Speaker 1: and Kathleen Allen, but had not intended to hurt or
1:22:48
Speaker 1: kill them.
1:22:50
Speaker 15: Did you tell Maurice Leberge that.
1:22:55
Speaker 15: You put their bodies on a pile of wood and
1:22:58
Speaker 15: ignited it with gasoline?
1:23:00
Speaker 12: No.
1:23:02
Speaker 15: Did you agree to kill, intend to kill, or kill
1:23:05
Speaker 15: any of the victims in the 12 murder charges?
1:23:08
Speaker 26: No.
1:23:08
Speaker 1: Ng's denials continued for hours as Clapp went over every
1:23:14
Speaker 1: statement Ng allegedly made to his jailmate. Then Clapp moved
1:23:19
Speaker 1: to have Ng explain away the prosecution's other key evidence,
1:23:22
Speaker 1: the M-Ladies tape. On the tape, Brenda O'Connor begged Ng
1:23:27
Speaker 1: not to take her baby away, to which he replied,
1:23:31
Speaker 1: it is better than the baby is dead.
1:23:36
Speaker 15: Why did you say that?
1:23:38
Speaker 17: I don't know why I said that. It was just
1:23:40
Speaker 17: in the heat of the moment. Some of the comments
1:23:42
Speaker 17: and remarks I made, I don't even know I made
1:23:45
Speaker 17: until I saw the transcripts.
1:23:48
Speaker 1: The M-Ladies tapes had been transcribed during the extradition hearing
1:23:52
Speaker 1: so that every word spoken on the tape could be understood.
1:23:57
Speaker 1: When Charlene Honaka cross-examined Ng, she used the transcripts to
1:24:01
Speaker 1: turn his own words against him.
1:24:03
Speaker 18: Were you present at the extradition hearing when Mr. Laberge
1:24:08
Speaker 18: testified that you told him that you could hear on
1:24:11
Speaker 18: the video the sounds of handcuffs clicking?
1:24:15
Speaker 17: I remember that statement he made.
1:24:18
Speaker 10: How would Mr.
1:24:18
Speaker 18: LaBerge know that you could hear the sounds of handcuffs clicking?
1:24:23
Speaker 18: That's not on the printed transcript, right, of them ladies? Right.
1:24:28
Speaker 1: Onaka demonstrated for the jury that the only way LaBerge
1:24:32
Speaker 1: could have known about the sound of the handcuffs was
1:24:34
Speaker 1: if Ng told him.
1:24:36
Speaker 6: Mr.
1:24:36
Speaker 3: Ng.
1:24:37
Speaker 1: It was clear, despite Ng's denials on the stand... that
1:24:41
Speaker 1: he had told Maurice Laberge the details of the torture
1:24:44
Speaker 1: and the killings, details Laberge couldn't have known any other way.
1:24:50
Speaker 1: Onaka then set out to establish that Charles Ng was
1:24:53
Speaker 1: not a bystander, but a willing participant in the crimes.
1:24:59
Speaker 1: She replayed a scene from the M-Ladies tape showing Ng
1:25:03
Speaker 1: cutting the shirt off Brenda O'Connor.
1:25:06
Speaker 18: So you never talked to Leonard ahead of time about
1:25:09
Speaker 18: your plan to cut.
1:25:10
Speaker 21: Her clothes off, right?
1:25:13
Speaker 22: No, not on the tape.
1:25:15
Speaker 18: So you just decided on your own to cut her
1:25:17
Speaker 18: clothes off, right?
1:25:19
Speaker 11: Yes.
1:25:20
Speaker 18: Without any specific instruction from Leonard Link?
1:25:29
Speaker 1: Monaca again turned to the videotapes. She played a portion
1:25:34
Speaker 1: of the tape where Ing tells Leonard Lake that a
1:25:37
Speaker 1: gun is on the table.
1:25:39
Speaker 18: You told Leonard at one point that the piece was
1:25:42
Speaker 18: on the table, right?
1:25:44
Speaker 17: Yeah, I remember saying something like that.
1:25:46
Speaker 18: What did you mean by the piece?
1:25:49
Speaker 17: Oh, just wanted to let him know the gun was
1:25:51
Speaker 17: on the table in case Kathy might grab the gun
1:25:55
Speaker 17: and shoot him with it.
1:25:57
Speaker 18: Well, now, she's handcuffed, right?
1:26:00
Speaker 6: Yes.
1:26:01
Speaker 18: And she's got leg manacles on?
1:26:04
Speaker 17: Yes, I believe so.
1:26:05
Speaker 18: And there are two of you and one of her, right?
1:26:09
Speaker 26: Yes.
1:26:11
Speaker 18: And the reason you told Leonard that the gun was
1:26:13
Speaker 18: on the table is because you were afraid Kathy might
1:26:16
Speaker 18: pick it up and shoot him?
1:26:19
Speaker 11: Something like that.
1:26:21
Speaker 1: Anaka had shown that Ng was more than a bystander
1:26:24
Speaker 1: to Leonard Lake's crimes.
1:26:27
Speaker 21: Thank you.
1:26:27
Speaker 1: He was an active participant who sometimes even directed Leonard Lake.
1:26:34
Speaker 1: Because Ng took the stand after the prosecution closed, the
1:26:38
Speaker 1: judge gave them the opportunity to restate their closing arguments
1:26:41
Speaker 1: after Ng's testimony.
1:26:46
Speaker 18: It's never Ng's fault. He always lays the blame on
1:26:50
Speaker 18: someone else. He was not under the control of Leonard Lake.
1:26:57
Speaker 18: He was his own person. He was making his own
1:27:01
Speaker 18: independent choices and doing the things he wanted to do.
1:27:10
Speaker 1: William Kelly then gave the closing arguments for the defense.
1:27:15
Speaker 1: He asserted the prosecution had simply failed to prove their
1:27:18
Speaker 1: case and attacked their most important piece of evidence, the
1:27:22
Speaker 1: M ladies tape.
1:27:24
Speaker 21: No matter how many different ways They show it to
1:27:27
Speaker 21: you and excerpts from it. There's one thing you never see.
1:27:32
Speaker 21: Anybody being murdered. And you don't see Charles Eng involved
1:27:39
Speaker 21: in anybody's murder. No matter how many times you see
1:27:46
Speaker 21: him cut the clothes off Brenda O'Connor. And as offensive
1:27:52
Speaker 21: as that is, And I grant you, it's offensive. But
1:28:01
Speaker 21: it ain't murder.
1:28:06
Speaker 6: It just isn't.
1:28:10
Speaker 1: Charles Ng had been charged with the murders of seven men,
1:28:13
Speaker 1: three women, and two babies. His fate was now in
1:28:17
Speaker 1: the hands of the jury.
1:28:21
Speaker 2: Anybody who prosecutes cases or tries cases knows there's never
1:28:26
Speaker 2: a sure thing with a jury. And that's the difficult
1:28:30
Speaker 2: aspect of being a prosecutor. You have to convince 12
1:28:32
Speaker 2: people beyond a reasonable doubt. And they all 12 have
1:28:36
Speaker 2: to agree it has to be unanimous.
1:28:39
Speaker 1: The jury deliberated for a week then two weeks the
1:28:45
Speaker 1: media coverage intensified as the deliberations stretched into their third
1:28:50
Speaker 1: week the prosecutors became increasingly concerned that the jury was
1:28:55
Speaker 1: having difficulty making a decision This was not a good
1:29:00
Speaker 1: sign for the prosecution, who knew their case was mostly circumstantial.
1:29:06
Speaker 1: If the jury demanded strong physical evidence linking Ng to
1:29:09
Speaker 1: the crimes in order to deliver a guilty verdict, then
1:29:12
Speaker 1: Charles Ng might go free. As time dragged on, all
1:29:17
Speaker 1: the prosecution could do was wait. On February 24th, 1999,
1:29:25
Speaker 1: after three weeks of waiting the jury informed the judge
1:29:30
Speaker 1: they had reached a decision. The prosecutors had called approximately
1:29:36
Speaker 1: 75 witnesses and presented about 200 pieces of evidence to
1:29:39
Speaker 1: prove the charges against Charles Ng. All that evidence was
1:29:46
Speaker 1: now in the hands of the jury.
1:29:54
Speaker 11: As the jury reached its verdict, We are deadlocked.
1:30:01
Speaker 17: We are deadlocked on one count.
1:30:04
Speaker 11: Would the defendant rise and face the jury, please? Read
1:30:09
Speaker 11: your verdict.
1:30:12
Speaker 17: We, the jury, in the above entitled case, find the defendant,
1:30:16
Speaker 17: Charles Ng, guilty of the murder of Sean Dobbs as
1:30:20
Speaker 17: charged in count one.
1:30:22
Speaker 1: The jury found Charles Ng guilty of 11 counts of
1:30:25
Speaker 1: first-degree murder. They could not come to a conclusion on
1:30:30
Speaker 1: the death of Paul Costner. They did not feel they
1:30:33
Speaker 1: had enough evidence to convict. Charles Ng was sentenced to death.
1:30:40
Speaker 1: For the prosecution, the long ordeal was finally over.
1:30:45
Speaker 2: And I was just happy for the people of Calaveras
1:30:47
Speaker 2: County that finally.
1:30:52
Speaker 5: Mr.
1:30:53
Speaker 2: Ng was found guilty of these murders after so many years.
1:30:58
Speaker 2: I'm proud of the fact that I was the district
1:31:01
Speaker 2: attorney at the time and prosecuted Charles Ng, and I
1:31:05
Speaker 2: was in essence the last person standing from Calaveras County
1:31:10
Speaker 2: after all these years.
1:31:12
Speaker 1: With a final cost of over $ 20 million, the longest
1:31:16
Speaker 1: and most expensive criminal case in California history came to
1:31:20
Speaker 1: a close. For 13 years, the prosecution never wavered in
1:31:26
Speaker 1: their pursuit of justice. Charles Ng now sits on California's
1:31:33
Speaker 1: death row.