Patterico's Pontifications

5/9/2007

It’s a Small World After All — L.A. Style

Filed under: Crime,General — Patterico @ 5:52 am



So yesterday I discovered the L.A. version of “It’s a Small World.”

I was chatting with a defense attorney, and I asked him where he lives. The area he described sounded very close to the area where some good friends of ours used to live.

If this were Texas, the salient characteristics of the area might have included beautiful tree-lined streets, or a nearby park.

But this is L.A., and something else immediately come to mind.

I said: “It seems like a nice area, but what I remember best is our friends talking how a van was once parked across the street with a body in it.”

The defense attorney knew just what I was talking about, and corrected me on the facts: “Two bodies. Both wrapped in carpeting. This happened maybe 12 years ago? Nobody knew they were there until the neighbors smelled them.”

Once he said that, I remembered the story better, and he was right. I had just misremembered some of the details.

As it turns out, the defense attorney lived (and still lives) just around the corner from where my friends used to live — and from where the van with the dead people had been parked. Small world, huh?

He then told me a long and interesting story about the guy who had killed the people in the van. He went by the name of Shady, and he ended up getting murdered himself.

And this defense attorney later represented a kid charged with aiding and abetting the murder of Shady.

I can’t remember all the details of the story the defense attorney told me, and I can’t vouch for the ones I do remember. But according to his version of events, this fellow Shady lived up to every implication of his name, and then some. He was allegedly good for about 15 murders that the authorities couldn’t prove. He threatened to kill his girlfriend and cut her up into small pieces. He told her that they wouldn’t find her until somebody smelled her, just like those people he’d killed and left in that van on Glyndon.

To protect his mom, her son ended up stealing Shady’s gun. This upset Shady a great deal, largely because the gun was on loan from the Mexican Mafia. He demanded its return, and when his girlfriend’s son returned it, accompanied by his friend (the defense attorney’s client), he ended up returning the bullets separately, by firing five of them into Shady’s head.

I’m looking forward to telling the story to Larry, my friend who used to live in the area.

It’s a small world, all right. When you live in L.A., you never know when you’ll find yourself connected to another person through some rotting bodies in a van.

20 Responses to “It’s a Small World After All — L.A. Style”

  1. Sing it!

    It’s a world of dealers, a world of hos,
    And a world of stank when you decompose
    In that van on the street
    Where our peeps used to meet!
    It’s a small world after all!

    I am a foul and degenerate creature; I will now play the music.

    PCachu (e072b7)

  2. You know what they say… “Good fences make good neighbors.”

    It’s absolutely true. A good fence will be there for you when you have a recently-acquired Gucci handbag you ripped off some lady’s shoulder. And a great fence won’t mind a little blood on it and still pay you full dollar.

    Darkmage (be2d37)

  3. It’s Six Degrees of Tissue Decomposition…

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  4. The killer was named Shady, huh? You don’t say. Shocker.

    Al Maviva (89d0b6)

  5. OT, but back in the “Secret DOJ policy” thread, daleyrocks and I were discussing whether Waas was right that AG Gonzales’ secret memo re hiring authority was in fact published in the Federal Register. Turns out Waas was right. The DOJ has now released the memo and right at the bottom of page 1 it says “INTERNAL ORDER — NOT PUBLISHED IN F.R.” So unless anyone has some creative interpretations of what else “F.R.” might stand for, I think that settles it. (This may raise some questions about the accuracy of the reporting of AP and WaPo stories daleyrocks mentioned though.)

    Crust (399898)

  6. Tasty post, Patterico.

    Russell (874da3)

  7. When the Manson family murders took place, I was living in South Pasadena and it scared the beejesus out of us. The second murder, the La Bianca case, was next door to some friends, a well-known doctor whose son was a classmate of mine. Manson had taken his crew to the house on the other side of our friends’ house but no one was home. Then they saw the La Biancas pulling into their driveway towing a boat. That was it. Fortunately, our friends were not home either. The first murders were at the home owned by Doris Day’s son Terry. Manson had a grudge against him and didn’t know the people killed there. My in-laws house burned down in the Bel Air fire of 1961 and, while their new house was being built, they lived in Jane Russell’s beach house, later bought by Doris day for her son, Terry.

    If you live in LA long enough, you build a web of associations with crime.

    Mike K (6d4fc3)

  8. Great L.A. Noir blogging….

    Justin Levine (7ad338)

  9. Blue staqtes are funny.

    Kevin (e89cee)

  10. Our esteemed host wrote:

    It’s a small world, all right. When you live in L.A., you never know when you’ll find yourself connected to another person through some rotting bodies in a van.

    Sounds like the beginning for a vary bad paperback.

    Dana (fc7c50)

  11. What happened to the killer of Shady , and the killers friend?

    I am reminded about the line in the book Anatomy of a Murder about prosecuting the deceased.

    seePea (38fcb2)

  12. Shady’s killer got 10 years. His friend got probation.

    Patterico (5b0b7f)

  13. sounds like shady’s killer performed a public service. what we need is murder diversion for cases like this.

    assistant devil's advocate (ac81fe)

  14. Yeah, you’re right. If this was Texas you’d be linked to each other by mutual acquaintance of a Congressman facing federal charges, possessing a lacquer-hardened haircut, criminal Abramoff-esque friends and a paste-on smile. Or perhaps you both would’ve separately met a woman who once was seen smiling and clapping in the background of a photo of the lynching of a black man. Seriously, go back to Texas if your nostalgia is so strong–unless you’re afraid that that in a trash-infested, poverty-stricken red state you wouldn’t be able to forge this stellar career of yours, at least not without knowing how to dribble tobacco down your chin and abuse oxycontin on your lunchbreak.

    multum_in_parvo (ff7b02)

  15. L.A.: love it or leave it!

    Patterico (5b0b7f)

  16. Re #12:
    I understand the probation, i think.
    What was the 10 years for? was it by conviction or plea bargain?

    seePea (38fcb2)

  17. CHARLES MANSON was a big time eco-freak and vegearian they should have hanged him before that jerk JERRY(MOONBEAM)BROWN spared him

    krazy kagu (3e8790)

  18. #1

    Thanks, I needed the laugh.

    #12: Patterico,

    The authorities do hate to see people being self-reliant.

    Alan Kellogg (6ee2fb)

  19. I thought the first lines were good for a narrated opening of a film.

    Hugo (74b74c)

  20. […] Comment on It S a Small World After All L.A. Style by DarkmageYou know what they say Good fences make good neighbors. It s absolutely true. A good fence will be there for you when you have a recently acquired Gucci handbag you ripped off some lady s shoulder. And a great fence won t mind a little blood on it and still paypatterico.com […]

    Omega Pro Info » (c30285)


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