My Stolen Son

by Susan Markowitz

  Then, the first little crack of the doorway opened. “I didn’t get any money,” Rugge said.

  “But you got offered it.”

  Rugge wanted to know what a judge could “stick him” with.

  “Capital murder, kidnapping, torture . . .” the detective said.

  “Torture?” Rugge’s face contorted. The first two didn’t bother him, but the last one sure did. “I didn’t do nothing!”

  Fine, the detective said. We know you’re no cold-blooded killer, but you know who is.

  “I’m not a killer, but I don’t know who was.”

  “I know who was in the car, what you brought, where you went . . .”

  “It makes me look like a rat. I’ll get my ass stabbed in jail.”

  “You’re not afraid of Ryan?”

  “Who’s that?”

  And so went round two of “Rugge Tries to Pretend the Detectives Are Idiots.” He went through great pains to avoid giving anyone’s last name at any time, and he mostly tried to pretend he didn’t know anyone on the planet. Perhaps he’d been living in a bomb shelter for the last few years.

  “All I did was hold the kid,” he finally said. “Didn’t hurt him. Acted like my best friend, that’s all. I didn’t do anything.”

  “You didn’t know what was coming?”

  “I’m going down for something. I’m freaking out. Ben Markowitz is a good guy.”

  That gave the detectives a good laugh. If they had learned anything from all these interviews, it was clearly that Ben was not a good guy.

  “What did Nick think was happening?” they asked him.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t briefed with anything.”

  “What did you think was going to happen at Lizard’s Mouth?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you need shovels and duct tape?”

  “I didn’t put anything in the car. I did not hurt the kid.” That became one of Rugge’s most-repeated catch phrases. “I did not hurt the kid.” Sometimes a “fucking” got thrown in there, too—“I did not hurt the fucking kid.” It came up every few minutes in various contexts. Once he even pounded his fist on the table for emphasis. Yes, he kidnapped him, but he didn’t hurt him. Yes, he made him do chores at his father’s house, but he didn’t hurt him. Yes, he held him against his will, but . . .

  Then he stopped talking about the crime. “I’m just fucking scared, dude. Where am I going to be sitting when I go to jail? LA County? I’ll get ripped up in there in a second . . . Anywhere in prison I go to, there’s someone who’s going to know it. And I just meet up with them in the transfers.”

  “You could be sentenced to death. It looks like you put him in his own grave and shot him, so it doesn’t matter who you’re going to be afraid of,” the detective told him. “I’d be afraid of that needle. Does that spin it a little different?”

  After some more agonizing silence, Rugge spilled a few more details: Jesse James Hollywood had been driving the van when they’d spotted Nick and kidnapped him, then made Rugge drive. Then Hollywood told Rugge to hold Nick.

  “He could have ran and I never even would have stopped to think twice. I’m not even going to run the kid down. He just obeyed everything . . . he wasn’t tied down. I’d leave him alone with the phone and he wouldn’t even make a phone call.”

  What was the plan? There wasn’t any, Rugge said. As far as he knew, someone was coming to the Lemon Tree Inn to take Nick away—but somehow, the plan changed.

  “You helped dig the grave, didn’t you?” detectives asked.

  “I didn’t dig no grave. Fuck, no.”

  “Who dug it?”

  “I don’t know. You guys know who dug the goddamned grave. I’m the only one who knows . . .” A pause. “You guys talked to Natasha.”

  “We’re not going to tell you.”

  But that didn’t mean that Rugge wasn’t going to keep trying to get more information. Throughout his interview, he kept trying to weasel information out of the detectives about what they already knew, who they had already spoken to, and what those other people had said. Before he gave his story, he wanted to hear “some of the other stories.” Before Rugge named who did the shooting, he wanted the detectives to say the names of the people they already knew about. Of course, they wouldn’t do that.

  “There is one killer and one killer only. All I did was watch a kid get put in his grave and got [sic] shot,” Rugge said.

  Graham Pressley really had waited out by the car, he said, and the killer dragged Nick to his grave and shot him—one shot was all it took for Nick to die, he said.

  “I only put two shovels of dirt on him, that’s it. I couldn’t do it.”

  As for what Nick was saying in those last moments, Rugge said he blocked it out.

  When the detectives asked for more description of Ryan, Rugge said, “We all played baseball together . . . The Pirates. He doesn’t live with his parents . . . He’s maybe a little shorter than me. I’m six feet four inches; he’s like six feet two inches, dirty blond hair. Ryan’s a loner type, like a hang-around. Ryan is one of Jesse’s friends.”

  But Jesse Rugge insisted that he had no idea what Ryan’s last name was—right up until the moment when he messed up and said, “Hoyt came up here.” He immediately realized his error and said, “I wanted to tell you that anyway.” After that, he was more forthcoming about naming Ryan as the killer.

  “Why did he have to tape his hands? Ryan said, ‘Put the tape on his hands so he can’t do anything.’ I feel so bad. Nick didn’t say anything, didn’t fight . . . Hoyt didn’t want to hear him talk to say anything. After he was taped, Ryan took out the gun. Ryan finished everything.”

  After he had a minute to think through the last hour of confessions, Rugge said, “See, dude? You made me a rat.” He repeated that a few times, worrying that he was going to look like a “little bitch” in prison. Then he wanted assurances that they were going to leave his sister out of this, because she was a “good, loving mother” who had told him to turn himself in when he first confided in her, after Nick’s murder.

  “I thought all I was doing was taking this kid for a day and a half. I ruined my life. I ruined this kid’s life. I ruined this kid’s family’s life . . . I can’t believe what I got myself into. I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. You don’t know what I feel,” Rugge said.

  With that, the detectives left the room for several minutes, leaving Rugge alone in the room with the tape still rolling. He picked his nose for a solid minute. Then he yawned, put his head down, shifted around, yawned some more.

  When they returned, they told him to strip down. He took off his shirt, revealing his last name, “RUGGE,” spelled out in a big tattoo across his stomach. Then came the pants—and the Joe Boxer yellow boxer shorts with the big smiley face across the front. They handed him his new prison jumpsuit, in red, which concerned him. Did red have a special significance? Was it for special types of crimes? Maybe it was meant to draw more attention to him, the new prison rat.

  But he was not going to be the only new rat in town.

  Shortly after Ryan Hoyt was arrested, there was a news conference on television about it, which his mother, Vicky Hoyt, saw. When Ryan called her from jail that night, she asked, “You didn’t do this, right?”

  “Right.”

  Her demeanor became manic, alternating between yelling and whispering, words tripping over themselves.

  “Ryan, Ryan, you are innocent. You are so innocent. You are guilty by association.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Who did this? You tell them right now!”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where is Jesse? Where the fuck is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then find him! Spill your fucking guts and get out now! Do it for me, do it for your family, do it for yourself. Tell them what you know. Ryan, you tell them now, you fucking asshole. Don’t defend anybody. This is your life!”

  It was an instru
ction she would drive home again and again until he listened.

  “Turn Jesse Hollywood in now! Now! You talk now! You tell the guard you want to talk to the detectives!”

  “Mom, calm down,” he said. He told her that he had been at his grandmother’s home on the night of the murder. “The thing is, I need Grandma to say that I was at home.”

  Vicky would later say that her son was laughing during this phone call. “He said he did not do this crime. He’s not capable of it. My family will vouch for him; his father will.”

  He followed the advice his mother had given him. So he called out for an officer, and the officer informed detectives that Hoyt was ready to talk.

  Meanwhile, his grandmother went to check on a hysterical Vicky, who was attempting to jump out a window. She wound up in the emergency room at Olive View Hospital at about the same time her son was entering an interrogation room.

  Two men, Detectives Mike West and Ken Reinstadler, sat across the table from Hoyt.

  “Good evening. How you doing?” Detective Reinstadler said.

  “Shitty,” answered Hoyt.

  After a little small talk, Hoyt said, “I called my mom and she tells me there’s a news conference and people are saying I dug the grave.”

  Hoyt hadn’t wanted to speak to detectives when they first arrested him; he had said he wanted an attorney, which they now reminded him about.

  “But all this, excuse my language—bullshit—starts flying out and I don’t know what to think. I’m in my cell throwing up.”

  The detectives again advised Hoyt of his Miranda rights: the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney, the right to have the court appoint an attorney if he could not afford one. After Hoyt signed a document agreeing that he was waiving these rights, he went on.

  “I feel like I’ve been shit on, excuse my language . . . I honestly really do not know that much about any of this, OK? OK?”

  “We have interviewed dozens of people. We know that you’re involved in this killing. Too many people can’t be saying the same things for it not to be that way.”

  “Look, all I know is this: somebody told me that this kid’s older brother owed a lot of people money, OK?”

  “Who’s that someone?” Detective West asked.

  “Someone who’s still missing.”

  “Let’s not play games. We know exactly who you’re talking about. We want to hear it out of your mouth.”

  “The thing . . . it’s going to be used against me in a court of law and I can’t.”

  “Where you stand now is, what are you going to say that’s going to help your case?”

  “I would like you guys to talk to my grandmother because, one, I was Friday night home, Saturday night I stayed at Jesse’s cause I’ve been helping him move out of that house. Sunday night I was home.”

  “You’re talking about Jesse who?”

  “Hollywood.”

  Then Hoyt continued his recounting of the past week—he’d been at home on Monday and Tuesday. “Wednesday through Sunday I was at Casey’s house because my birthday was on Thursday. So I don’t see how I can be placed as the guy digging this kid’s grave and killing him.”

  “You didn’t dig the grave. You killed him. That’s a little misunderstanding there between you and Grandma. You’ve been identified.”

  As the detectives continued painting the picture of just how much trouble Hoyt was in, he seemed to finally grasp that they were serious—he wasn’t going to get away with murder. And his voice got soft.

  “You mind if I go back to my cell and think about it tonight and talk to you guys tomorrow? Cause I know my arraignment is Monday.”

  “Once you’re arraigned, we can’t talk to you,” Detective Reinstadler told him. “That’s the bottom line. If you want to tell us something, I’m being honest with you, this is your opportunity to do it. This is it.”

  “If I talk, does my name . . . does it get said in court that I said it?”

  “There’s no way to keep your name out of it . . . that’s the way the law works.”

  “Well, I mean, what if you said it in court?”

  “You may have to say in court yourself what you’re going to tell us. It depends on what it is and the situation.”

  “Do you mind if I have a glass of water or something?”

  “Sure.”

  One of the detectives went off in search of a drink while Hoyt continued. “I had nothing to do with the kidnapping.” Then his voice switched to a whisper. “Then why am I charged with it?”

  The detectives encouraged him to start talking. “Give us something that we know you’re telling us things in good faith. Like, where is Jesse Hollywood right now?”

  “Honestly—I mean, to tell you honestly, nobody knows that. Nobody.”

  “But you know where you are, right, Ryan?”

  “Yeah, behind bars for life. If I end up behind bars for life, I can’t be behind bars for life as a rat.”

  “Did you bring something back to Jesse Hollywood to show him that this was done and over with?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you do it? Do you owe him money? I know you deal dope for him, OK? We know that. And we know how it works. How much money did you owe him? How much?”

  “Enough to do what I did.”

  Hoyt wouldn’t pin down a figure—maybe because two hundred dollars sounded ridiculous in exchange for committing murder.

  “You know that I owed money. I found out Tuesday of a way to erase that debt.”

  “And who told you how to do that?”

  Hoyt didn’t respond.

  “Well, this has to do with your first statement, correct? When you said that Jesse Hollywood told you something about Ben, right?” asked Detective West.

  “Yes. The thing was, what Ben owed Jesse didn’t, in my opinion—this is off the record. I’m going to say this off the record—in my opinion, didn’t justify this kid’s death. It’s the thirty thousand he owed somebody, it’s the forty thousand he owed somebody.”

  “So, Ben’s debt to Jesse wasn’t that great, but Ben was into other people for lots.”

  “Lots. Still is. In fact, I think he was beat up recently for it.”

  They talked a bit about how much Ben owed to other drug dealers, and then Hoyt said, “In my opinion, it’s a damn shame, a damn shame that this kid had to go for it. But I had nothing to do with the kidnapping.”

  He went on to say that an intermediary for Hollywood had pulled up in a car on Tuesday to ask if he wanted to get rid of his debt. Then the guy said, “Take care of somebody,” and gave him directions to get to the Lemon Tree Inn.

  “What did you take that to mean?” Detective West asked.

  “Well, that I had to do something pretty serious.”

  “That you had to kill Nick?”

  “Is that his name?” Hoyt asked. They all just called him “Ben’s brother,” he explained.

  “How did you get the gun?” Detective Reinstadler asked.

  “It was there waiting . . . it was at where we finally ended up.”

  When the detectives urged him to describe what happened once he got to the hotel, Hoyt said, “You guys know what happened. I think I’m going to stop there for now.” But he didn’t stop. He kept talking. “I have an eight-year-old brother whom I love dearly. I have a mom who depends on me. She’s already got a son locked up. She’s got an addict for a daughter. You see why I’m so hesitant?”

  When Ryan Hoyt spoke with his mom, she had told him that she couldn’t afford to get him a lawyer. “And a public defender, I’m going nowhere with that one.”

  “Let’s put this in perspective here, OK? Who are you ultimately concerned with?” the detective asked. “Who did you feel sorry for here?”

  “Not me.”

  “Who?”

  “The kid that I buried.”

  “What has been going through your mind since this happened?”

  “You don’t even want to know that one.”
/>   “Having trouble sleeping?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Wake up thinking about someone saying, ‘Please, please.’ Am I right?”

  “Close.”

  “That was what the duct tape around his mouth was for.”

  “I didn’t do that.” That was Jesse Rugge, Hoyt said.

  “You’re saying he put [on] the duct tape. He said you did it.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “I love this one. The only thing I did was kill him.”

  The detectives didn’t react. They didn’t miss a beat.

  “You didn’t dig the hole, right? You didn’t duct tape him at all?”

  “I put it over his mouth at the hotel, but I took it off when we left.”

  They tossed the duct tape in the garbage at the hotel, Hoyt said, and Rugge was the one who put more duct tape on Nick once they got out to the grave—which Graham Pressley had dug. Detectives asked if he threatened Pressley, but Hoyt said he didn’t have to—Pressley had just picked the spot and done it, no questions asked. They didn’t speak except to talk about directions.

  And then Ryan Hoyt decided that he’d talked enough for the night.

  Detectives now had confessions from everyone in custody. Now there was just one more objective: to find Jesse James Hollywood.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE FUGITIVE

  The others had been fairly easy to find. They hadn’t made attempts to flee. Jesse James Hollywood, however, had a support network that none of the others shared. Because of his father’s connections and money, he also had opportunities none of the others did: hush money, bribe money, high-priced lawyers, people who owed favors.

  Hollywood leased a new Lincoln LS Town Car on the day Nick was murdered, cashed out his bank accounts, and went around collecting from all the people who owed him money. Then he went to see his mom, because he didn’t know when he’d ever see her again, considering he was about to go on the run. They were close; after his mother and father separated, Hollywood would call her every night to ask if she was OK and see if she needed anything.

  He and his mom drove to Palm Springs to see Michelle Lasher at a modeling convention there; then Hollywood and Lasher came back to Los Angeles and visited William Skidmore. Skidmore told them that the news had just broken—Nick’s body had been found, and authorities were looking for him.