Finally, there was the sense that the killings were part of something bigger, that the shooters were not acting alone but rather had operated at someone else’s behest. Only no one knew who that someone else was. This made folks leery about saying too much. Who knew what might set off the killers or their overseer again?
On the streets, gossip is a kind of currency, providing valuable information that can be used for personal gain. But particularly in tense and unknown situations, it also poses risks. Passing on rumors is one thing, while snitching, the cardinal sin of the underworld, is another. The dividing line is often thin, and tends to be flexible, held in the eye of the beholder. People who talk too much play a dangerous game.
For while no one seemed to understand precisely what took place, this was clear: the case was high profile, and the pressure on LAPD intense. Everyone noticed an increased police presence on the streets since the crime occurred. Whomever they caught, whomever they could pin the crime on, that homie was going to get the gas.
* * *
Later, armed with the firearm examiner’s findings, the RHD detectives continue to interrogate James Kennedy.
Who knew if he had any role in the actual crime, but he was talking at the Hall, and was caught in possession of the murder weapon, which represented the first major break in a case that had otherwise ground to a halt.
“Where’d the gun come from, James?” they repeat.
“I already told you, man, from some basehead.”
“And you gave him fifty dollars’ worth of dope for the gun.”
“That’s right.”
“Name, give us a name.”
“Can’t. Don’t know it.”
“You seen him around before?”
“I don’t know, maybe. Just another doper.”
They know he’s lying, but they want to keep him talking, sweating.
“If we took you around the hood could you ID him for us, point him out?”
“I don’t know.”
The detectives are going in for the kill.
“When did you get this gun from the basehead?”
Kennedy pauses, trying to figure out what the officers are driving at. What did they want him to say, he wonders. “I don’t know,” he says, pauses again, then, “Like a couple of months ago.”
“When, like before Fourth of July?”
“No, later. Like early August.”
“First part of August?”
“Yeah, about, I guess.”
“Then you had it when the murders occurred.”
“Murders?”
“Yeah, you know those kids and that old lady that were killed over on Fifty-Ninth?”
“No, I don’t know nothing about that.”
“Nothing? Word is you were boasting about having done it. Never said anything like that?”
“Nope.”
“So if we brought someone in and they said they heard you boasting—”
“They be lying.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I do. Just trying to hang me out to help their own—”
“Look,” a detective interrupts him. “We tested the fuckin’ gun.”
The detectives realize that the tit-for-tat over whether Kennedy spoke about the crime is going nowhere. For the moment they will abandon that tack and focus on the physical evidence.
“See I didn’t say—”
“Let’s forget what you said. I don’t care about that right now.”
“But you said—”
“Just listen, James,” one of the detectives says, leaning forward, now less than a foot away from Kennedy. “You can tell us whatever you want, but the fuckin’ physical evidence, it never lies—”
“He’s right, James,” the other interjects, “never.”
“And right now,” the other continues, “it’s pointing a real big finger right at you.”
“I already told you—”
“Yeah,” the other detective continues. “That gun that you had, tested positive.” He pauses.
Again, the other detective jumps in. “That gun killed those four people.” He pauses. With raised voice, “While they slept in their house.”
“I don’t know—”
“Well, you better start fuckin’ knowing, because we got you cold with the murder weapon. So either you name names or—”
“Look, man, I don’t know nothing about no murders.”
“Who are you afraid of, James?”
“Ain’t afraid of nobody.”
“Well, you better start being afraid. Because right now you’re going down for four counts of first-degree murder, and you know what that’ll get you?”
Kennedy says nothing, looking down at the floor.
“Well, I’ll tell you—the gas chamber.”
“That’s right,” the other detective adds, nodding. “They’re going to drop the pellets. New governor means fuckin’ business.”
Kennedy remains silent, staring down, making no eye contact with the officers.
“This is your last chance, James. Where’d you get the gun?”
Still nothing.
The detectives begin to get up to leave the room. One is already at the door. He stands with his right hand on the knob.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Kennedy says in a low, weak voice.
The detective standing by the door stares down. The other pauses in his act of standing. “Yes?” he says.
Kennedy balks, then while continuing to look into his lap, mumbles something inaudible.
He is in the process of crossing a line. He is just about to go over, his last act of half resistance. He gives up the name, but says it so that it cannot be heard. He knows he is gone, but just cannot quite commit.
“Who?”
“Fee,” he again mumbles downward. This time it is audible.
Now he has crossed over and knows it. But two months into a gang he isn’t going to eat four murder convictions and go to death row. In the hierarchy of fear, the dread of the gas chamber has trumped the threat of the streets. He has broken the code. He is a snitch: selling out a homie to save his own skin.
“Who’s Fee?”
“Li’l Fee.”
“What?”
“Little Fee,” Kennedy now enunciates.
“Who’s that? Never heard of him. Give us his real name.”
Kennedy pauses, does not look up. He mumbles a name, again, inaudible.
“Who?”
“Tiequon Cox.”
19
HE TOOK A WRONG TURN
IN EARLY OCTOBER 1984, Peggy Fiderio, of the scientific identification division, stared into a comparison microscope.
On the left side she had the palm print recovered from the red trunk in the front bedroom of the house. On the right side was a palm print that had been taken by the Los Angeles Police Department of Tiequon Aundray Cox, following his arrest on September 6, 1984.
As Fiderio studied the characteristics of the prints, the ridges, whorls, loops, and bifurcations, she knew she needed at least ten points of comparison before LAPD would consider the prints to match. When she reached twelve matching points, she stopped her examination and declared that the palm print found on the red storage trunk was the right palm print belonging to Tiequon Cox.
Fiderio described “the smooth, nonporous” metal trunk lid as a “delightful surface” from which to lift latent prints.
Five other latent print examiners would confirm that the palm print on the trunk matched the right palm print of Tiequon Cox.
* * *
On Wednesday, October 24, 1984, the Los Angeles Times reported:
A South Central Los Angeles man already in custody in County Jail was named by police late Tuesday night as a prime suspect in the August 31 slayings of former UCLA and Los Angeles Rams defensive back Kermit Alexander’s family.
Los Angeles homicide detectives identified the suspect in the shooting deaths as Tiequon Cox, 18, a reported member of the Rolling 60s street gang. Cox w
as being held in jail on a charge of being an ex-convict in possession of a gun. Detectives said there was no immediate indication that street gangs might have been involved in the shootings.
Police Lt. Dan Cooke said announcement of Cox’s possible involvement in the quadruple slayings was delayed Tuesday until after a jail lineup was conducted.
A second gunman is being sought by authorities. . . .
. . . Cox was not in custody at the time of the shootings, detectives added.
The Thursday, October 25, 1984, Los Angeles Sentinel added:
At this time the detectives refused to release the names of the witnesses who faced Cox in the lineup and refused to say whether they had identified him as one of the pair seen at the Alexander dwelling.
They declined to do it to protect them from harm or threats in view of Cox’s gang affiliation and the fact that his alleged partner is still outstanding, also posing a threat to the well-being of those who had knowledge of the crime, officers said.
* * *
Tiequon Cox would be remembered variously as “a mind-boggling football player who moved like O. J. Simpson,” “a gymnast,” “a sociopath,” “evil,” “a Nazi storm-trooper,” “a monster,” “a ghetto idol,” “a stone cold killer,” “a monk,” a “mythological creature,” “someone who had great influence over others,” “someone who could have been special ops,” “someone who could have been a college professor,” “all that,” and “a bad motherfucker.”
Physically, people described Cox as “having very light skin,” and “long corn-rowed hair”; “six feet tall and two hundred and forty pounds without an ounce of fat,” “a physical specimen,” “one of the first gangbangers to tattoo his neck . . . that was hard core,” “the most piercing eyes I’ve ever seen,” “a reptile, with almond-shaped eyes, that were green or hazel—depending on his mood.”
* * *
On August 31, 1984, Tiequon Cox was uncharacteristically out of custody. Since he had turned fourteen, he spent the majority of his life incarcerated, either in juvenile hall or the California Youth Authority (CYA).
On March 18, 1984, after serving two and a half years for carjacking, he was released from CYA, the parole board stating that “he has done a real turnaround in relationship to gang involvement,” and that his “success in dealing with this problem will stand him in good stead while on parole.”
Cox’s release was over the district attorney’s objection.
On September 6, 1984, less than six months after his parole date, Cox was pulled over on a traffic violation, and a .32-caliber handgun was found inside his yellow Cadillac. He was arrested as an ex-felon in possession of a firearm.
Following his arrest, Cox was placed in Module 4800, where Crips were housed in Los Angeles County Jail. Described by Cox’s attorneys as a “cauldron of pernicious violence,” 4800 was famous for its overcrowding and fights, which included stabbings, razor blade slashings, and other vicious assaults. Inmates complained of brutal and racist guards who, they claimed, referred to them as “assholes” and “faggots” and at one point burned a cross in the unit.
In Module 4800, Cox, with his light skin, green eyes, and long braided red hair, was constantly challenged.
In an effort to ward off attacks, Cox affected a persona of toughness and menace. One guard said Cox “created chaos just to entertain himself,” while another said he had “murder and chaos in his eyes.” Said a third, “violence was like a drug to this killer.”
He also developed a maniacal exercise regimen. An inmate housed next to him in Module 4800 said that the workout going on next door sounded so intense he swore there were two people exercising in the cell. Another cellmate stated that Cox was so wound up and agitated, he seldom seemed able to sleep. He described Cox as “the most physically busy prisoner in our housing area. I don’t know if he did this because he enjoyed it. I don’t know if this was something he literally had to do.”
It was further noted by inmates in 4800 that Cox was “hypervigilant,” or extraordinarily cautious, sensitive, and suspicious as to what was going on around him. The inmate noted:
He always stood in front of my cell with his back against the wall and watched the cells on either side of mine. He had a way of talking to me while looking around, watching for who might come up on the tier, and taking everything in that was happening further up the row. He did this moving his eyes around but not his head.
The same inmate would also describe Cox as depressed, keeping a front or guard up, a kind of mask:
He was quiet, watchful, shy, and kept to himself. He stayed that way with nearly everyone on the [cell] row and did not open up. . . . He was afraid of getting hurt or being let down and protected himself against that hurt by walling himself off. . . . He withdrew . . . instead of asking for help or letting on that he was hurting.
Cox himself would later state: “There was a point in my life when an elder might have stepped in and given me a sense of hope, but I had learned early on that you can’t rely on anybody but yourself.”
* * *
Based upon the statement of James Kennedy and the results of the ballistics testing, the palm print comparison, and the live lineup, Detective David Crews went to Module 4800 of Los Angeles County Jail on October 25, 1984, to rearrest Tiequon Cox, this time for four counts of first-degree murder.
Cox said he had killed no one, but said nothing more.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office would charge Cox with four counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances—the killing of multiple victims—which if found true by a jury would send him to the gas chamber.
* * *
When Detective Crews called and told me of Cox’s arrest, I could tell he viewed it as a major victory. I sensed that there was great relief at Robbery Homicide that an arrest had finally been made. He seemed pleased he had cracked the case.
While I said nothing of it to Crews, I took some secret personal satisfaction in knowing that my own attempts at finding the killers had pushed the mayor’s office and the chief of police to step up their efforts. These increased patrols and intensified drug searches had flushed out James Kennedy and the gun. Further, it was my friend at juvenile hall who provided the information that Kennedy was boasting. These efforts in turn led to Kennedy’s interrogation, which ultimately led to the discovery of Tiequon Cox.
My acts had altered events.
Otherwise, I took little solace. While I was pleased that the case finally showed a break, I knew that Cox’s arrest marked only the first phase in what would surely be a long process.
While the ballistics results and palm print were strong evidence that Cox was the shooter, he refused to make any other comment. He clammed up and was then appointed a lawyer. At his arraignment he pled not guilty.
We were still left clueless as to what took place, or what was coming next.
Cox’s persistent silence frustrated my family, as well as the authorities. Later it would poison relations with his own attorney.
With the arrest of Cox, the police believed they had my family’s killer. But they still lacked a motive, accomplices, and leads as to who orchestrated the crime.
For my family, the arrest, while welcome, provided neither security nor closure. Here was the killer, but why had he targeted us? Who were his confederates? Were they still after us?
Cox wouldn’t say. Whatever he knew, he kept to himself.
With no answers and ongoing uncertainty, fear continued to grip us all.
My sister Joan’s mental state was typical. She was scared, and unable to lead a normal life. “It took me five minutes just to open my door I had so many locks on it,” she said. “And before I even got to the door, I always grabbed my gun.”
* * *
Following the arrest of Tiequon Cox, his great-grandmother’s house on West Seventy-Seventh Street was searched. When the search was conducted, Cox’s great-grandmother, with whom he lived, was described by police as “greatly upset
by the series of events.” She showed them the part of the house where Cox stayed, which was a garage that had been converted into a “bachelor pad.”
Within the house the police found numerous trophies and awards Cox had received for being an outstanding athlete. The trophies were from Little League baseball, and for his performance as a running back while playing in youth football leagues.
“He had the potential of being a top player in either sport,” said Detective David Crews.
“But somewhere along the way he took a wrong turn.”
20
IT WENT TO MY HEART
ON THE EVENING of October 25, 1984, Linda Lewis was in her apartment on Tenth Avenue, in Hyde Park, across the street from where James Kennedy was arrested. Lewis and her god-sister, Cassandra Haynes, routinely sold drugs on Tenth Avenue. Haynes ran a “rock house–type operation,” and Lewis served as her “banker.”
Shortly before 11 p.m., a member of the Rolling Sixties, Horace Burns, came over to Lewis’s apartment and asked if he could watch the eleven o’clock news.
The news broadcast the story of an arrest in the Alexander murders and announced that Tiequon Cox had been arraigned earlier that day.
As he watched the television report, Burns, a skinny nineteen-year-old with a medium-length Afro, known as “Horse” or “Death Lock” on the streets, told Lewis that he did not have to worry about his fingerprints being found in the house because he didn’t touch anything.
Burns also said he did not have to worry about Cox snitching on him “because he knew his homeboy wouldn’t do him like that.”
The following day, Cassandra Haynes, who was outside on Tenth Avenue selling drugs to customers in cars as they drove up, heard Burns, who was standing by the gate outside, talking about the crime to other gang members, including “Shoes” and “Eddie-Boy.”
The Valley of the Shadow of Death Page 14