# 6. One More Day in Paradise | Lost Hills

An episode of [Examined: The Backfire Effect](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1549249596), 13 Apr 2021, 34 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/pdrl.fm/e27c90/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/31bb1c28-0fb5-4627-b8a7-ae32006cd7c1/c16ea7b9-b73b-456d-b180-ae320072c2ba/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=093755db-b947-43f4-a067-ae32006cd7cf

Lost Hills Station is embroiled in scandal. But the new captain is determined to set the story straight. He says there were major errors in the investigation, and points a finger at two respected Lost Hills detectives: Sgt. Tui Wright and Lt. James Royal. Ian Kincaid, a shooting victim, describes overhearing a private conversation at Lost Hills Station. As her relationship with Sheriff Villanueva deepens, Cece Woods feels her power in Malibu grow. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:15] Speaker 1: Pushkin.
[0:22] Speaker 2: Hey, Dana, it's Chuck, Chuck Becerra, Malibu Lost Hill Sheriff's Station. Hey,
[0:27] Speaker 2: just calling you, touching base. I'm back at work. I
[0:30] Speaker 2: sent you a text. I got crunched a little bit.
[0:32] Speaker 3: That's Salvador Becerra. Goes by Chuck. He's the new captain
[0:36] Speaker 3: of Lost Hill Station. The station has been in turmoil
[0:40] Speaker 3: since Rauta was arrested. Scandal after scandal. Remember when Kobe
[0:45] Speaker 3: Bryant's helicopter crashed in the Calabasas Hills?
[0:48] Speaker 4: LA County Sheriff's deputies are facing discipline now for taking
[0:51] Speaker 4: and sharing graphic photos at the scene of the helicopter
[0:55] Speaker 4: crash that killed nine people, including Kobe Bryant.
[0:58] Speaker 3: According to media reports, some of those deputies taking and
[1:01] Speaker 3: sharing photos were from Lost Hills. I've been trying to
[1:06] Speaker 3: get in with the leadership at the station ever since
[1:08] Speaker 3: I heard about the murder in the park. Sometimes I
[1:11] Speaker 3: just go to the station and stare. at the mirrored
[1:14] Speaker 3: glass behind the unattended reception desk. On the other side
[1:18] Speaker 3: lie the answers to everything that doesn't make sense about
[1:21] Speaker 3: this case. But all I can see is myself reflected
[1:25] Speaker 3: back at me. It's the perfect metaphor for the sheriff's department.
[1:30] Speaker 3: They see out, but you can't see in. But the
[1:34] Speaker 3: weird thing about Captain Becerra? He's friendly. This guy calls me.
[1:40] Speaker 2: I think you've been keeping up with the politics here. Remember,
[1:43] Speaker 2: I was The active captain here, they got replaced and
[1:46] Speaker 2: they got sent back.
[1:48] Speaker 3: He's nice. He wants to help. You're getting stonewalled, he
[1:53] Speaker 3: tells me cheerfully. When you're getting stonewalled, you know you're
[1:57] Speaker 3: on to a good story. Something obviously went wrong at
[2:01] Speaker 3: Lost Hills Station. There was apparently a shooter on the
[2:04] Speaker 3: loose in Malibu for over a year and a half.
[2:07] Speaker 3: And it was kept secret. Not only that. The alleged
[2:12] Speaker 3: shooter hated the Lost Hills cops, had frequent contact with
[2:15] Speaker 3: law enforcement, and lived in the hills behind the station.
[2:19] Speaker 3: And Sergeant Wright, who gave me the helicopter tour? He
[2:23] Speaker 3: and Lieutenant Royal, the two Lost Hills deputies who argued
[2:26] Speaker 3: there was a serial sniper, a would-be serial killer in Malibu,
[2:31] Speaker 3: and then found him? They're under investigation. What went wrong?
[2:39] Speaker 3: Sarah's newly in charge. He wasn't there for all the mess,
[2:42] Speaker 3: but he says he really, really wants me to find
[2:45] Speaker 3: out the truth. He wishes he could tell me, but
[2:49] Speaker 3: he can't. He'd get fired at a minimum, possibly charged.
[2:54] Speaker 3: The truth he keeps promising me is a bombshell.
[2:57] Speaker 2: It's crazy. Crazy. It'll make a good movie or a
[3:01] Speaker 2: good book or at least a good chapter in it. Anyways,
[3:05] Speaker 2: call me when you get a chance. I'll be in
[3:06] Speaker 2: the rest of the week. Okay, bye-bye.
[3:12] Speaker 3: I think I might be in. I'm Dana Goodyear, and
[3:18] Speaker 3: this is Lost Hills. Lost Hills Episode 6, One More
[3:50] Speaker 3: Day in Paradise. In 2016 and 2017, there was a
[3:57] Speaker 3: series of near-miss shootings in and around Malibu Creek State Park.
[4:01] Speaker 3: Then nothing for 11 months. In the summer of 2018,
[4:05] Speaker 3: there was a sixth attack, another near-miss. It involved a
[4:10] Speaker 3: white Tesla being driven by a man named Ian Kincaid.
[4:14] Speaker 3: The date was June 18th. four days before Tristan Beaudet
[4:18] Speaker 3: was killed. Today, I'm at Ian's house, at the top
[4:29] Speaker 3: of a twisty road in the Malibu Hills, standing in
[4:32] Speaker 3: front of his garage. He pulls the car out. The
[4:36] Speaker 3: white hood has a single piece of white electrical tape
[4:39] Speaker 3: right between the headlights. He peels it away, revealing a
[4:43] Speaker 3: deep gash.
[4:46] Speaker 5: Wow. And you understand why I don't want my kids
[4:50] Speaker 5: to see it. So I was going about 60 miles
[4:53] Speaker 5: an hour, 65, something like that, when I pulled over.
[4:56] Speaker 5: But beforehand, I'd been going considerably faster.
[4:59] Speaker 3: Ian works as a gaffer in Hollywood, which means it's
[5:03] Speaker 3: his job to light the sets. He's worked on six
[5:06] Speaker 3: Quentin Tarantino movies. And on the day we're talking about,
[5:09] Speaker 3: he was headed to the set of Once Upon a
[5:11] Speaker 3: Time in Hollywood. He wanted to get there.
[5:14] Speaker 2: By 6 a.m.
[5:16] Speaker 5: Let me pop the hood.
[5:18] Speaker 3: So he got up in the dark and left his home.
[5:21] Speaker 3: He took Malibu Canyon Road.
[5:24] Speaker 5: I was driving through the canyon at about 4.20, and
[5:28] Speaker 5: I was driving pretty fast. Sometimes in the morning I'd
[5:33] Speaker 5: drive excessive speed, and I thought, you know what, I'm
[5:36] Speaker 5: going to get there too early. I don't need to speed,
[5:38] Speaker 5: so I slowed down, and within a minute was when
[5:42] Speaker 5: the bullet hit my car. And I remember... thinking, what's
[5:46] Speaker 5: that sound? You know, it was like, it was like,
[5:49] Speaker 5: I thought, did I leave a coffee cup on my
[5:52] Speaker 5: roof again? And was that what that was rattling? Or
[5:55] Speaker 5: I thought, nah, I looked down and my, my teacup
[5:58] Speaker 5: was right there. And I thought, well, maybe it was
[6:02] Speaker 5: an acorn because I was driving near some oak trees.
[6:04] Speaker 5: And just, you know, these are just thoughts at four
[6:06] Speaker 5: o'clock in the morning. I wasn't trying to solve any mysteries.
[6:10] Speaker 5: And then within, I'd say 10 seconds, maybe the The
[6:15] Speaker 5: alarm started going off, so I pulled over and got
[6:17] Speaker 5: out of the car. It was pitch dark, no other traffic,
[6:21] Speaker 5: and I pulled over right there at the Hindu temple.
[6:25] Speaker 3: The bullet went in the hood, passed through the front trunk,
[6:29] Speaker 3: and out the fender.
[6:30] Speaker 5: You can see it wouldn't take too much of a
[6:33] Speaker 5: change in speed for that to have gone in elsewhere.
[6:39] Speaker 5: His height wasn't too far off, if he was indeed
[6:42] Speaker 5: aiming at me.
[6:45] Speaker 3: I test the hole with my pinky. It has a
[6:48] Speaker 3: jagged edge. I can feel how close a call that was,
[6:52] Speaker 3: how the bullet so easily could have hit him. So
[6:56] Speaker 3: I went through there.
[6:58] Speaker 5: They've replaced this piece, I think, and came through here
[7:03] Speaker 5: and then out the fender from about like here. And
[7:10] Speaker 5: they said it might have bounced off the tire.
[7:13] Speaker 3: After work, Ian says, he stopped by Lost Hills Station.
[7:18] Speaker 3: He remembers the deputy who took the report didn't appear
[7:21] Speaker 3: too worried.
[7:22] Speaker 5: So she took a picture and she handed me a
[7:24] Speaker 5: slip of paper with a number on it and said,
[7:25] Speaker 5: this is your crime report if you ever need it. Okay,
[7:29] Speaker 5: and they weren't concerned. There was nobody expressing any kind
[7:35] Speaker 5: of serious interest in it.
[7:41] Speaker 3: For the next few days, he tells me, he felt strange.
[7:44] Speaker 3: and avoided Malibu Canyon. When he couldn't avoid the road,
[7:47] Speaker 3: he ruminated. Where had that shot come from? Who had
[7:53] Speaker 3: fired it? And why? Then, four days later, on June 22nd,
[8:02] Speaker 3: Beaudet was killed.
[8:03] Speaker 5: I remember driving through Malibu Canyon and seeing a lot
[8:08] Speaker 5: of cops and a fenced-off area And, you know, something
[8:15] Speaker 5: was going on. And I got to work. And I
[8:21] Speaker 5: really don't recall when I learned, but I learned that
[8:23] Speaker 5: somebody had been murdered in the campground. I thought, wow,
[8:28] Speaker 5: that's bizarre.
[8:36] Speaker 3: Suddenly, he says, the cops were all over him.
[8:40] Speaker 5: My phone just lit up.
[8:41] Speaker 2: And within.
[8:44] Speaker 5: I bet in a half an hour I probably got
[8:46] Speaker 5: 20 calls from sheriffs, from LAPD, from Lost Hills, from rangers,
[8:54] Speaker 5: from newspapers, from reporters. And I just thought, what is this?
[9:06] Speaker 3: They summoned him back to Lost Hills Station, where a
[9:09] Speaker 3: group of deputies quickly ushered him around the side.
[9:12] Speaker 5: So I drove around the back. And there must have
[9:15] Speaker 5: been 15 guys in uniform that came up. And there
[9:19] Speaker 5: were a lot of guys that were just like volunteer
[9:22] Speaker 5: kind of guys wearing sheriff's, deputy sheriff's stuff. There was
[9:26] Speaker 5: a sergeant, I remember, and there was a detective. They
[9:30] Speaker 5: had a handful of dowels of different diameter, and they
[9:35] Speaker 5: put the dowels into the hole.
[9:38] Speaker 3: That was Sergeant Tui Wright and his search and rescue team.
[9:42] Speaker 3: Sergeant Wright saw this shooting as another one of the
[9:45] Speaker 3: near misses and believed that whoever had done it had
[9:48] Speaker 3: also likely killed Tristan Beaudet.
[9:50] Speaker 5: They were trying to figure out the trajectory of the bullet.
[9:55] Speaker 3: The trajectory was important. Investigating the BMW shooting, Sergeant Wright
[10:01] Speaker 3: had found that hill, the suspected shooting mound on the
[10:04] Speaker 3: park side of the Canyon Road. He was wondering if
[10:07] Speaker 3: whoever shot the Tesla had fired from the same elevated spot.
[10:13] Speaker 3: And later, after the Woolsey fire had burned a bunch
[10:16] Speaker 3: of brush away, he went back and searched there and
[10:20] Speaker 3: found 9mm casings. But back in June 2018, Ian says,
[10:26] Speaker 3: the deputies were being secretive.
[10:30] Speaker 5: By what I gathered, they didn't want to tell me anything.
[10:34] Speaker 5: They were trying to usher me away from the car
[10:36] Speaker 5: most of the time and have somebody else ask me
[10:38] Speaker 5: questions while they were putting the dowels in and stuff.
[10:42] Speaker 3: Ian says he did hear one thing, loud and clear.
[10:46] Speaker 3: And it confused him in the months ahead, when he,
[10:49] Speaker 3: like everyone else in Malibu, kept hearing the sheriff's department
[10:53] Speaker 3: say there was no connection, no relation, no link among
[10:57] Speaker 3: all these violent crimes. He overheard Sergeant Wright and the
[11:02] Speaker 3: deputies say that he, Ian, was the eighth victim in
[11:07] Speaker 3: an ongoing shooting spree that had just turned deadly.
[11:11] Speaker 5: I believe they said that I was number eight. And
[11:21] Speaker 5: I thought, what's that mean? Why am I number eight?
[11:25] Speaker 5: And then a little later, they said that Is it Tristan?
[11:32] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[11:33] Speaker 5: That he was number nine.
[11:36] Speaker 3: This was the thinking of a faction inside Lost Hill Station.
[11:41] Speaker 3: They didn't yet know who the canyon shooter was, but
[11:44] Speaker 3: they believed that he was out there. For a year
[11:47] Speaker 3: and a half, they'd been telling the department, but the
[11:50] Speaker 3: department wouldn't listen. The Tesla shooting had been the sheriff's
[11:53] Speaker 3: department's last chance to intervene before the murder happened. And
[12:00] Speaker 3: they missed. Captain Becerra is inviting me to come and
[12:23] Speaker 3: see him at Lost Hill Station. Um, yes, of course
[12:28] Speaker 3: I want to come. It'll be my first time behind
[12:31] Speaker 3: the mirrored glass. He's a generous host. He takes me
[12:35] Speaker 3: around to meet the detectives. He takes me outside to
[12:38] Speaker 3: the parking lot so I can see the helipad. There's
[12:41] Speaker 3: a pile of scat right on the seal. Mountain lion, maybe?
[12:46] Speaker 3: I look around at the dry, empty hills. Over the
[12:50] Speaker 3: ridge is that steep slope where Rauta made his camp.
[12:54] Speaker 3: How did it take them so long to find him?
[12:57] Speaker 3: Captain Becerra is babbling on about how cops hate journalists,
[13:01] Speaker 3: how if I'm ever going to find out what I
[13:02] Speaker 3: want to know about this investigation, I'm going to need
[13:04] Speaker 3: to build some trust. He thinks I should meet as
[13:07] Speaker 3: many deputies as possible, go out with them, see Malibu
[13:11] Speaker 3: through their eyes. He suggests I go on a ride-along
[13:15] Speaker 3: with the beach team. Okay.
[13:17] Speaker 2: Okay.
[13:24] Speaker 3: Rauta told me in a letter that he hasn't been
[13:26] Speaker 3: to Malibu's beaches in years, since the mid-2000s. But it's
[13:30] Speaker 3: worth a try. So I spend a morning weaving in
[13:34] Speaker 3: and out of sunbathers on a quad.
[13:39] Speaker 6: There was an incident regarding paparazzis in Matthew McConaughey near
[13:44] Speaker 6: Paradise Cove. And there was an incident where a paparazzi
[13:49] Speaker 6: was assaulted and his property was vandalized. thrown in the water,
[13:54] Speaker 6: his camera.
[13:55] Speaker 3: And then we had some pirates, guys that were dressed
[13:58] Speaker 3: in pirate outfits, that were at Zuma 7 in the
[14:00] Speaker 3: parking lot that were smoking marijuana in their car.
[14:04] Speaker 7: They said they were in a band, so they're dressed
[14:06] Speaker 7: like pirates. They're smoking weed in their car. That was
[14:09] Speaker 7: back when weeds, I mean, you're still not supposed to
[14:13] Speaker 7: smoke in public, but it was more of a big
[14:16] Speaker 7: deal back then. This job's fun because you just drive
[14:20] Speaker 7: around and watch everything.
[14:44] Speaker 3: It's Becerra. He tells me he's arranged a day with
[14:47] Speaker 3: Malibu Search and Rescue, Sergeant Tui Wright's old team. I
[14:51] Speaker 3: head back to the station and climb into a Search
[14:53] Speaker 3: and Rescue SUV. Search and Rescue played a pivotal role
[15:01] Speaker 3: in the Rauta investigation. They found a lot of evidence
[15:04] Speaker 3: and assisted in the capture operation. I've been trying to
[15:07] Speaker 3: get on their radar for months.
[15:09] Speaker 8: So, um.
[15:11] Speaker 3: Nice ringtone.
[15:13] Speaker 1: That's a nice ringtone.
[15:14] Speaker 7: Well, that's the ringtone for the team.
[15:16] Speaker 3: We drive around for hours, looking at the beautiful ocean views.
[15:20] Speaker 3: The guys tell me some stories.
[15:22] Speaker 9: A gentleman called the sheriff's station and thought there was
[15:24] Speaker 9: a woman being attacked on a trail.
[15:26] Speaker 3: This is Mark Hollinger, a medical officer with Search and Rescue.
[15:30] Speaker 9: He was wondering if she was being beaten or raped.
[15:32] Speaker 9: He was very concerned. We came out there, did a
[15:34] Speaker 9: big search, found no evidence of anybody on the trail,
[15:38] Speaker 9: any evidence of a woman that was attacked. One of
[15:41] Speaker 9: our team members said, said, you know, I believe that
[15:43] Speaker 9: when mountain lions are in heat, they put out a
[15:46] Speaker 9: sound very similar to a woman screaming. So he went
[15:50] Speaker 9: onto Google and was able to get the recording of
[15:54] Speaker 9: this sound, which does sound like a woman screaming for help,
[15:58] Speaker 9: actually saying, help, help, help, type thing, very similar.
[16:03] Speaker 3: He's not wrong. This is a recording I found. So We,
[16:12] Speaker 3: as a.
[16:12] Speaker 9: Follow-up, we went to the gentleman's house who reported it
[16:15] Speaker 9: and played that tape for him and said, is this
[16:19] Speaker 9: what you heard that night? And he goes, oh my God, yes,
[16:21] Speaker 9: that's the exact sound I heard. Did you find the woman?
[16:26] Speaker 9: Is she okay? We said, actually, no, the sound you're
[16:28] Speaker 9: hearing is a mountain lion in heat.
[16:31] Speaker 3: It's a good story, but they're not telling me the story.
[16:36] Speaker 3: Did you get what you needed? Becerra asks. Totally, I lie.
[16:41] Speaker 3: I've been at this for weeks, driving all over Malibu,
[16:45] Speaker 3: wasting time getting the runaround, looking out the passenger side window,
[16:51] Speaker 3: watching the stone walls stream past. Then, I get a
[17:09] Speaker 3: number for a retired Lost Hills detective named J.T. Manuel,
[17:13] Speaker 3: and he agrees to meet me at a park about
[17:15] Speaker 3: five miles from the station. He knows all about Lieutenant Royal.
[17:20] Speaker 1: Yeah, he's very intelligent, extremely intelligent mentally, and his never-give-up attitude.
[17:31] Speaker 1: I mean, he's relentless.
[17:33] Speaker 3: He knows Sergeant Wright, too.
[17:36] Speaker 1: Well, too, he's a hunter, so he's a good tracker.
[17:39] Speaker 1: And he worked narcotics forever. He's a very smart guy.
[17:46] Speaker 3: Detective Manuel is a big guy with blue eyes and
[17:49] Speaker 3: a Steelers baseball cap. We sit down on a bench
[17:52] Speaker 3: by the playground.
[17:54] Speaker 1: You know, a lot still is different that way where
[17:57] Speaker 1: you've got to work a lot harder to find the
[17:59] Speaker 1: bad guys because they're not all over the place and
[18:03] Speaker 1: the crime rates usually are not that high in this area, so...
[18:08] Speaker 1: You've got to just kind of be a hard worker
[18:11] Speaker 1: to get things accomplished.
[18:13] Speaker 3: He was a detective at Lost Hill Station for 25 years.
[18:17] Speaker 3: He reported directly to Lieutenant Royal. He heard about Near
[18:21] Speaker 3: Misses 1 through 3, the early shootings in Malibu Creek
[18:24] Speaker 3: State Park, from Lieutenant Royal.
[18:26] Speaker 1: Lieutenant Royal was a very hands-on supervisor, so he made
[18:32] Speaker 1: sure we were briefed about it.
[18:34] Speaker 3: Then Near Misses 4 and 5 happened. on the Canyon Road.
[18:39] Speaker 1: I think a lot of us believed there was a
[18:41] Speaker 1: pattern after between three and four, definitely by five. Definitely
[18:47] Speaker 1: we knew we had a shooter out there.
[18:50] Speaker 3: Lieutenant Royal and his detectives started chasing down everything, even though,
[18:54] Speaker 3: as Sergeant Wright told me, his superiors in the department
[18:57] Speaker 3: weren't giving him much support.
[19:00] Speaker 1: Lieutenant Royal was looking for a pattern and looking at
[19:05] Speaker 1: people in the area and We were all going off
[19:09] Speaker 1: of leads or suspicions and everything else. He was starting
[19:14] Speaker 1: to develop potential suspect names, potential people of interest who
[19:21] Speaker 1: may have been somewhat radical, radical behavior and all that.
[19:26] Speaker 1: So we were definitely looking at different individuals who possibly,
[19:32] Speaker 1: possibly could be in the area.
[19:36] Speaker 3: They were looking for someone. They just didn't know who.
[19:41] Speaker 1: It's very hard to find people in the hills. There's
[19:46] Speaker 1: all kinds of people living in the hills that you
[19:48] Speaker 1: don't know about or that you stumble across or you
[19:52] Speaker 1: get a phone call on.
[19:54] Speaker 2: And uh it.
[19:55] Speaker 1: Truly is if you're looking for one individual without a
[20:00] Speaker 1: lot to go on it can be like a needle
[20:04] Speaker 1: in a haystack we did not have a lot of.
[20:06] Speaker 3: Leads i asked him if they were starting to develop
[20:10] Speaker 3: a psychological.
[20:11] Speaker 1: Profile yeah i just thought the person was uh definitely
[20:16] Speaker 1: somebody disturbed who uh had some kind of anger towards
[20:21] Speaker 1: the public at large.
[20:23] Speaker 3: Did you start to think at any point that maybe
[20:26] Speaker 3: the anger was toward law enforcement?
[20:29] Speaker 1: Personally, that crossed my mind, yes. But I think more
[20:35] Speaker 1: than anything, I thought this guy was just seriously out
[20:38] Speaker 1: to hurt somebody. A lone wolf type of guy.
[20:43] Speaker 8: Did Rauta's name come up at that point?
[20:45] Speaker 7: I think with.
[20:47] Speaker 1: With Rauta, I think that came up probably after they
[20:52] Speaker 1: saw the tape with him burglarizing and the gun.
[20:58] Speaker 3: This conversation has definitely helped me understand how and when
[21:02] Speaker 3: Anthony Rauta became a suspect. But I wonder if he
[21:06] Speaker 3: can speak to the other thing that's puzzling me, the
[21:08] Speaker 3: investigation into Sergeant Wright and Lieutenant Royal.
[21:12] Speaker 1: I don't think it was fair. I don't think it
[21:14] Speaker 1: was right. and I don't think it was warranted. Two deputies,
[21:20] Speaker 1: or two people from Lost Hills, which is commonly thought
[21:24] Speaker 1: of as a slow station, went out and basically found
[21:28] Speaker 1: a murderer and stayed persistent and collected some important evidence.
[21:33] Speaker 1: And I don't know if personally that rubbed somebody the
[21:37] Speaker 1: wrong way or they felt like it made them look bad,
[21:41] Speaker 1: but I can't really give an answer to the motives
[21:47] Speaker 1: of it, but it just, like I said, neither one
[21:52] Speaker 1: of them deserve to be punished. They deserve to be rewarded.
[21:58] Speaker 1: I know a lot of people were thinking that these
[22:02] Speaker 1: two guys got screwed for working extremely hard, and like
[22:08] Speaker 1: I said, it just did not make sense.
[22:13] Speaker 3: So according to Detective Manuel, it wasn't that they did
[22:16] Speaker 3: something wrong. It was politics. But who did they piss off?
[22:22] Speaker 3: Who is that powerful? So I make a plan to
[23:01] Speaker 3: visit Cece Woods. She knows a ton about the Sheriff's
[23:04] Speaker 3: Department and is laser-focused on Lost Hills. All this stuff,
[23:10] Speaker 3: the exile of Sergeant Wright and Lieutenant Royal, the investigations
[23:13] Speaker 3: into their police work, it all happened under the leadership
[23:17] Speaker 3: of her friend, Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Cece gives me directions
[23:23] Speaker 3: to a $ 15 million Malibu beach house. It belongs to
[23:26] Speaker 3: another friend of hers. I drive up to find her
[23:29] Speaker 3: in the garage. doing her laundry.
[23:32] Speaker 8: Because it's 8 million degrees two miles up the canyon,
[23:35] Speaker 8: and I didn't want you guys to melt. And I'm
[23:39] Speaker 8: always here, actually. I literally come here, hang out with
[23:42] Speaker 8: my girlfriend, I do my laundry in luxury, and I work.
[23:46] Speaker 8: This is where I work.
[23:49] Speaker 3: We walk inside, and the ocean fills every window. There's
[23:53] Speaker 3: a pool, a gym, a massive tank filled with rare jellyfish.
[23:59] Speaker 3: We sit down in the private movie theater, and she
[24:01] Speaker 3: launches right into a discussion of Sheriff Villanueva.
[24:06] Speaker 8: So my relationship with Alex, okay.
[24:08] Speaker 3: She's crazy about him. When his retriever died, she posted
[24:12] Speaker 3: a picture of him, his wife Vivian, and the dog.
[24:16] Speaker 3: I love you, she wrote. She says there's a lot
[24:20] Speaker 3: of speculation about her closeness to Sheriff Villanueva.
[24:24] Speaker 8: You know, it started professionally. When you're in a high-profile relationship, situation,
[24:31] Speaker 8: which with me started with the Malibu Creek State Park shootings,
[24:34] Speaker 8: and that just kind of put my name all over
[24:36] Speaker 8: the world. And it still continues to. So when you
[24:41] Speaker 8: form a relationship with somebody professionally during a very, excuse me,
[24:47] Speaker 8: during a very profound, life-changing time, so the The people
[24:56] Speaker 8: who are meant to stay in your life will stay.
[24:58] Speaker 8: And the people who are not meant to stay in
[25:00] Speaker 8: your life are not going to. Whoa.
[25:03] Speaker 3: This conversation is getting weirder by the minute.
[25:06] Speaker 8: I think they just look at me because I'm this
[25:08] Speaker 8: cute little blonde thing. You know, this mouthy little big-boob
[25:12] Speaker 8: blonde thing. And they think that, like, that's enough to
[25:15] Speaker 8: sway the sheriff's, like, opinion, which is bullshit. And it's like,
[25:20] Speaker 8: you know, I want to protect my ass, too, by.
[25:25] Speaker 8: Not allowing people to think that I would ever use
[25:28] Speaker 8: my sexuality to get somewhere because I don't. I use facts. Facts, truth, data, whatever.
[25:37] Speaker 3: Cece says Sheriff Villanueva is doing exactly what she wants,
[25:41] Speaker 3: cleaning house at Lost Hills Station.
[25:43] Speaker 8: Holy shit. Okay, good Lost Hills and bad Lost Hills.
[25:47] Speaker 8: Let's go to the bad Lost Hills. Bad Lost Hills
[25:51] Speaker 8: has been around for a very long time. That dark
[25:55] Speaker 8: cloud just hung right over that station. You want to
[26:00] Speaker 8: talk about continuing the rogue cop mentality? That's what was
[26:07] Speaker 8: happening at that department.
[26:09] Speaker 3: In 2019, a captain she really disliked had taken over
[26:13] Speaker 3: at Lost Hills.
[26:14] Speaker 8: At this point, I'm really fucking sick and tired of
[26:16] Speaker 8: that asshole, okay? And everybody else who's a cock blocker
[26:19] Speaker 8: over there.
[26:20] Speaker 3: She wanted Sheriff Villanueva to get rid of him. And,
[26:24] Speaker 3: she says, she made it clear. She would send Villanueva
[26:27] Speaker 3: pictures of the captain.
[26:28] Speaker 8: I would draw a red circle around his head. I
[26:31] Speaker 8: would put a big X through it. I couldn't help myself.
[26:40] Speaker 8: I'm like, I want that fucker gone.
[26:43] Speaker 3: The guy she's talking about was captain at the time
[26:45] Speaker 3: of the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash. So that wasn't good.
[26:49] Speaker 3: And CeCe was upset about a sexual assault investigation where
[26:52] Speaker 3: the victim was a college student in Malibu. So she
[26:56] Speaker 3: pushed to get the captain canned. And then for Chuck
[26:59] Speaker 3: Becerra to get his job, which he did.
[27:03] Speaker 8: From what I heard, a rumor on the eighth floor
[27:06] Speaker 8: is that when Alex did that, every captain in the
[27:12] Speaker 8: department crossed their legs and protected their manhood.
[27:17] Speaker 3: Ha ha ha! Cece clearly finds this all exhilarating.
[27:25] Speaker 8: So now, as soon as that happened, like two months later,
[27:31] Speaker 8: one of the deputies comes up to me. He's like, oh, hey, Cece, blah, blah, blah.
[27:35] Speaker 8: You know, I just wanted you to know that, like,
[27:38] Speaker 8: at least half the station is scared to death of you.
[27:43] Speaker 8: I'm like, that means half the station's not doing their job.
[27:45] Speaker 3: Okay.
[27:47] Speaker 8: So you let them know if I catch them, I
[27:50] Speaker 8: will put them on blast.
[27:52] Speaker 5: Okay?
[27:52] Speaker 8: Whether it's an article or whatever it is, I'm going
[27:55] Speaker 8: to make sure all the right people know. So they
[27:59] Speaker 8: should be scared of a watchdog. They should be.
[28:03] Speaker 3: She says she's looking out for Sheriff Villanueva's best interests
[28:07] Speaker 3: and going to war with his enemies.
[28:10] Speaker 8: He's not a fan of these people who are making
[28:12] Speaker 8: the department look bad.
[28:14] Speaker 3: Who is she talking about?
[28:16] Speaker 8: I'm going to say a royal and a right are
[28:19] Speaker 8: not in his... On his good boy list, you know
[28:23] Speaker 8: what I mean?
[28:25] Speaker 3: I really don't. There are some 10,000 deputies in the L.A.
[28:29] Speaker 3: Sheriff's Department. How would Alex Villanueva even be aware of
[28:34] Speaker 3: two former Malibu cops? Detective Manuel said there were some politics.
[28:40] Speaker 3: Did Sergeant Wright and Lieutenant Royal somehow piss off the sheriff?
[28:45] Speaker 3: Or did they piss off CeCe? Or are these things
[28:49] Speaker 3: now one and the same?
[28:51] Speaker 8: But I'm no different than an activist who uses my
[28:56] Speaker 8: platform to affect change. So that's what I do. And
[29:02] Speaker 8: because Malibu is so well known, Alex knows that basically
[29:08] Speaker 8: if we fart over here, it's going to make global news.
[29:12] Speaker 1: Okay?
[29:14] Speaker 3: Speaking of which, she's got a new article in the works.
[29:17] Speaker 8: It's going to be a bombshell.
[29:19] Speaker 3: Cece checks the time. She's got to go.
[29:22] Speaker 8: I'm going to go see Vivian Villanueva. There's like a
[29:27] Speaker 8: dispatcher's lunch over at Duke's, so I'm going to go
[29:29] Speaker 8: meet with those guys.
[29:32] Speaker 3: She's on her way to a lunch with Villanueva's wife, Vivian,
[29:37] Speaker 3: at Duke's, that surfer-themed restaurant on PCH. So first the sheriff,
[29:43] Speaker 3: and now his wife. I guess everyone loves the energy
[29:47] Speaker 3: out in Malibu. Captain Becerra isn't done with me he
[30:08] Speaker 3: keeps calling He wants to know how I'm getting on.
[30:12] Speaker 3: He's chipper, as usual, but there's starting to be a
[30:15] Speaker 3: frantic edge to his patter. You really need to find
[30:21] Speaker 3: out the truth, he says. He tells me that Sergeant
[30:25] Speaker 3: Wright and Lieutenant Royal are causing him trouble. Actually, he says,
[30:32] Speaker 3: the Wright and Royal thing is like shit, and I
[30:35] Speaker 3: can't keep it off my boots. He says he's stepping
[30:38] Speaker 3: in it, tracking it all over his carpet.
[30:42] Speaker 5: What?
[30:44] Speaker 3: They botched the investigation, he tells me. They're giving the
[30:48] Speaker 3: defense a defense, he says. They're helping Anthony Rauta. There's
[30:57] Speaker 3: a pair of top-secret reports detailing all the ways Sergeant
[31:00] Speaker 3: Wright and Lieutenant Royal allegedly screwed up. The Internal Affairs
[31:04] Speaker 3: reports about their police work. Captain Becerra says he's going
[31:09] Speaker 3: to put them in an envelope, write my name on it.
[31:12] Speaker 3: He's going to tape it to the bottom of his desk.
[31:14] Speaker 3: And if he's killed in the line of duty, I
[31:17] Speaker 3: should come to Lost Hills and claim it. It's Captain
[31:23] Speaker 3: Becerra again. I'm driving on PCH, the ocean on my left,
[31:29] Speaker 3: mountains on my right. He's going on and on about
[31:32] Speaker 3: the screw-ups in the router case. I know what he
[31:36] Speaker 3: thinks of Wright and Royal, or as he calls them,
[31:39] Speaker 3: Tweedledee and Tweedledum. But what about the other cops? Ty Berry,
[31:44] Speaker 3: the major crimes lead, who showed up at Rauta's early hearings.
[31:47] Speaker 3: And Daniel Morris, the homicide detective who witnessed Tristan Beaudet's autopsy.
[31:53] Speaker 3: The ones with records of misconduct, which I got from
[31:55] Speaker 3: the DA's office. The dirty cops. I realize I've never
[32:00] Speaker 3: asked him about those guys. Berry and Morris, he says brightly.
[32:05] Speaker 3: I do know them. We were deputies together 20 years ago.
[32:09] Speaker 3: We're like-minded, he says. We understand each other. All of
[32:15] Speaker 3: a sudden, I feel kind of sick. Disoriented. I'm remembering
[32:26] Speaker 3: this weird moment that happened when Becerra was first showing
[32:29] Speaker 3: me around the station. He asked if I wanted to
[32:32] Speaker 3: see the jail. I did, for sure. I knew Rauta
[32:37] Speaker 3: had spent time there. So Basara asked the jailer for
[32:40] Speaker 3: the keys. He led me to a cell with a
[32:43] Speaker 3: cot along one wall. I walked in, and as I
[32:47] Speaker 3: was looking around, I heard the sound of clanking metal.
[32:51] Speaker 3: He was closing the door. And then, still smiling, he
[32:57] Speaker 3: locked me in.
[33:07] Speaker 8: Thank you.
[33:33] Speaker 3: Lost Hills is written and hosted by me, Dana Goodyear.
[33:37] Speaker 3: It's produced by Western Sound and Pushkin Industries. For more
[33:41] Speaker 3: information about my investigation, follow at Lost Hills Pod on
[33:45] Speaker 3: social media. Up next, Episode 7, Morning Light.

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