2003 LAPD “Black Dahlia” Briefing – Attending Cold Case Detectives Remain Frigid- Head Deputy DA and Chief of Detectives say, “It’s Solved!”

April 11, 2023
Birch Bay, Washington

Background 

A decade prior to my father’s death, after retiring from Hollywood Homicide, in 1986, I obtained my California State Private Investigators license and began conducting criminal defense investigations in Los Angeles.  After three years I then moved my family (wife and two young sons)  to Bellingham, Washington in the Pacific Northwest.

In Bellingham (Whatcom County) I obtained a WA State P.I. license and remained active in criminal defense investigations. I served as a court-appointed defense investigator for  Whatcom County as well as local private attorneys.

In 1992 I received a telephone call from Los Angeles Attorney Gerson Horn, who was considered one to the top defense attorneys in Los Angeles and whom I had worked for prior to moving to Bellingham, WA.

LA Attorney Gerson Horn

Gerson wanted me to “come down for a few months to help him on a murder case.” He was representing Yoshikuni Okubo, a Japanese businessman, who had been accused along with Miura (Miura was not represented by attorney Horn) of the 1981 murder of Miura’s wife, Kazumi Miura, age 28.

Above 1981 photo showing Miura allegedly wounded in a “street robbery” while his wife, Kazumi (photo left)
remained ‘critical’ and comatose and after being air-evacuated back to Japan, would later die from her head wound.
Facts would later indicate her husband likely committed the “murder for hire” for insurance purposes.

Absent a “shooter” LAPD Cold Case detectives focused on Miura’s “business partner” Yoshikuni Okubo.
Detectives attempted to get a felony filing and warrant on Okubo in Los Angeles, but “the evidence” linking him to the crime was so thin and absent that the local LADA’s office rejected any complaint against Okubo.
Consequently, when Okubo returned to Japan authorities there charged him as an “accomplice” and he was jailed in Japan with “no bail” in 1988. (The conviction rate in Japan is “99.7%” so basically our legal system of “presumed innocent” is non-existent in Japan.  It would appear that in Japan, if you are arrested/you’re GUILTY.

When attorney Gerson Horn contacted me, in 1992, Okubo had been incarcerated in prison for four years while ‘awaiting trial.”

My defense investigation on behalf of Okibo required I temporarily return to Los Angeles and ultimately, I was able to PROVE OKUBO’S INNOCENCE, which resulted in the Japanese tribunal ordering his release from custody and his return to his family and young children in Osaka, Japan.

The assigned Cold Case detectives (Jackson, Lambkin, and Carr) were obviously not happy with the fact I had established that their “alleged accomplice Okubo” was innocent and not the shooter, which resulted in his release from custody.

The Miura/Okubo investigation by LAPD had been deemed “The Los Angeles Suspicions Case” by the Japanese newspapers and was headline news both in Tokyo and Los Angeles for years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on scores of investigators from LAPD and Tokyo 5-0 flying back and forth and conducting “crime scene reenactments” in DTLA. The investigation by them continued for nearly three decades and ultimately resulted in the arrest and extradition of MIURA to Los Angeles where on October 10, 2008*.   Miura allegedly hung himself while in LAPD custody prior to his trial in Los Angeles. (An independent pathologist hired by the defense attorney stated the evidence showed Miura was murdered while in jail, the LA County coroner ruled the cause of death was suicide.)
Kazuyoshi Miura Wikipedia Summary HERE. 

*October 10, is the birthdate of Dr. George Hill Hodel. (File under, “you can’t make this shi* up.”) In the early/mid-2000s my father was “fascinated” by my ongoing investigation into  the Okubo/Miura case and wanted me to write a book about it called, “Murder Across the Pacific.” (His title, not mine.)  Miura was born in 1947, the year Dr. George Hodel murdered Elizabeth Short. His birthdate was July 27, just two days before that of victim Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short.)

Imagine their thoughts a decade later when these same detectives were confronted with my “solving of the Black Dahlia Murder” and being ordered by “the brass’ to attend my and Head DDA Steve Kay’s “briefing” at Parker Center in 2003.
There can be no doubt that these three detectives were angry and hostile and viewed me just as the fictional character, Det. III Harry Bosch.  In their minds, Detective III Hodel, as a criminal defense investigator,  had “gone to the dark side.”

LAPD BLACK DAHLIA BRIEFING 2003

PRESENT AT LAPD PARKER CENTER BRIEFING:

HEAD DDA STEVE KAY

CLICK TO PLAY

 

RICK JACKSON (now ret.)

Assigned to the Cold Case Unit. Worked on the “Miura/Okubo” unsolved murder.

“LAPD detective in Miura probe a cold case expert”
(The Japan Times newspaper photo)

BRIAN CARR-Cold Case Detective (now retired)

DAVID LAMBKIN Cold Case Unit Supervisor (now retired)

 COMMANDER JIM TATREAU (retired and deceased. See obit below)
(Former Capt. Robb/Homicide Div. Established Cold Case Unit 2001)

CHIEF JAMES MCMURRAY (Now retired)

ASST CHIEF SHARON PAPA  (Now retired)

UNNAMED MALE CIVILIAN/POLICE COMMISSIONER OR ??

 

A White Hat.  One of the good guys- Commander Jim Tatreau.

SKH Note- After the presentation of the briefing by myself and Head DDA Kay,  Cmdr. Tatreau, who just a year earlier was Captain of the LAPDs Robbery/Homicide Division, compliment us and felt the evidence was strongly compelling and looked forward to the follow-up by the Cold Case Unit, which he had established just a few years earlier. (Sadly, the ‘follow-up” by Brian Carr never happened.)

lapd tatreau obit 2007

LAPD/Japan 500 1991 Crime Scene Recreation in DTLA
(LA Times January 1213, 1991)

Det. Rick Jackson extradited Miura in 2008 from Saipan and booked him in custody at LAPD  where just 12 hours later Miura was found dead hanging from his neck in his jail cell.  Mark Geragos, a lawyer for Miura, said, ” his client did not commit suicide. He said a pathologist he hired found evidence indicating Miura was beaten and choked. He said the pathologist concluded the marks on Miura’s neck could NOT have been caused by a self-indicated hanging.” Defense pathologist claimed it was a “homicide”

LA Coroner ruled it a “suicide”.

https://abc7.com/archive/6459231/

Miura was found dead in his cell 12 hours after arrival from Saipan.