Cold Case Files - REOPENED: Murder He Wrote

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

In July of 1988, the owner of a taxi company in Michigan was shot by a disgruntled employee. He survived, until a year later when he was shot once again. The identity of his second attacker would remain a mystery for fifteen years, until an exchange of letters between an inmate and a woman provided police with a clue.Sponsors:Skims: Believe the hype - SKIMS has over 100,000 five star reviews for a reason. The Cotton collection and more are available now at SKIMS.com. Plus, get free shipping on orders over seventy five dollars! If you haven't yet, be sure to let them know we sent you! After you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. And if you missed the big news - SKIMS reinvented underwear for women, and they are now doing it for men - also available at SKIMS.comAngi: Download the free Angi mobile app today or visit Angi.comProgressive: Press play on comparing auto rates. Quote at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. 

On July 31, 1988, Xavier Giller, the owner of a taxi company, was shot in the stomach by a former employee that had been fired. After shooting Mr. Giller, the angered man shot himself. Mr. Giller survived, but the shooter did not. Xavier Giller was a tough and motivated person who was determined to recover. And he did. In a tragically ironic twist of fate, on July 19th, 1989, just one year later, Mr. Giller was shot once again, murdered in the driveway of his own home. But this time, the killer lived

and got away with his crime for 15 years. One third of all murder cases in America remain open. Each one is called a cold case. And only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare cases. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. Xavier Giller and his wife Catherine returned to their home in Livonia, Michigan after shopping for groceries. Mrs. Giller exited the vehicle and was making her way from the driveway to the back door.

She opened the door to her house and walked into a life-altering situation. This is Catherine Giller. I went over to the light switch to turn it on, and that's when this man stepped out of the dining room, a big, tall person. His head almost touched the archway. And he says, don't touch it or I'll waste you right here.

Then he hit her so hard that he knocked her out. When she regained consciousness, Mrs. Giller, understandably confused, searched for her husband. He was supposed to have been following her with the rest of the groceries, and she didn't know how long she'd been knocked out for. When she found him, he was laying on his back in the driveway by the garage. Mrs. Giller immediately called emergency services for help. The first officer on the scene was Sergeant Donald Vandersloot.

Mr. Giller's body was lying here on the concrete. His head was down in this area. His feet were pointing at this area toward the street. And right on the concrete, literally right next to his right hand, was a.38 caliber revolver. Xavier was a gun collector himself and was said to never leave home without a firearm. A friend described him as understanding and kind, but also cantankerous. It seemed that Mr. Giller had fired at his attackers, but missed the mark. The police believed that the Gillers had arrived home during a robbery, surprising the culprits, who then haphazardly attacked the Gillers. Before being taken to the hospital

to have her own injuries assessed, Mrs. Giller made a statement to Sergeant Vandersloot. Mrs. Giller told us that she saw two men when she walked into the house bringing in groceries through the back door, that there were two men in her kitchen. A taller one, tall, skinny one with a beard, and someone that she described as a shorter individual. The home was processed by the crime scene investigators and it was noted that three guns were missing and items were thrown around like the burglars were searching for something. No physical evidence or fingerprints were found during the search. So, with only the vague description given to him by Mrs. Giller,

Sergeant Vandersloot started to investigate. The sergeant talked to Mr. Giller's friends, neighbors, and employees at the cab company where he worked. It turned out that the taxi company was in a location that was also a popular spot for drug dealers and sex workers. Mr. Giller's status as a businessman and his reputation for being a man with money made him an obvious target. I was told that he was bragging that he had a million dollars in his safe at his house.

And the type of people that he worked with and that associated with down at the cab company were kind of the type of people that you might not want to tell that information to. Sergeant Vandersloot questioned over 50 people, but he still didn't have any leads. He believed that sooner or later someone would talk and provide him with his missing evidence.

It's been my experience over the years that whenever there are two people or more involved, sooner or later one of them is going to tell somebody. Meanwhile, the case goes cold. And it wasn't until 15 years later, in 2004, that a lead presented itself. Bonnie Swoboda, Catherine and Xavier Giller's daughter, helped run the family's taxi business after her father's death. On December 7th, Bonnie answered the company phone and greeted the caller in the typical professional manner. The call, however, was definitely not typical. This is Bonnie.

The person on the other line said, Is this the place where Mr. Gilliam got shot and killed some years back? And I said, excuse me? Obviously, the caller had misremembered or mispronounced the Giller's name, but the details that she provided definitely seemed to indicate she was referring to Xavier. This is Bonnie again. She said, is this where Mr. Gilliam owned the company and got shot, and he has a couple of sons? And I says, no, actually he has four sons and a daughter, and I'm the daughter. And I says, and you are? She says, I have information regarding your dad's death, and that you're going to find out by Christmas of, you know, what happened.

At that time, I got goosebumps from head to toe and knew that this was not just a prank phone call, that there was something in this phone call. Bonnie tried to get any type of identifying information about the woman, but she was mostly unsuccessful. She did learn that the woman was located in California just before the call ended. Bonnie immediately calls the police

with the hopes that sharing this new information will help to solve her father's case. Sergeant Corey Williams investigates the lead. He starts by tracing the call that the female informant made to Bonnie. It leads to a phone number in California. Sergeant Williams calls the traced number to a phone number in California. Sergeant Williams calls the trace number, and a woman answers the phone. Williams thought the woman sounded nervous at

first, but then it seemed as if she just needed to unburden herself from a disturbing secret. Here's a clip from the call between Sergeant Williams and the female informant. I'm going to tell you everything. This whole story is so detailed. You're going to understand why I'm afraid, okay? How about you just relax and take your time? Tell me the whole story. The woman opened up to Sergeant Williams, telling him how she came to know about the fate of Mr. Giller. Her brother had been in prison,

and during that time, she'd become acquainted with his cellmate, Richard Mutica. She and Richard fell in love, even though she was already married. Here's the woman again. I promised him, actually, that if he became, you know, a warrior on fire for God, I would marry him. I would leave everything. I would walk away from everything I had, my marriage, and just, I would marry him. And, but he had to show me that he was sincere. Richard Mutica responded to her request through a letter. The woman had told him the truth would set him free, and maybe it did. Or maybe it just passed the burden onto her. She read the letter from Mutica to Sergeant Williams over the phone.

Here's what Mutica wrote. In June or July of 1989, me and a friend went on a robbery spree that lasted about two months. During the robbery, a house on the outskirts of Detroit, things got out of control. The friend's name was Richard Lawson, and he had worked as a taxi driver for Xavier Giller. He was all too aware of his former employer's elevated financial status and his habit of bringing home large amounts of cash on specific days of the week. According to Mutica, they'd planned the robbery of the Gillers because of Lawson's insight into his routine. She continues to read the letter. Early on that day, we believed that the money was going to be brought home. He starts to describe the whole scene, how they break into the house and they,

I guess the guy hit the woman that was screaming on the head. The letter then goes into the details of the murder. With the shotgun level at the waist, I heard Lawson say, hold it right there. And less than a second later, I heard and saw Lawson discharge the shotgun. And almost at the same time, I heard a secondary discharge of Mr. Gillian's weapon, a handgun. Even though the name of the victim had been confused, the details in the letter matched the events leading to Mr. Giller's murder exactly. Sergeant Williams came to the same conclusion, hoping that this might lead to the

resolution of a 15-year-old case. When she started to go into the details about the murder, as she told me, it corroborated our evidence in the case. I covered the phone with my hand at one point and gave the guys behind me the thumbs up, and I said, I think this is going to be it. After sharing the information, the woman finally felt relieved. The secret that had been weighing her down was finally lifted. She no longer had contact with Richard Mutica, and she didn't want anything to do with him or the investigation.

She had shared what she knew and wished to stay anonymous and go on with her life. I poured out the information. I had nothing. I just felt like I had to get this off of me. I just felt like I wanted to break free of this man. Sergeant Williams continues his investigation by looking for the men the informant had mentioned during their call. Richard Mutica wasn't hard to locate. He was being housed by the California Department of Corrections. Richard Lawson, however, was more difficult to find. Lawson, we weren't sure what state he was in, if he was even in the country. All we had was a name, Richard Lawson. Through an extensive search, the investigators uncovered an arrest warrant issued in 1989 by the state of Pennsylvania for a man named Richard Lawson.

Unsure if it was the same Richard Lawson, Sergeant Williams contacted the authorities in Pennsylvania to further investigate. Sergeant Williams was sure he had the right man when it was revealed that the Richard Lawson in Pennsylvania had been arrested with an accomplice, Richard Mutica. Mutica had only been 16 years old at the time of the attack on the Gillers. Lawson was 43. The age difference between the men helped to shape the investigator's theory of the crime. We believed that Richard Lawson was the one that pulled the trigger and planned this crime. He knew Giller had money. He knew the Giller house. Richard Lawson planned this crime. Richard Mutica was just a young boy. Richard Lawson was on probation in California, but because there was no physical evidence to implicate him in the murder,

the investigators first sought out Richard Mutica. Sergeant Williams, along with cold case detective Mike Donnelly, went to California to meet Mutica. This is, along with cold case detective Mike Donnelly, went to California to meet Mutica. This is Detective Donnelly. They're bringing this kind of gruffy, scruffy, long-haired, Manson-looking guy with long black hair, tattoos, and leg chains, and cuffs in a prison uniform. And we said, I think that's our guy. Donnelly and Williams were up front with Mutica, reading him his rights and sharing their intentions of questioning him

about Mr. Giller's murder. Mutica agrees to talk to the investigators under one condition. Mutica kind of stepped in and said, well, I'll tell you what happened, but I need immunity. He was incarcerated for carjacking and serving a sentence for 60 to 90 years.

Likely, he would be spending the rest of his life in prison. Granting him immunity in exchange for his testimony against Richard Lawson seemed to be a logical choice to the detectives. It seemed that justice would be better served convicting an alleged murderer than adding superficial years to the sentence of a man already fated to die in prison. The district attorney agrees, and the deal is made. Detectives listen as Mutica shares the details of his experience as a troubled teen committing robberies with a man named Richard Lawson. Once a week, Mr. Gillen took the money from his cab company and drove it to his residence

where he would count the money on. Lawson used to work for the company owned by Mr. Giller, and he was angry, just like the man who shot Giller the year before. Lawson had been fired, and the taxi that he was using to support himself with was taken away. Motivated by a grudge and the knowledge that Mr. Giller kept large amounts of cash in his home, Lawson planned for he and Mutica to rob the Gillers. This is Sergeant Williams again. They then broke in through the back window of the home,

ransacked the home all day. He described the inside of the home, how they ransacked the house, how they put a bunch of long guns on one of the beds, which is true. Some of the guns weren't taken, they were found on the beds. And they actually drew a map of the Giller home, how it was laid out. They then waited all day long for the Gillers to come home. Mutica's statement that they had waited for the Gillers to arrive was contrary to law enforcement's original theory, that the couple had interrupted the culprits in what seemed like a crime of opportunity. According to Mutica, the altercation with Mr. Giller was premeditated.

Mutica's account of the assault on Mrs. Giller matched the statement that she had given. And she's saying, uh, what do you want? What are you doing here? He's telling her to shut up. She won't listen. So he belts her in the face with a shotgun, knocks her out, all the way out. After Lawson incapacitated Mrs. Giller, he went outside to look for her husband. Mutica heard Lawson say, hold it right there, and then shots were fired.

Xavier Giller's wounds sent him crashing to the ground. He was injured, but for the moment, still alive. Mutica was 16, and he panicked. His fight or flight reflex was screaming at him to run away. Lawson also realized they needed to leave. Mr. Giller was lying in his own driveway, gasping for breath, using what strength he had to simply survive. And as the two men fled the scene, Richard Mutica witnessed something that was forever

etched into his memory. What he was saying was, help me, please. It felt terrible, man. You know what I mean? I had to walk right by him, but he said, help me, help me, please. Okay, so after all the hype, I finally tried Skims. Yeah, I know, I'm probably the last person on the planet to try Skims, but I'm impressed. Classic cotton, but with fresh cuts and perfect fits.

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Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. Richard Mutica, a 16-year-old child, was present during a traumatic event that without a doubt impacted his still-developing brain. His tough-guy prison persona faded away as he continued to talk about the incident, with tears welling up in his eyes. I would not have been able to shoot that man. You know what I mean? Having the capacity to do it right now is a different story. But I was a kid and I was scared and there was no way I would have shot that man. Thanks to the information shared by Mutica,

Sergeant Williams had enough information to question and arrest Richard Lawson. Williams met Lawson in San Diego, where he was checking in with his probation officer. When Lawson was informed that he was being arrested for the murder of Mr. Giller, he said that he had never met the man. Sergeant Williams was prepared, though. We pulled out the cab company card and said, here's your picture on it right here. You drove a cab for their company. Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember them now.

And it all came back to him. No longer able to deny his relationship with Xavier Giller, Lawson admits to having worked for the taxi company. He also shares that they had parted on negative terms. He, however, did not share any information about a robbery or a murder. Sergeant Williams pushed him though. We got to a point in the conversation where it started to get a little confrontational, and I said to Lawson, did you shoot Xavier Giller? And he said, I don't know. The phrase, I don't know, is not an admittance of guilt,

but it's also not a declaration of innocence. Coming to the same realization, Richard Lawson asked to speak to an attorney, and he's extradited back to Michigan. Sergeant Williams continues to investigate the case and turns his attention to the murder weapons. It turns out Mr. Giller was killed using his own gun, stolen by Mutica and Lawson. During their interview with Mutica, he'd drawn a map for investigators that included where the stolen guns had been dumped. He also gave them a vague description of the location. I know we threw in a pond in Atlanta City, New Jersey. Do you know where that pond is? There's a movie theater,

a whole drive-thru movie theater. Sergeant Williams pieces together all of the information about the location of the discarded guns, and he's under the impression that they must be somewhere near Atlantic City. He calls the New Jersey State Police to see if they can help provide any insight. Well, the desk sergeant on the phone right away said that sounds like Epsica, New Jersey. It's an area outside of town, strip motels, kind of a seedy area. It was a long shot that they would find the guns. The only clues were a crude map and a rough description.

Sergeant Williams takes a risk and meets Sergeant Dennis Tully and divers from the New Jersey State Police at a pond just outside of Atlantic City. The water was murky, and the clues that it might contain are related to a crime that happened 600 miles away, 16 years prior. It turns out, though, that Sergeant Williams' long-shot theory had paid off. This is Sergeant Tolley from the New Jersey State Police. This box is evidence from the Giller homicide case from 1989. This evidence includes the four guns that were found in the ponds out in New Jersey. Sergeant Williams, along with the divers, were elated by the discovery. But the guns still needed to be examined to determine if they were related to Mr. Giller's murder.

It turns out that three of the recovered weapons had belonged to Mr. Giller, but none of them were the murder weapon. Even so, finding the guns in the location described by Mutica bolstered his credibility as a witness. Because of the lack of the actual murder weapon and zero other physical evidence pointing to Richard Lawson, the entire case against him is based on the lack of the actual murder weapon and zero other physical evidence pointing to Richard Lawson, the entire case against him is based on the word of Richard Mutica, a convicted felon. Mr. Moran, the prosecutor, had his work cut out for him. It was our case. Without Richard Mutica, we have no arrest of Mr. Lawson. We have no testimony. We have nothing to go to court with. So he was our case. Mr. Moran asks Mutica to testify at a preliminary hearing, which in Michigan is a hearing to

determine that there is probable cause to charge the defendant with murder. However, at this hearing, Richard Lawson turned out to be the biggest help to the prosecution. This is Mr. Moran, the prosecutor, again. He fires his lawyer at the start of the testimony, and he actually asked questions of Mr. Mudeca at the preliminary exam. It was kind of amusing in that here Mr. Lawson thinks he's the smartest man in the courtroom, acting as his own lawyer, and he made some terrible mistakes. Acting as his own counsel, Lawson questions Mudeca. Here's one of those questions.

Today, in question of the murder here, what time did we arrive at the location? Listen again. Today, in question of the murder here, what time did we arrive at the location? Did you hear it? Lawson says, what time did we arrive at the location? An odd wording for someone denying their involvement in the crime. It could be overlooked if it had happened just that one time. But listen to this question. Well, what time did we arrive at the scene?

And this one, after receiving an answer of, I don't recall, from Utica. It was a vacant field with trees on it. You don't remember that there was a house being built on the lot. It seemed that Lawson had a lot of details for a self-proclaimed uninvolved party to the crime. When the pretrial hearing was over, it was determined that there was enough evidence

to move forward with the criminal trial. It seemed like everything was finally coming together in the quest for justice for the Giller family. Well, it seemed that way until the evening before the trial, when Sergeant William calls Prosecutor Moran with some alarming news. He called me and said, you're not going to believe this, but Mutica has escaped. Mutica had slipped out of his chains and being transported in a van from prison to the L.A. airport. He slipped out of his chains, put the chains around the driver's neck and choked him out, and they crashed and

rolled the van on the L.A. freeway. Mutica was back in custody within four or five hours of his escape, but Mr. Moran was afraid of how his escape would impact the jury. In his opening arguments, Moran was up front with the jury, asking them to focus on the facts. I said, you know, bear that in mind when you judge his credibility. But I think the most important thing for the jury to do is look at not who he is as a person, but look at what he tells us about the crime. The single most important thing was his attention for detail in the statement to the confidential informant, in the statement he gave to Sergeant Williams, in the drawings that he made of the crime scene,

the drawings that he made of where the guns were dumped, and his testimony, his ability to recall the events that took place nearly 17 years before. The jury did as they were asked and found Richard Lawson guilty of murder. He was sentenced to life without parole. Bonnie Swoboda, Xavier Giller's daughter, shares her opinion on the verdict. It's one of the hardest days of our life knowing that he killed our father. The hard part that I have with it is knowing that God forgives everybody and he's

going to be up there with my dad and I don't think he should be even wasting time in jail. I think, you know, we should have the death penalty. And my dad's not breathing, so why should he be? You know, he can't bring my dad back. After he was sentenced in 2005, more information surfaced about Richard Lawson and his dark past. Information enough to fill an entire podcast episode on its own. But here's the short of it. In the 1970s, there was a string of rapes

and murders in Oakland County, Michigan. All of the victims were children, so the case was dubbed the Oakland County Child Murders. As police investigated, they discovered they weren't dealing with just one killer. In fact, it was a group of men responsible for the assaults. Police weren't able to make any arrests until 2006, when a familiar name came up, Richard Lawson. He knew a lot about the crimes, and he'd even worked as an informant to the Baltimore Sex Crime Unit in the 1970s. After his conviction for Xavier Giller's murder, he gave the police a name that helped convict a man who was guilty of sexual abuse against children, a conviction that also produced new leads in the Oakland County child murders. In typical Cold Case Files podcast fashion,

I was hoping to update you on the current status of Richard Lawson, but I couldn't find any mention of his current whereabouts or status. As far as our case today goes, Richard Lawson never confirmed or denied no involvement in this crime because I don't know. I suffered a major stroke about 10 years ago. It completely wiped out 10 years of my memory. The 10 years of memory I lost, the crime fell within that 10 years. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by Scott Brody, McKamey Lynn, and Steve Delamater. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. We're distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com and by downloading the A&E app.

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