Dateline Originals - Murder in the Hollywood Hills - Ep. 1: Bond Girl

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Kristi Johnson vanishes after heading into the Hollywood Hills for a photo shoot.This episode was originally published on March 26, 2024.

It was late on a Saturday afternoon when Douglas Kirkland ambled down to the end of his driveway in the Hollywood Hills to check the mail. To the west, way out over the Pacific, he might have seen a line of bruise-colored clouds puffing themselves up. Looked like they meant business. L.A. was in for some rain. It was at that moment that Douglas' wife, Francoise, who was fluttering in the garage, looked up and noticed that a young woman in a white sports car had stopped in front of her husband. It was a Miata, and there was a very pretty girl,

pretty blonde girl in there with, what looked was her entire wardrobe next to her. And she looked very frazzled. Francoise overheard the girl in the sports car ask Douglas about a house that resembled a castle. Douglas said he didn't know what she was talking about. But Francoise did. And I kind of yelled out, said, Douglas said he didn't know what she was talking about, but Francoise did.

And I kind of yelled out, said, you know, the castle is that place on Green Valley. It's sort of like at the corner of a little street and it's got, you know, statues all around it, a little turret and all that. That's the castle. That's what we call the castle. Relief washed over the young woman's face, along with anticipation, anxiety, excitement, all mixed up in those big blue eyes. Douglas Kirkland knew the look. For decades, he'd been a celebrity photographer in Hollywood. He made his reputation taking iconic pictures of stars and those who had stars in their eyes. The young woman said thank you and pulled away, and as her red taillights disappeared around the bend, Douglas turned to Francoise and said,

It's another one of those, like, little hopeful girls who is going to a photo shoot. I hope she's going to be okay. Douglas was right, of course. The young woman in the white sports car was on her way to a photo shoot or what she thought was a photo shoot. Her name was Christy Johnson.

She was 21 years old that day. She would not see 22. Christy Johnson disappeared February 15th after telling friends she was going to meet a man about a movie role. Yes, this is a story about what happened to Christy Johnson one Saturday afternoon. But it's about more than that. It's about dreams. And a man who told a lot of young women like Christy that he could make their dreams of Hollywood stardom come true. He talked about big bucks. He named numbers of money that I can't recall today,

but it was a lot of money. He said, are you kidding me? He said, you know, you're perfect. You're going to make all this money. You're going to be famous. You're going to be on all the talk shows. It's a story about what can happen when the people who administer our courts play let's make a deal with justice. And it's about a group of victims and near victims

determined to turn the tables on a predator. He did try this ruse on all of us and that seemed to be enough to bond us together. We all feel very connected, like a sisterhood. They were everything to the case, and without them, we most likely would not have had a case. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Murder in the Hollywood Hills, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 1 1 Bond Girl That Saturday morning had begun like any other day for Christy Johnson with a phone call from her mom. You know, we enjoyed being with each other

and doing things together and had a very close relationship. That's the voice of Terry Hall, Christy's mom. So on that Saturday, on February 15th, we spoke on the phone and she told me that she was going to the shopping mall. And I said, okay, great, you know, don't buy anything because I'm going to pick something out and it'll be your

Valentine's present that I'll send you. Which seemed like a fine idea. So Christy grabbed her purse, gassed up the Miata and headed for Starbucks. A photo shoot was the last thing on her mind that morning.

No, that thought hadn't even occurred to her. Later that afternoon, Christy's roommate, Carrie Barish, was getting out of the shower when she heard the door of her Santa Monica apartment open. From the crunch and crinkle sounds of shopping bags out in the living room, Carrie guessed that Christy was back from the mall. Then came a knock on her bedroom door. And when she opened it, well,

there was Christy smiling from ear to ear. You won't believe it. She says, I'm so excited. This is the way Carrie remembered it. Days later, in a phone call with police. She goes, I met this guy. And she's, I mean, she was like really excited. She later, in a phone call with police. She goes, I met this guy and she's, I mean, she was like really excited. She says, look, I'm kind of breaking out in hives. As Carrie dressed, Christy continued gushing about a man she'd just met at the mall. The words were tumbling out so fast, Carrie could only catch one word out of every five. Photographer, Bond movie, audition Oh yes, it was going to be quite a production Shooting on location in Europe, she thought He asked if she had a passport

Because it would be out of the country for shooting He would have to leave in a week He said the pay was like $100,000 Which made me suspect would be out of the country for shooting. He would have to leave in a week. He said the pay was like $100,000, which made me suspect. Carrie might have been skeptical, but Christy's blue eyes were lit up to about 200 watts. There was an audition for the part that afternoon. Christy couldn't believe her luck.

And then she said, look what I got to wear. And then Christy rummaged through her shopping bags and pulled out a man's white dress shirt, a black miniskirt, and then a pair of sky-high stiletto heels. She had to be real sultry and sexy. That's what they were looking for. They were going to give her a necktie to wear, but as it sees, she showed up in a collared shirt and a super miniskirt. For the next 15 minutes or so,

Christy modeled everything she'd bought for her audition that afternoon. Everything except the new sheer nylon hose she'd bought. No time for that now. She had to shower, do her hair, makeup. The audition was at 5.30 and Christy didn't want to be late. He said, I know the area where it is and it's really nice. And she says it may be legit, it may not. He said there were going to be other girls there. Christy dressed, twisting and turning to better appraise her look. And what about that tattoo of hers, the hibiscus flower, her lower back? When she got in Florida that time on vacation, would he see it?

Would it show up on camera? Didn't seem likely. She pulled on one of the two new pairs of sheer nylon hose she'd bought for the audition, and then her powder blue corduroys and that sleeveless shirt she'd bought last week, the one with the matching piping. Christy appraised herself in the mirror.

She looked good. She could really do this. She kept saying what they were looking for in the person, you know, because you had to show a lot of leg. Then a hug for Carrie, and then Christy was out the door. Her costume on hangers, the stilettos tucked under one arm. Christy Johnson must have been up in the Hollywood Hills, desperately looking for that landmark castle house, when her cell phone lit up with the word, Mom. Maybe she was preoccupied, worried about being late, perhaps, or maybe she simply didn't hear her phone buzzing.

But whatever the reason... She wasn't hear her phone buzzing. But whatever the reason... She wasn't answering her phone. I thought, oh, well, you know how young adults are. Sometimes they choose not to answer their cell phone when they see their mother calling. That's Christy's mom, Terry Hall. You know, maybe she didn't recharge her battery. So I didn't think too much of it.

No, why would she? She and Christy talked for, must have been a good 20 minutes before Christy went off to the mall. Actually, that was the last time I spoke to Christy. That's the thing about last times. You never know it. How could you know that this is it? It's over. It's the passage of time and the lead-heavy weight of memory that brings that kind of clarity, freighted with meaning and longing and regret. But of course, at the time, all of that was still unimaginable for Terry Hall. Sunday morning, February 16, 2003.

Broke, gloomy, and overcast at Terry Hall's home in Los Gatos. 350 miles down the coast, a chilly rain was falling around Christy's place in Santa Monica. Good day to sleep in. So Terry Hall waited until she was pretty sure Christy would be up before calling. But no answer. Terry tried again in the afternoon. No answer. Then that evening, no answer. She wasn't answering her phone. And I thought, no, that's strange. You always talked every day.

Every day? Always? It would be odd that we wouldn't. I mean, sometimes a couple times a day, just even briefly. Sure. So, Saturday goes by on the Sunday. How are you feeling inside about this? What are you thinking?

I'm thinking to myself that either she hasn't recharged her cell phone, so that's why she's not picking up. Or that maybe she's been in a car accident. I mean, all the normal things that a parent would think when they can't get a hold of their child. A low-grade anxiety. Right, like, gee, I wonder what's happening here, you know, that I can't get a hold of her. The next day, Monday, Terry was up early, her mind a jumble of thoughts about Christy. The sun had just broken over the rooftops to her east when she reached for her phone again. So that's why first thing in the morning when I couldn't

get a hold of her on a cell phone again, I called her on her direct line at work. And when I got her answering message on her work phone is when I became very alarmed because I knew she was always at work on time. Eventually, Terry got through to somebody else at the office who told her Christy just didn't show up, didn't call in sick either. That was concerning. And they were concerned as well. And so at about this time, it's now she was supposed to be in at work at nine and now it's getting to be 10, 1030. And I'm thinking something is not right here. No kidding. So Terry called the Santa Monica police just to see if maybe Christy had been in an accident. My first reaction was, oh my gosh, you know, maybe her car's gone off a cliff.

They haven't found her. So they suggested that I call all the local hospitals, which I did. And I can't imagine how that must feel. I was almost void of having feelings. I was just on the phone the whole time. Terry Hall spent a lot of time on hold that morning, waiting to be transferred, waiting for someone who'd say, No, ma'am, we have no Christy Johnson here. No, no Jane Doves either. It was during those moments in between

when some kind of elevator music or hold music, Muzak, droned in her ear that the memories would have come to mind. Memories of Christy and her brother Derek growing up in Northern California and Michigan

before Terry's messy divorce from the kid's father, Kirk. Christy had been a beautiful child, sun-kissed, blonde, skinny as a rail, with a freckled nose. She always had a peacefulness and a joy to her, and always very easy to be around. Memories. Those summers at the Saugatuck Yacht Club. Christy turned into a pretty good sailor there. We're going to win. Yeah, we're going to win.

Who's ahead so far? We are. But it was in high school that Christy really began to blossom. She could tie her hair back in a ponytail and wear no makeup and look absolutely smashing. Or she could put on her high heels and a great outfit and look totally a different way, too, as well. Terry Hall was 46 that morning. When she dialed number after number.

Later, when I sat down with Terry, her pale gray-green eyes brightened whenever she talked about Christy and the time before. As you see, a lot of the pictures were taken on the beach. Christy loved the beach. How did she tell you she wanted to move to Los Angeles? Can you tell me about that? Oh, gosh. We had lived in California for some time where Christy was born. Then we had moved back to Michigan. She wanted to come back to California because we would come out here on visits and all of our family is out here. So after Christy finished up her freshman year of college in Michigan, when she once again told her mom she wanted to move back to California, Terry said, okay. The plan at that time was for a temporary period of time, she was going to be living with her grandmother

down in the Central Coast area and going back to college. That was the year 2000. A few months later, Terry returned to California as well, and she settled in the Bay Area. But Christy stayed in Santa Maria with her grandmother and enrolled at the local community college. How many of you right now are a little bit tired? Need a little pick-me-up? Any of you? That's from a home video clip. Christy putting on a public speaking demonstration for one of her classes. Her topic? How to make a vanilla latte.

The most important ingredient you'll need is the actual espresso beans. It was while Christy was living with her grandmother that she was bitten by the showbiz bug. So that summer she had the opportunity to work on a film that was being filmed down in the Central Coast area. The movie people hired her to be a production assistant. Those long days on the set, hanging out with the crew, seemed to have a profound effect on Christy. She thought, you know, I would really like to be involved in this industry, but on the production side of it, you know, on the other side of the camera.

She actually went to a school for makeup artistry. She worked as a makeup artist for about a year in Los Angeles. And then after about a year, she thought, you know, maybe this is a good time for me to go back to school and get my college degree. It's a tough life. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. And it was a good experience, but she realized the value of going back to school. So she got an apartment with two other girls in Santa Monica. Christy had only been in that Santa Monica apartment a few months when she met that man at the mall. The one dangling a chance for her to get back into the movies. But not as a makeup artist, no. This time around, Christy Johnson from Saugatuck, Michigan,

is going to be a Bond girl. The squad room at the Santa Monica Police Department was quiet as a tomb that Monday afternoon. Detective Virginia Obenshain had the second floor detective bureau all to herself. The metal desks, the half-empty coffee cups, the works. It was President's Day. Most people had the day off. But Detective Obenshain was catching up on some paperwork and, frankly, enjoying the solitude. She couldn't miss those footsteps coming in. She looked up and there was patrolman Mark Holland. Something on his mind, clearly.

Holland said he'd been working on a missing persons report, just talked to the missing woman's roommate. The roommate said she hadn't seen Christy since Saturday afternoon. Said Christy had been going to meet a photographer. Holland could just tell something

wasn't right. This didn't seem to be about someone who suddenly took a road trip on a whim. No, this one felt different. And he was my old training officer. So I'm like, okay, tell me what's going on. And he did. That's Detective Obenshain.

And I said, I'm not feeling good about it either. It kind of felt like the Linda Sobeck case. She was a Raiders cheerleader that went for a photo shoot and ended up being murdered. Obenshain had been a patrol officer back in 1995 when Linda Sobeck went missing. It wasn't her case, but she remembered the media coverage like it was yesterday. The mystery surrounding model Linda Sobeck may be solved today, and the news is not good. Police say the former L.A. Raider cheerleader is probably a murder victim.

And a Hollywood photographer reportedly told police where to find her body in the Angeles National Forest. Linda Sobeck disappeared a week ago. Linda Sobeck, it turned out, had been murdered by that photographer. He was later convicted of luring her to a remote desert location with the promise of showcasing her face and body in a car ad. When I first interviewed Detective Obenshain back in 2006, she told me she feared that was what had happened to Christy. Unfortunately, young women tend to be vulnerable.

They mean well, but they just don't have the life experience. A lot of these men are extreme con artists, and they're very good at what they do. So you had that feeling when you got this case. Different from a normal missing persons case in any other respect? Different because she was known to contact her mother every day. And then all of a sudden, phone contact stopped. Multiple messages were left on her cell phone. Again, very unusual because she lived by her cell phone as her means of communication.

For the next 24 hours, Detective Obenshain and a growing team of investigators did everything good investigators do. They put out an all-points alert for Christie's white Mazda Miata. They checked Christie's debit card account and found that on the Saturday Christie disappeared, the card had been used at Century City Mall Bloomingdale's at 1.33, at the guest store at 1.37, and then three miles away in a shocking pink building on La Cienega called Trashy Lingerie at 2.15. The check with store security yielded only one video clip. It came from guests.

And there was Christy, paying for the black miniskirt, her blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a black ball cap, black short-sleeved t-shirt, white jeans. All in all, Christy had spent $356 that afternoon on the outfit for her audition. Exactly what the photographer told her to wear. At least, that's what Christy told her roommate. There were no other purchases made, and again, that's how she lived. Her debit card was her cash line, and all of a sudden it had stopped. You knew something had happened. We knew something had happened, whether she was in an accident or something, but something had happened to her. Carrie Barish, the roommate, had also told police that Christy had purchased tickets to a party in L.A. for that same Saturday night. So, had she gone there? Had she met someone? Had anyone seen her?

Investigators checked with the rave party organizers, and sure enough, they saw Christy's name on the list of ticket holders. But unlike the rest of them, her name had not been checked off at the door. Christy was a no-show. But why? Where had she gone? We tracked down where her last ping on the cell phone came from, and it came from the Laurel Canyon area. That at least seemed consistent with the roommate story about Christy driving to her audition in the Hollywood Hills.

It's one of those that the hair on the back of your neck just stands up because you're going, ooh, that does not sound good. And that is where the trail seemed to hit a dead end, somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. Terry Hall, who'd come down to Los Angeles to be on hand, had been told very little by the police about what their investigation had found or failed to find. And at this point, I didn't have any information

as far as what the police officers had actually said to the roommate, her roommate or what her roommate had said to the police officer. I wasn't getting the full story at this point. The police were holding their cards close. No need to panic, they assured Terry. They were doing all they could. Terry was very worried about her. How did you handle that?

I basically tried to tell her what we were doing. And then it got to the point where we were getting more and more wrapped up in it. So I said, you know, I'm going to have my captain handle Terry. Yeah, because you couldn't really tell her what you thought, huh? Well, I was still hopeful that she was alive. But I couldn't say I'm hopeful that she's alive. You just got to do it delicately. Detective Obenshain had run down every lead she had

and was no nearer to finding Christy than she had been on the day she first got the case. What goes through your mind in a situation like that? What's, what are you thinking about her? I'm basically praying that she's okay that maybe he's keeping her somewhere and but she's alive and yeah not badly hurt exactly they kind of run out of things to check and and what then this This is going to the police, going to the public? Then it was going to the public. How was that arranged? The chief had a press conference. And he basically gave some of the details of Christy, you know, how tall she was, her description, the type of car.

And if anybody's seen her or her car, please contact us. It was Wednesday afternoon. By then, it had been five days since Christy was last seen. The press conference had provided the media with photos of Christy and her white Miata. And with a carefully worded statement that read, a 21-year-old Santa Monica woman who may have been on her way to Beverly Hills to meet a photographer has not been seen for five days. For much of the L.A. media, another story about another young woman gone missing?

There seem to be a lot of other stories vying for attention. As a reporter, I was aware of the missing person's case. That's Andrew Blankstein. He spent 23 years of the LA Times covering crime in courts before joining NBC. He said that in 2003, crime in the city was on the rise.

A missing person's case rates, but in terms of covering crime day- day, once it hits that level where it's a homicide, then you're trying to go back and put the pieces together in some ways like detectives would. That press conference had been the police equivalent of a Hail Mary pass with time running out. But it worked. The next day, the police tip line started ringing. It helped us tremendously. We got a call from a young lady on our tip line, and she told us that she had been approached at the Century City Mall.

What did she describe? Do you remember? She said that she was approached by someone who said that he was affiliated with the next James Bond movie and that she would make a perfect poster girl or a James Bond girl.

Bond? James Bond approached to the Century City Mall? Those tidbits had not been released to the public. Detective Obenshain instantly knew this caller was someone she needed to meet face to face.

This season on Murder in the Hollywood Hills. And he looked normal. You know, normal, and he just said, I think you're very attractive, and I just wanted to let you know that. Well, thank you very much. He told me he really liked my legs. I was wearing shorts.

And that he was working closely with the James Bond movies. He's a con man, and he's very, very good at it. Murder in the Hollywood Hills is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Tim Beecham is the producer. Brian Drew, Kelly Laudine, and Marshall Hausfeld are audio editors. Carson Cummins and Keanu Reid

are associate producers. Adam Gorfain is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Bob Mallory and Catherine Anderson.

Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.