Dateline Originals - Murder in the Hollywood Hills - Ep. 2: The Man at the Mall

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Investigators search for a mystery man who promises young women fame and fortune.This episode was originally published on March 26, 2024.

It stands on an old movie backlot where Hollywood legends once walked. Anne Bancroft, Rita Hayworth, Natalie Wood. Everybody quiet off, sir. It was a place where famous directors created celluloid dreams. Think John Ford, Igmar Bergman, and Billy Wilder. And now it's a mall, a monument to commercial splendor that caters to the daily desires of anybody with a credit card. But as in days of old, the celebrities here still have their names up in lights.

It's just that the marquee's names now are Nordstrom, Macy's, Bloomingdale's. It was here, at this 1,300,000 square foot open-air shopping mecca in the Century City area of West L.A., that in February 2003, 21-year-old Christy Johnson was approached by a man who seemingly materialized like a ghost from the mall's backlot days. A talent scout on the prowl for a fresh face. I began with him portraying himself as some kind of entertainment producer involved in the entertainment industry. He's a con man, and he's very, very good at it.

He was a smooth talker. He probably told the young woman she was pretty, said she ought to be in pictures. And then, of course, he told her he could make her showbiz dreams come true. Everybody thinks they could be a great actor. You know, we can all act. They want to believe. And if you want to believe, you're going to fall for this. Yeah, he looked good.

He had a nice suit on and he was very well groomed. You know, attractive. In this episode, you'll hear from a woman who will tell us about her close encounter with that man. He said, we've been casting all day and you're the look we want. You're perfect. You'll hear about her confrontation on the streets of West L.A. The guy looked visibly shaky

and Mark was going, what's your problem? How dare you do this to girls? We'll take you inside the effort to find Christy Johnson. We're going to go up the hill to where Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive meet.

And inside the manhunt for a potential predator who was hiding in plain sight like a face in the crowd. Where is he? Where he went to? Where he went? He's gone. Went from the corner, disappeared again. He wasn't anyone that that was a monster type. He was not in their faces. He didn't walk in front of them, stop their path. He presented himself as a professional. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Murder in the Hollywood Hills, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 2, The Man at the Mall It was a short article, buried on page four of the local section.

But on this Friday morning, the one person in Los Angeles who needed to see that article saw it. Her name was Susan Murphy. Maybe it was the smiling picture of Christy Johnson that caught her eye that morning. Or maybe it was the headline that read, Search underway for missing woman. But whatever it was, Susan Murphy stopped turning the pages of the Los Angeles Times and read the lead sentence. 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, police said Wednesday. The last sentence in the article asked anyone with information to call a tip line number,

Susan Murphy. It mentions this beautiful young lady who disappeared after going to meet a photographer. And that's all it says. That reference to a photographer might have caused a few readers to stop and think. After all, over the years, there had been other articles about women who were raped or murdered by men pretending to be photographers. But for Susan, a part-time magician with some showbiz experience, that single reference to a photographer was like a splash of cold water. That's because weeks earlier, Susan had been approached by a man at the Century City Mall. The man was tall and thin and wearing khaki pants and a tan jacket. He said he was a photographer.

Susan's memory of that encounter, things she later learned about the man, were still fresh in her mind. I call it women's intuition. I just knew. My heart dropped. That it was the same guy? I thought, what if it is the same guy? I called it that very day, and I called Santa Monica Police Department. I just started my story, and they said, can you hold on?

And they immediately put me in touch with the lead detective on the case, Detective Obenshain. At about four that afternoon, Susan walked into the old Santa Monica Police Building, took the stairs to the second floor, and met with Detective Obanchain. They talked for close to an hour. Susan told the detective the same riveting story she later told me. It was totally an ordinary day, that's what I thought. Leaving work, going to go meet a friend for dinner. And just like any woman, I was there a little bit early and thought, I'm going to go shopping.

So I venture into the Macy's and start looking at some sweaters when this man approached me. With her big brown eyes, radiant smile, and lustrous shoulder-length brown hair, Susan Murphy has no doubt heard her share of pickup lines from strange men over the years. 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. Coming on to you a little bit? Coming on to me, you know, I'm like, oh, that's very nice. You know, it's really not going to ruin my day to hear someone say that. Sure. But then he left. He left.

He kind of wandered away a little bit. And then he came back and said, I'm a director of photography, and we're casting for the new James Bond movie. And he said, we've been casting all day, and you're the look we want. You're perfect. And he's like, and it's making me really excited to actually meet someone I think would be great for this role. I'd love to talk to you more about it. Susan knew it was a pickup line. But still, she was intrigued.

My dad was in the FBI. And so a part of me has that kind of sense that this might not be all in the up and up. But I didn't even tell him anything about myself. I'm like, oh, really? I said, that sounds really cool. So it wasn't that you were bowled over by the idea that you might be discovered like you're in a drugstore or something. No, it was. It was, here's a guy coming on to me using that. I'm going to see where this goes. Right. Which I've heard a million times, even in comedy and magic. So I thought, oh dear. You know, I feel like I've had, I had enough

experience to know better. This guy, you know, I just kind of want to see what he's all about. Was there something just in the back of your mind thinking, well, if it is true? Of course, yeah. If it's true, hey, cool. That'd be great. How fun would that be to be a blonde girl? I think every girl has a dream about that. The man said his name was Victor. Victor Thomas. And suggested they grab a seat over

by the food court. Talk. He bought me a Snapple. And then he started to tell me about the opportunity and, you know, it's going to be a big comeback with Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan, which is kind of weird because aren't they both James Bond? So how could they both be in the same movie? And that's why I thought

that's kind of odd. And he was just telling me about, it's a very small role. He'll be in the very movie? And that's why I thought that was kind of odd. And he was just telling me about, it's a very small role. You'll be in the very beginning and describing the billboard I would be on and I would be on the billboard. Be on the billboard? I'd be on the billboard. And I'm like, for a really small role,

he said I would make $100,000 for the role. And for such as, I'm a member of SAG and I know that that's a day player kind of part and you aren't gonna make that much money doing that. So all my little bells and whistles were going off. I'm like, this, something, this is not right. Too good to be true? Yes, probably. But somewhere in the back of Susan's mind, a little voice seemed to whisper, what if it's true? What if this man is for real? What if the opportunity is for real?

For a few seconds, Susan was so lost in her own thoughts that she barely heard what the man was saying. Then his voice broke through the fog. And he said, I want you to meet me tomorrow for an impromptu audition. Everyone's going to be there. I'm going to bring you in. They're going to be very excited to see you because you're exactly what we're looking for. And I want you to meet me on a street corner below Santa Monica Boulevard. And I thought, okay, here's my opportunity. I said, can you write that down for me?

And so I had him use my pen and my pad of paper. He wrote down where to meet him. There was just one thing, he told her. The producer and director had a very specific look in mind. Very important, he said, for Susan to dress the part. He said, it's very, very important that I wear stilettos, black stilettos as high as possible. And he mentioned a lot of designers that he would like me to wear. And then he said a black miniskirt preferably, but any miniskirt would be great.

Pantyhose, pantyhose not nylons because nylons just go to the thigh. Pantyhose, pantyhose, not nylons, because nylons just go to the thigh, pantyhose, they go all the way up. A white man's shirt, hair slicked back, really tight in a ponytail, and a man's tie. And he said he would provide the tie. Do you have all those things? Some girls don't. I'm a girly girl. I have all those things. When Susan left the mall that night, she had every intention of meeting the guy the next day for the audition. But on the drive home, she had second thoughts. She decided to call the Screen Actors Guild. I called New York and the LA office because they're open 24 hours for problems that actors may have on the set. It says, anyone casting for a James Bond movie right now? No. Ding, ding, ding, clue. Next, she called the right now? No. Ding, ding, ding. Clue.

Next, she called the Los Angeles Police Department. Was put on hold. Because obviously this isn't a crime. This whole crime is getting a girl's phone number. Sure. Or asking her to meet. So you never did get a chance to talk to anybody? I did talk to somebody and they put me on hold because it wasn't like, I didn't call 911.

I just called Los Angeles County Police Department. Did it feel like you were being put on ignore? I guess. Hoping you'd hang up eventually? Because I knew that it sounds bizarre, but I think a part of me was just tired. Tired of women being victimized. A lot of my girlfriends are models or actresses, and I hear these stories all the time. And I was just kind of feeling my oats a little bit.

And so Susan hung up the phone. She had an idea. A crazy idea, maybe, but this Victor creep, if Victor was even his real name, he needed to be taken down. And she, Susan, was just the woman to do it. She would be the Avenger. Of course, she knew she needed some extra muscle in case things got physical. So that night she asked her boyfriend

to come with her to the audition. That was a good decision. It was early afternoon when Susan Murphy's boyfriend, Mark Wilson, parked his car about a block away from the intersection of La Cienega Boulevard and Romaine Street. This was where Victor Thomas had instructed Susan to wait for him to take her to the audition. The whole time he's going, Susan, why are we doing this? He's like, you know it's bogus. I'm like, I know it is. I just have to, I want to go. Susan and Mark glanced around looking for some sign of a film crew, but saw none. Instead of wearing the black miniskirt and stilettos, Susan had decided to wear a pair of cargo pants and tennis shoes.

No way she was going to stand around in a street corner in that getup. And I thought wearing a miniskirt and high heels on a street corner, that kind of makes you in a very vulnerable position. Who knows what people would think of me on a street corner like that. So I brought my mace with me. On top of that, Susan had her boyfriend, a former London Bobby, to back her up. He's a second-degree black belt, a member of the anti-terrorist squad in London. He can also be a police officer in London, or he was. Before sliding out of the passenger side, Susan reminded Mark of the plan they'd discussed.

I said, I want you to see me standing there waiting for him. And I said, if I start to motion or walk towards you, that's when I want you to get out of the car. So you would give your boyfriend a signal? Kind of a signal that, you know, if things weren't going right, get out of the car immediately and help me out. Susan walked to the designated corner and waited and waited. Oh, I knew it. This guy thought he was going to show up. So I'm standing there and literally out of nowhere, he just kind of appears, appears like magic poof, you know, there he is. And he's dressed very, very nice. Maybe it's real. Maybe it is real. He's dressed

very professionally. And he asked me where my car was parked. And I said, oh, just down the street somewhere. And he said, what kind of car do you have? And I said, oh, I just lied about what car I had. I didn't, you know, I just, now he's asking some kind of odd questions. And he goes, okay, well, we really need, he said, first of all, I'm very unhappy. You're not wearing the outfit. He's like, this totally is gonna take so much time

to get me changed and everything else. I was very unhappy with me. Was he visibly angry? He was visibly angry, but he just kind of said, I'm disappointed in you. We talked about this. You know, come on now. I was very specific about what I wanted you to wear, and you're not wearing it. What did you say to that?

I said, I don't know what I said to it. I just said, tough, I don't know, tough. I'm not wearing it. The man demanded to know if she'd even had the outfit with her. She said, yes. She said, waving the black miniskirt she had in her hand. And he said, it was time to go. He starts to kind of like, kind of like touch me to push me somewhere.

He said, we're going to go get a drink first. On that street corner, he pointed to the building. Go get a drink first? He said, let's go get a drink and talk about the process a little bit more. And I noticed that it was an abandoned building. It looked like to me, it didn't look like there was any sort of activity or any kind of bar or restaurant in there. So, okay. I said, well, first of all, I'm not going anywhere with you. I said, I need some identification first. I said, that's first and foremost. And he said, oh, I don't, I don't have any identification. I said, you don't? I go,

where is it? He goes, I left it on the set. I go, you did? On the set? On the set. I said, oh, okay. All right. Well, I'm not going with you. I'm sorry. He goes, but you're going to make $100,000. I said, my life is more important than that. So at this point, you're just kind of cutting him off. Cutting him off, right. I'm just, that's it. How did he react? He was disappointed, very disappointed.

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. And I said, I can't go with you. You're a stranger. I just was incredulous. The fact that he thought I would actually go with him without identification

or go to some strange place. You've got to be kidding me. It was then that Susan started motioning for her boyfriend to intervene. And that man she knew as Victor Thomas suddenly decided she no longer had Bond girl potential. He was like, you know what? You're not right for the part. He kind of saw that I was motioning. You're right for the part.

He realized you were with somebody. He realized I was with somebody. He's like, you're not right for the part anyway. He's like, you know what? You're not right for the part. He kind of saw that I was motioning something. You're right for the part. He realized you were with somebody. He realized I was with somebody. He's like, you know what? You're not right for the part anyway. He's like, just forget it. And then he goes, he starts to walk away, briskly walk away. And so, and I'm turning around at this point to see Mark. I'm like, you know, come on, come on.

And so by the time he got there, the guy's gone. Like he appeared from nowhere and he's gone to nowhere. Disappeared again. This guy is like smooth. He may have been out of sight, but by now Susan and Mark were like hounds on the scent. Mark, the former cop, was furious. They got back in the car and they started circling the block over and over, looking down alleyways, peering into storefronts. And finally, we were driving by a driveway near that street corner, and we see him kind of dusting himself off

and walking down the driveway. And then Mark parks the car, he gets out, and he has a confrontation with him. Just saying, and frisking him, too, because he wants identification. He wants to know who this guy is. He knows how to do this, right? Yes, of course he knows how to frisk.

And I saw him batting him around. And the guy, I mean, I was looking, I was kind of course. He knows how to frisk. And I saw him batting him around. And the guy, I mean, I was looking, I was kind of scared too, because I'm like, what's going to happen now? And he was, the guy looked visibly shaken that Mark was going, you know, what's your problem? I'm going to drag your carcass into the police station. How dare you do this to girls?

The man Susan knew as Victor Thomas said little during the pat down, though he did tear up a few times. When Mark failed to find any ID in his pockets, he demanded to know who the man worked for. Disney Radio was the answer. But Mark wasn't done. He goes, give me your phone number. And so he takes the phone number down and he goes, I'm calling.

I'm going to call right now. The ex-cop had the situation well in hand up to that point. There was just one thing. He'd left the cell phone he was going to use to verify the man's employment status in the car. Mark went back to the car to get it. And Susan said that's when Victor Thomas made his getaway. He just decides to break free from this whole confrontation and starts to kind of going through traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard. He ran away.

He kind of ran away. I mean, I want to say he wasn't running like a marathon. But he was getting the heck out of there. But he was getting the heck out of there because he knew that he was caught. So Mark goes back to the car and just furious. He said, thanks a lot for being involved in this. And I'm like, I knew it. I said, there's something.

What's up with this guy? It took Susan Murphy about an hour to tell that story to Detective Obenshain. And once she was done, the detective said she had one request. Would she mind staying a bit longer to describe the man she met at the mall to a police sketch artist? Susan, of course, said yes. They'd been at it for close to two hours, the witness and the artist, tucked away in a small room off the detective bullpen. One racked her memory, trying to convey a visual impression with words,

while the other tried to translate those words back into a recognizable image with pencil and paper. Sandy Enslow of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office was the artist that day, drawing and adjusting pencil lines, shading where experience told her the image should be molded. Susan Murphy was Sandy's eyes, her only means of seeing and depicting the man Detective Obenshain desperately hoped to find. The work was slow. Susan said the eyes were a little droopy at the corners. His face long. Yes, like that. His eyes.

Kind of squinty? While Sandy worked on that sketch at the Santa Monica Police Building, Christy Johnson's family and friends were doing all they could to generate media interest and public support for their efforts to bring Christy home. It had been six days since Christy was last seen alive. I'm hoping that they will apprehend the person that has taken Christy and they will also find Christy. That's Christy, and they will also find Christy. That's Christy's mom speaking to a local TV reporter. You have not given up hope?

No, not at all. By now, the rough outlines of the investigation were well known. That Christy had met a man at the Century City Mall who'd invited her to a movie audition in the Hollywood Hills. That she'd been asked to wear a specific outfit, that her phone had last pinged a cell tower that afternoon in the Laurel Canyon area. For Terry Hall, it all seemed so unbelievable. How could her daughter have ever fallen for such a ruse?

Christy was a very savvy, smart young woman, and for her to have been convinced to go to a situation such as this, I thought to myself, this must have been a very experienced predator. On February 22nd, 2003, Christy's parents took to the air in multiple interviews to mark their daughter's 22nd birthday and plea for her safe return.

I love you so much, and there's so many people that love you so much. That's Terry again. If you can get your phone, call anybody that you know of just to say, I'm okay. Just to give it some sort of signal that you're all right. It's Christy's birthday, and she deserves a lot more than where she's at now. And that's Kirk Johnson, Christy's father, speaking on NBC's Today show from his home in Michigan.

I just pray to God and this whole community is praying for Christie's return. And I just pray that this individual can watch this show. And I have one thing to say to him. Let her go. Just let my daughter go. Let her go back to the family that loves her and do the right thing. As one day blended into another with no word of Christy, Kirk Johnson flew to L.A. to plaster missing posters on walls and help volunteers pass out leaflets to commuters

with pictures of Christy and her white Miata. We're asking people to keep these in their vehicle in case they see something. It was on a dismal, drizzly Monday morning, nine days after Christy went missing, that the case got its second big break. Christy's white Mazda Miata had been found in a parking garage shared by two hotels near the Century City Mall, the Century City Plaza and the St. Regis.

The car had been sitting in a valet parking spot for more than a week, since the day after Christy was last seen. The parking attendant who'd been on duty that Sunday morning told investigators that at about 5.45, he saw a man enter the driveway of the St. Regis and park a white Mazda Miata in the valet area. And the valet said, you can't park there. That's Detective Virginia Obenshain. The driver gets out, throws him the keys and says, then you valet it and walks away. The valet only saw him for a few brief seconds and really could not describe him very well

other than a male white. The Mazda Miata, did you find any evidence? The Miata was completely wiped clean. There weren't even Christie's fingerprints in there. What did you think when you saw that? That was not a good indicator. Why? If you have nothing to hide, then why hide it? The discovery of Christy's car landed like a gut punch to her family. Her older brother, Derek, who was in the Air Force and preparing for another tour of duty

in the Middle East, had thought up until then that Christy would eventually turn up alive and well. I thought it was just a big misunderstanding or Christy had done something silly and feels really bad about it. That's Derek. Or she's just a big misunderstanding. Or Christy had, like, done something silly and feels really bad about it. That's Derek.

Or she's just gone on a trip and forgot to tell people. Or, like, she just, you know, ran off with a guy, you know, went to Mexico for a week. Like, I didn't think anything had happened. But now? Well, after her car was found, even Derek had to admit things looked bad. I mean, it's hard to say again that like there's something like really wrong here. It was then that the family announced they were escalating their search efforts by opening the Christy Johnson Recovery Center. The center was to coordinate groups of searchers who wanted to help look for Christy.

What we will be doing is going through a whole training process with volunteers. I have a lot of people here that I need to get out into the field. Soon after opening its doors, the Christy Johnson Recovery Center had a team of volunteers in the field. We go up the hill to where Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive meet. We know the jeans she was wearing. She had a shopping bag with her. Yeah, Bloomingdale shopping bag. For volunteers like Erin Tolland, Christy Johnson's fate hit close to home.

Tolland was about Christy's age. So sad. She was so young and her life is either over or missing. And if I didn't help, I would have felt worse than if I was just painting or sitting at home doing nothing. Day eight of the Christy Johnson missing persons investigation dawned wet and dreary across Southern California. It had been 10 days since anyone had seen Christy. But on this rainy Tuesday, the Santa Monica police had something they wanted to say. They called a press conference. And with a row of uniformed officers to his right and a composite sketch on an easel to his left,

Santa Monica Chief of Police James Butts stepped to the microphone. The sketch, of course, was the result of Susan Murphy's collaboration with L.A. Sheriff's Department artist Sandy Enslow. The chief was careful to not divulge Susan's identity or details of what she had told the police. This witness said the subject in this composite stated that he wished to photograph her in a photo shoot related to a specific movie production. This was the same movie production that Miss Johnson stated she was going to audition for.

The sketch depicted a long-faced white man who looked to be in his late 30s to early 40s. He had wavy dark hair, his eyes wide set, maybe a little squinty, full lips and a long straight nose. As sketches go, it wasn't bad, but it was, at best, generic. Still, its release by the Santa Monica police was news. The sketch was carried on the local news that night and in the papers the next day. Once we aired the sketch, we had a parole officer, Marianne Larios, call us. And she asked for a fax of the sketch. That's Detective Virginia Obenshain again.

As soon as we faxed her the sketch, she called back and said, that happens to be one of my parolees. Was the parolee really the man depicted in the sketch, the man Susan Murphy and her boyfriend had confronted on the streets of West Hollywood? Or was he just one of thousands of men in Southern California who might have met the description? Detective Obenshain didn't know. But for the first time since Christy Johnson was reported missing, the detective had the name of a potential suspect.

And that was a start. Next time on Murder in the Hollywood Hills. I just felt like I wanted to catch him doing I don't know what, but I wanted to corner him. That a little dangerous? Yeah, probably. And I wouldn't recommend it. Three hikers were up in the Lookout Mountain area, and they thought they saw a body. What police don't say is just as important as what they do say.

And this was one of those cases where they didn't say a whole lot, and I knew actually that said a whole lot. 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. Thank you. Head of Audio Production.