Dateline Originals - Murder in the Hollywood Hills - Ep. 5: Let's Make A Deal

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

A trial comes to a surprising conclusion.This episode was originally published on April 9, 2024.

Every day they rise early, battle rush our traffic, march like lemmings into courthouses and wait to be called. They are electricians and engineers, salesmen and secretaries, mechanics and music teachers. They come because jury duty is a civic obligation. It's the law. Most, of course, will never deliberate anything weightier than lunch. That's because close to 95% of all criminal cases in America are settled with a plea bargain.

Plea deals are efficient and cheaper, way cheaper, than going to trial. But there is one additional benefit. Not exactly a secret, but they don't talk about it much in high school civics classes. Plea deals eliminate the risk of having a jury decide things. Because, as every victim knows, juries are notoriously unreliable. And every cop knows, it just takes one juror to not be completely convinced.

And every lawyer knows. It can go sideways. Bottom line is, we don't know what a jury may or may not do. Plea deals, on the other hand, allow lawyers from both sides to claim victory and say justice was done. For Victor Palaeologus, plea deals were always good deals. Charges dropped or downgraded in exchange for a guilty plea. Potential felonies punished with probation. He pleads with his very good lawyer.

That happens every day. And with Palaeologus, quite a lot. He has a long history of committing financial crimes, false identification type crimes. You look at his history and you start to see what he's capable of. Oh yes, Victor Palaeologus was a capable con man, all right. But was he a killer? Here's his lawyer's answer. This is a perfect textbook example of how somebody who's innocent, I don't care what about his past, can be railroaded based on prior prejudice. In this episode, we'll take you inside the Los Angeles courtroom where Victor Palaeologos came face to face with women from his past.

I was shaking. Anyone who's in that court will tell you my voice. I was shaking. We'll take you behind the scenes where men in suits dickered over the details of justice. It was a great thing for justice. And you will be present when Victor Palaeologos turns on the Wheeler dealers, sending tremors through the crowded courtroom. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Murder in the Hollywood Hills, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 5, Let's Make a Deal. It took more than three years to bring Victor Paley-Logos to trial for the murder of Christy Johnson. In large part because prosecutors assigned to the case kept becoming judges.

By the summer of 2006, it was David Walgren, the third prosecutor assigned to the case, who was given the task of taking it to trial. So I inherited the case rather late, probably about three years into the case. So it was a large task to take on. That's David Walgren. It was a fairly complicated case with a lot of discovery, a lot of witnesses. So it was difficult, but that does happen. No one in the office envied him, that's for sure. For one thing, there was no forensic evidence,

no scientific evidence, no eyewitnesses. No, the entire case against Palaeologus seemed to rest on stories. Stories told by several women who would say their encounters with Victor Palaeologus were similar to what police believed happened to Christy Johnson. Now, to get a jury to believe it too. We felt, based on the prior victims and the other circumstantial evidence we had,

that we did have a compelling case, despite the fact that we didn't have the physical evidence. The next day, when Walgren rose to deliver his opening argument, he saw 12 implacable faces seated before him, 10 men and 2 women. There was an engineer turned real estate agent, the creator of a popular children's cartoon show, and a DMV driving inspector, and so on. All the jurors had said during jury selection that they could vote for the death penalty if they felt the evidence supported it.

Though cameras weren't allowed in the courtroom, we know from court transcripts and the recollections of the people who were there what happened next. What happened when David Walgren rose from a seat and told the jury that the evidence would show that Victor Palaeologus had deliberately lured Christy Johnson to the Hollywood Hills and strangled her. The defendant refined his techniques over the years. It began with more of him portraying himself as some kind of entertainment producer. He then added that he was working on a James Bond project. That, the prosecutor told the jury, is what Paleologos had told other young women over the years. The same pitch, she said, that Paleologus gave Christy Johnson of the Century City Mall on February 15, 2003.

He insisted that the women show up to the audition wearing typically black high heels, nylons, a black miniskirt, a white top. The same outfit Christy had been asked to wear. It was all part of a pattern, the prosecutor said, a pattern as damning as any fingerprint or DNA match. To drive the point home, he then began calling his witnesses women who had close encounters with Victor Palaeologus in the past. Some of those encounters have been previously mentioned in this podcast. There was the woman who had her drink spiked back in 91.

The ex-girlfriend who a few years later was stalked and choked when she tried to break up with him. The woman who was lured to an audition in 1998, wearing as, a miniskirt and stilettos, and very nearly tied up and raped before she escaped to call the cops. Palaeologus was arrested and convicted of felony assault in that case, but, well, out on bond, he continued the pattern.

He approached Kathy DeBono at the mall with the same audition pitch. Remember, Kathy is the one who had a stuntman accompany her to a so-called audition in Hollywood Hills. Kathy told the court that she and her friend waited and waited for Paleologus to show up, but he never did. Later, Kathy told me she often wishes she'd been able to do more to confront and stop Paleologus back then.

I knew this was a guy that was creepy and up to no good. I didn't know to the extent of what he was up to. But I did go through wishing I had called the police and told them my story at the time. I went through all of that stuff in my head that I wished I would have done. You felt guilty about it? A little bit, yeah. I did. Four days after Palaeologus was paroled

on that 1998 felony assault case, said the prosecutor, he was at it again. Store video from late January 2003 showed the moment Victor Palaeologus approached Susan Murphy at the Century City Mall. On the stand, Murphy said that Palaeologus asked her to wear the same get-up as the other women for her Bond girl audition.

And then she told them how he ran away after she and her boyfriend confronted him. I really thought it was just a guy who tries to get women into compromising situations. I didn't think he was bad, bad news. He was bad news, all right. Three weeks later, the prosecutor argued, Palaeologus murdered Christy Johnson. In fact, just hours after running away from Susan Murphy and her boyfriend, said the prosecutor,

Palaeologus was back at the Century City Mall looking for yet another victim. This time, the target was a newcomer to L.A. named Alice Walker. Walker told the jury she was waiting tables at a restaurant in the mall when she met Palaeologus. He told her his name was Victor Ippolito, said he was a novelist who'd just written a new book. He told me about this book. It was a book about a snuff filmmaker. It was so elaborate. Alice was an English major in college. She loved writing, and authors intrigued her. So when this Victor suggested they continue the conversation in a nearby hotel bar, Alice agreed. And then, after that whole conversation about the book and

coming out here to get it published, then he started, and on the whole James Bond thing, he said his friend was directing it. Catnip. Alice was a ballet dancer who'd come to L.A. with dreams of becoming an actor. Well, Victor said he could sure hook her up. Said his friend was looking for a new face for a Bond film. A Jennifer Garner type to play a dominatrix. It was a small role, said Victor, not very many lines. But she'd be featured in a numberatrix. It was a small role, said Victor, not very many lines, but she'd be featured in a number of scenes. Alice agreed to audition for the part, and like the others, she was told to wear a black miniskirt, nylons, and a white dress shirt suitable for a tie. He would provide a tie and stilettos or high heels.

So I went the next morning and I got all of those things. Alice said she met Victor at a building on La Cienega that had an empty yoga or dance studio on the second floor. And while they waited for word that the director was ready to meet with her, said Alice, Victor had her strike sexy poses, practice he called it. A few times she said he even tried to get her to practice romantic scenes that he said were in the movie. He grabbed me and kissed me. And I threw him up against the wall and he broke down like he wilted.

But Alice was not put off. She said Victor kept in touch over the next week or two. Their talks were almost always about future auditions with his director friend. The auditions never materialized, though. And then he stopped calling. She figured she'd missed her chance. But one Saturday afternoon in mid-February, Alice came home to find the message light on her home phone blinking. The message was from Victor. He called me at, I want to say like 1030 in the

morning and said, you have to come up to the house. I have to find you. I don't know where you are. Today is the day, and you need to come up to the house and meet the director. He's going to be here soon, and I need to find you. Alice said Victor's voice on the message machine seemed to have an edge to it. No matter. Alice couldn't have called Victor back even if she'd wanted to. She didn't have his number. I never had his phone number. He always called me

and it was always from a hotel phone. It wasn't until after Victor was arrested for the murder of Christy Johnson that Alice realized her message from Victor had been left just hours before Christy met the man at the mall she told her roommate about. The one who'd invited her to audition for a Bond film.

Detectives later determined that call to Alice had been made from a payphone at the Century City Mall. Frantic, like weird. I've never heard his voice like that. Stories. Stories as evidence. Stories from women. Palaeologus' attorney, Andrew Flyer, cross-examined each and every one, aggressively. What's so wrong about hitting on beautiful women, he seemed to say. He's over 40 years old. I assume he's not the first male to try to meet a young lady and maybe get lucky, irrespective of what tale they tell. As for the prosecution's theory that Christy Johnson was murdered by a guy she met at the mall, a theory based on a

roommate's story about the outfit the guy asked her to wear to an audition? Well, as Flyer had already told me, that was a pretty flimsy hook on which to hang a capital murder case. The only evidence they have on this case is that allegedly Miss Johnson tells her roommate that she might have some meeting with a gentleman who might put her in a movie role, i.e. a James Bond flick. That's it. And suddenly from that one issue, Mr. Paliologos is the killer. Andrew Flyer had a certain style in the courtroom. His lean and handsome face was animated with indignation as he stalked back and forth before the jury box. The only witness with anything relevant to say about Christy Johnson's disappearance, he thundered,

was a parking valet who'd seen a man driving Christy's Miata soon after she disappeared. And that parking valet, he said, twice failed to pick Victor Palaeologos out of police lineups. This man is innocent, no matter what happens. When his time comes, whether it's in outside or in death row or wherever, he didn't do this, so he'll always be able to live with that. But the problem he can't live with is the fact that everyone thinks he's guilty because of what happened with three or four women. Oh, yes, it was going to be a spirited defense, all right.

One that seemed to have a good chance of raising reasonable doubt with jurors once it was laid out for them. Victor Paliologos and his lawyer, however, might have been having second thoughts. It heard the women testify. They'd heard the women testify. They'd seen the jurors' faces. It must have occurred to Victor Palaeologus during those accusing days in court that his life had been like a long descending escalator. And now, he had arrived at the very bottom. It was a little after eight on a Wednesday morning when the first jurors walked into the jury room, sipping their morning coffee. It was the ninth day of the Victor Palaeologus trial, and many were anxious to get started. They eyed the

clock on the wall, but at 8.30, the bailiff, who normally escorted them into the courtroom, didn't show. And then word came that court was delayed for the second day in a row. Just down the hall, the judge was meeting with the lawyers again. Something was up. Andrew Flyer represents the defendant. Mr. David Walgren represents the people. There was a deal on the table. Andrew Flyer presented his proposal to the judge.

Victor Palaeologos, he said, was willing to plead guilty to murdering Christy Johnson if prosecutors took the death penalty off the table and if the judge would agree to a specific sentence, 25 to life. We had been in trial for, I believe, almost two, two and a half weeks. I had called almost 40 witnesses to the stand. And you have to keep in mind this case was almost three and a half years old. That's prosecutor David Walgren. The defense had never approached us with any willingness to take responsibility. So certainly I was surprised that they approached us, expressed a willingness to

plead guilty to first-degree murder for what will amount to a life sentence. Oh, but one more thing, said Victor's defense attorney, or maybe two more. The state would have to drop all other charges, the BMW theft, the burglary, identity fraud, and so on. And Victor Palaeologus would retain the possibility of being paroled. Judge Robert Perry thought about it. Might be a smart deal for the prosecutor because... It is a very sketchy case. There's nothing to tie anybody to her body. No evidence.

But as Judge Perry recalled later, the deal was also good for the defense, given all those stories. But when all the women come forward and say, this is what the guy said to me, and this is the guy who said it, and he even came on to me, is what the guy said to me. And this is the guy who said it. And he even came on to me. And he even tried to attack me. That started to make a mountain of evidence. Once again, there are no recordings of that closed-door meeting between the lawyers and the judge. But a court reporter was there, which is how we know who said what. And also about the big problem.

The law made it clear. For the judge to accept a deal like the one on the table, the defendant would have to plead guilty, no problem there, but would also have to make a full, detailed confession in open court. And that, Victor Palaeologus did not want to do. This is from a transcript of that meeting. Mr. Flyer, I spoke to Mr. Palaeologus, and he is willing to accept the deal. The big problem with Mr. Palaeologus, he does not want to give a factual

plea. Judge Perry, if he wants to plead guilty, he has to say where it happened and how it happened, and if he is unwilling to do that, I don't think I can take this plea. Mr. Flyer, well, I respectfully disagree. He's acknowledging through the plea that he hurt their daughter. Judge Perry, the law requires not only that the plea be freely and voluntarily made, but that there is a factual basis for the plea. And round and round they went. For nearly an hour, the lawyers and the judge haggled over what Victor Palaeologus would be willing to admit to. Contact with Christy? Yes. Murder? Yes. But admitting to murder during a kidnapping or attempted rape? Revealing just what he did to that poor girl? Well, no. Andrew Flyer insisted that Victor Palaeologus would not go there.

Why? A detail like that could make things pretty rough for Palaeologus on the inside, as he told me when we talked earlier at the jail. This has gained a lot of attention in the media, so a lot of the people, all their family, get the Internet information, bring it in. I've heard that it's more difficult in a prison to deal with the kind of charge you're facing. It's not a good thing. No, it's not a good thing.

Prosecutor David Walgren. I think he always intended on committing a rape, and whether that day he intended to commit a murder, I don't know. But when he strangled Christy to death while her wrists and ankles were bound, certainly he intended to kill her. Soon other lawyers entered the room. Pat Dixon, David Walgren's boss at the DA's office, and Theodore Flyer, Andrew's father and law partner. None of them, it seemed, wanted the jury to decide this case. So they brainstormed, spitballed, looking for language acceptable to both the judge and Victor Paley Logos. In the end, the judge relented. Victor Paley Logos was brought in, and according to court transcripts, this is what Judge Perry said.

The fact that you are willing to say, I had contact with her and I accept responsibility for her murder, that's enough for me. With that, the judge reconvened court outside the presence of the jury, and asked Victor Paley-Logos several questions for the record. Did he admit to meeting Christy Johnson? Paley-Logos said, Yes. Did he take responsibility for Christy's death? Again, Paley-Logos said,

Yes. Had his guilty plea been coerced in any way? Paley-Logos said, No. Did he understand that he was surrendering his right to an appeal? Peleologos said, yes, he did. Satisfied with those answers, the judge then asked the bailiff to bring in the jury. And once they'd all taken their seats, Judge Perry told them that a deal had been struck and the trial was over.

He thanked them for their service and sent them home. Outside the courthouse, both the prosecutor and the defense attorney grinned as if they'd just discovered teeth. Both claimed victory. Defense attorney Andrew Flyer crowed because he'd traded a potential death sentence for 25 to life with the possibility of parole, which was the very same sentence the 43-year-old paleologus would have gotten under California's three strikes law. If he'd only been convicted of any one of the lesser crimes he was charged with, any one of them would have been strike three. It was as if Christy Johnson's murder carried no penalty at all.

But for Prosecutor David Walgren, the end seemed to justify the means. In his view, the plea deal had gotten a serial predator off the streets for 25 years, and maybe for life. The defendant pled guilty. He admitted killing Christy Johnson, first-degree murder. He took responsibility in open court. We will keep him off the street as a result of that plea for the rest of his life. Which seemed probable at the time. 25 to life?

Might as well mean life. 25 years seemed so far away. I was just relieved that he was going to be incarcerated. That's Christy's mom, Terry Hall. And in 25 years, that's a reasonable amount of time. As for the women who testified, the women whose collective voices seemed to seal Victor Palaeologus' fate, well, they felt vindicated. I was very pleased that he decided to plead guilty.

That's Kathy DeBono. There were just so many of us women who came forward to say, this guy tried this at this time. I felt really empowered by that. I sort of had this visual of these women just surrounding him and sort of looking at him and like, no, you don't. You're not going anywhere. You're not doing this again. When Susan Murphy heard about the deal, it sounded like justice.

I was so happy for her family and for the families of the other girls that testified. I mean, to know that there is a sense of peace that comes with it. They know what happened to their daughter now. But did they really? Victor Peleologos had taken responsibility for Christy's death, but he hadn't said a thing about how or when, where or why. For her mother, Terry, that seemed just as well. Do you attach any importance to the idea of knowing what happened, of knowing what her last hours or minutes were composed of, what they were like for her.

I think I have enough information already to know that it was very horrifying. And that's one of the, you know, that's a great struggle. Yes, Terry Hall knew her struggle to cope with her daughter's murder would last a lifetime. But when she walked out of the courthouse that warm July day in 2006, at least all that legal stuff was finally behind her. Except, of course, for the sentencing. And that was entirely formality. Terry had every reason to expect that Victor Palaeologus would die behind bars at some distant date in quiet obscurity.

Or maybe not. Court this morning received a letter, it's very lengthy, from the defendant. The End All he had to do was sentence Victor Palaeologus to the predetermined 25 years to life, allow time for victim impact statements from Christy Johnson's family, and bada-bing, bada-boom, hello weekend. But when he entered his chambers that morning, he found a letter on his desk, wrongly addressed to the Honorable Judge W. Perry. His name was Robert. The envelope was thick, and as he looked at the handwriting on the outside,

he could tell it was from a prisoner, a prisoner named Palaeologus. Inside there was an eleven-page letter, neatly printed in pencil on yellow-lined paper. Dear Judge Perry, the letter began. After long rumination to the enormity of the decision, both on July 26th and now, the following factors have compelled me to renounce the plea of July 26th. The judge paged through the letter once, reading prose that laid on the page like a bag of sand. Laborious language, misspellings, grammatical errors. Then he read it again. Paleologus was accusing his lawyer of pressuring him to plead guilty.

He'd been under duress when he entered the plea, he said, sleep-deprived. His lawyer had not given his case the attention it deserved. The list went on. The judge pulled on his black robe. This was precisely the thing that he had wanted to avoid. When Judge Perry entered the courtroom, he looked down at the man who wrote the letter, sitting at the defense table, unshaven and gaunt and dressed in prison-issue orange. Next to him sat his well-tailored lawyer. The lawyer looked perturbed.

The court this morning received a letter, it's very lengthy, from the defendant. It's 11 pages. Judge Perry did not look happy. Counsel, have you had a chance now to look at the letter? Yes. Yes. All right. In the letter, Mr. Pele Logos makes a motion to withdraw his guilty plea. He asserts he was pressured into entering the plea and that he now wishes to withdraw it. I'm going to deny the motion, Mr. Paley-Logos. No, the judge was having none of it. I'm going to proceed with the sentencing. The sentence is, of course, set by law. Mr. Walgren, do you have any interested parties that wish to address the court in the nature of victim impact?

I do, Your Honor. Now it was time for Christy's family to address the court. Her father, Kirk, began. I have struggled for the last three and a half years with my emotions of anger, hatred, sadness. And I'm not going to live the rest of my life with anger and hatred towards Mr. Palaeogus. Mr. Palaeogus needs to get on his knees and look for salvation. And I ask that God have mercy on his soul. Thank you very much. Next came Christy's mom, Terry Hall.

Victor Pelliotis has been allowed the freedom to let the evil in his life escalate, resulting in the heinous murder of Christy, my beloved young daughter, a beautiful young woman on the threshold of her life. Victor Paliogas has never demonstrated remorse. Based on this reality, it is the responsibility of our society and the penal system to keep this criminal locked up. Throughout it all, Victor Paliogos kept his head down as if there was

something of intense interest on the table in front of him. When Terry Hall was through, Judge Perry turned back to Palaeologos. Mr. Palaeologos, you have the right to address the court if you care to. You know, everything I've said is in the letter. And let me impose sentence. For the willful, deliberate, and premeditated first-degree murder of Christine Johnson, the court sentences the defendant

to serve 25 years to life in the state penitentiary. And with that, Victor Palaeologus was led away. And in his wake, questions. We at Dateline wondered if maybe now might be the time to get some of those questions answered. After all, he was a convicted killer now, headed for a long prison stretch. Maybe he'd finally tell the truth.

I didn't really expect him to agree to a new interview, but he did. And so, before he was transferred to state prison, we met again, in the same cramped room at L.A.'s Men's Central Jail. Well, it was, gosh, it's been over a year since we talked, right? Or about a year or something like that? I believe it's two years now. This time around, Paleologus did not have a lawyer sitting beside him. But soon after I sat down, it became clear that we were in for another helping of half truce and denial. Things are a little different than the last time we spoke. So, are you ready now to talk more candidly about what happened? Well, I've never had an issue about talking about any piece of the case.

I'm not trying to hide anything from anyone. The plea agreement, I guess that's just a formality issue. You took responsibility for Christy's death. I had to. I had to in order to get the plea. That's what you want to withdraw? Absolutely. Absolutely. That is what I wanted to withdraw. Are you afraid of what will happen to you in prison if you confess to what you actually did? I don't want to even go there.

My issue is I'm not guilty of this. I had nothing to do with Ms. Johnson's demise. And I'm not going to take responsibility for it. Now, despite doing just that in Judge Perry's courtroom, Victor Paliologos told me with a straight face that he never met Christy Johnson, never invited her to audition for a Bond film, didn't kill her, didn't dump her body on that hillside. None of it.

Did you drive Christy Johnson's car? No, absolutely not. Were you ever in possession of that car? Absolutely not, no. All right. So you are distancing yourself from the entire story? I always have, yes. Did the judge ask you to tell the court how you killed her? Why you killed her? He did, and I refused to give any type of statement. Did you say then, well, I'm not going to tell you because I didn't do it? Did you say that? No, not in those words, no, I didn't do it. I didn't say it in those words, no.

Paleologus told me he wanted the trial to continue. The prosecution had no evidence, he said, and the women who testified against him would have been discredited if his lawyer, Andrew Flyer, had presented his defense. What I wanted to do was get on the stand and get our witnesses on the stand and our evidence on the stand to disprove what they were saying. And that's what I really wanted Andrew to get us to do. But when this plea came up, it suddenly stopped all of that for us. Andrew asked for the plea, didn't he? That's what I'm being led to believe now, is that Andrew asked for the plea, yes. Because he knew he couldn't win.

I don't believe that. I don't believe that. We had the case won in chief. He felt that that was definitely going to be a win. You had the case won in chief. Oh, come on. We're living on a different planet. This is all a dance that's kind of silly, don't you think?

No, I don't think. No, because what evidence do you have that says that I did this? Why don't you tell me that? Talking to Victor Paley Logos was like trying to tap dance on a mattress. One minute he regretted taking responsibility for something he said he didn't do? The next he was telling me that the truth is a fungible commodity. That American justice is as transactional as any carnival midway. It's part of the big cogwheel that just keeps on turning.

I mean, there's no solemn vow and taking pleas are done all the time, every day. You take them for any one of a million different reasons. When you go into court and you swear that you're taking responsibility for somebody's death, it can be a lie and it doesn't really matter because it's part of the cog. It's not a solemn vow. Is that correct? You can ask any of your attorneys or any other attorney. That's the way it works.

I'm sorry to tell you, but that's the way it works in a court system. Well, it was obvious. I wasn't going to get anywhere with this guy. So I walked away from that last interview with Victor Palaeologos. End of the story, far as I was concerned. Another convicted killer bound for a cold and lonely death behind bars. But I was wrong. In the years that followed, a new chapter was written.

A chapter that was both chilling and uplifting. And here's the thing. It wasn't written by Victor Palaeologus or the courthouse dealmakers. It was written by the women who had faced him down once and were forced by changing circumstances to face him down again. Next time on Murder in the Hollywood Hills. We decided we wanted to make a documentary about the women who testified in this case because it was their collective testimony that pretty much tipped the scales in the prosecution's favor. We've got this group together now, and we've got a story to tell that hopefully a cautionary tale for other young people. Here we are, fast forward 20 years later, looking at a parole hearing coming up in a short order.

And the question, of course, that begs is, what happened here? It's only been 20 years. I wanted him to know that I wasn't scared of him. I walked straight up to him and just went in for a kiss. And I kissed him on the cheek. I let him kiss me on the cheek. 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.