ROBERT GARDNER -- The Verdict

The other day I was talking to Eddie Banuelos, the Corona del Mar

barber better known as “Fast Eddie.” Eddie was born and reared in Orange

County, so every time I wander in to get a trim, my time in the chair

develops into a quick look at Orange County history.

At my latest haircut, we settled on Danny Rios, longtime investigator

for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Danny was probably the most

tenacious investigator to come out of the office, as evidenced by the

“dip stick” murder case.

One night someone killed the attendant at a service station in El

Modena. The purpose was theft, although all the killer got was the

pitiful amount of change in the cash register. The only clue to the crime

was a dip stick.

Other investigators might have shrugged and waited for some other

information to surface. Not Danny. If a dip stick was the only clue, then

he’d make the most of the dip stick. He took the dip stick to Detroit,

where he carried it from auto makerto auto maker until he found the one

that produced the car from which this particular kind of dipstick had

come.

He now had the type of car and the year of production, but that still

wasn’t much to go on. But Danny wasn’t the type to give up. He got a list

of all the cars of that model sold in Orange County, then he mapped them

carefully on a grid of the county. It was a maddeningly boring job, but

Danny eventually worked a history of the cars until he tied one to . . .

El Modena.

He then went house to house until, after weeks of tireless

investigation, he located the killer who immediately confessed. I guess

he felt that there was no use lying to a bulldog like that.

When Myford Irvine committed suicide, Danny was the first investigator

on the job and pronounced it a suicide. Those of us who knew Danny were

satisfied. But that wasn’t so for some others. They were bothered by the

fact that Myford moved around so much during the suicide and suspected

murder.

Well, Myford didn’t do a very neat job of killing himself. Instead of

using a 12-gauge shotgun, which would have made things pretty quick, he

used a 20-gauge and staggered around until he finally succumbed. The

murder theorists were not satisfied. They had poor Myford exhumed and

examined by a whole regiment of pathologists who didn’t come up with

anything new.

I could have told them. Danny Rios was very thorough. If he said you

committed suicide, you damn well did commit suicide.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.