‘Freeway Killer’ killed local boy, Crummel defense says

Deirdre Newman

On Monday, a Riverside County judge will consider a second request by

the defense team of James Lee Crummel to admit evidence that could

exonerate Crummel of charges in the killing of a Costa Mesa teenager

in 1979.

Crummel was arrested in Newport Beach in 1997, accused of murdering 13-year-old Jamey Wilfred Trotter.

The defense team first tried last spring to link Trotter’s death

to executed murderer William Bonin, the infamous “Freeway Killer.”

The attempt was rejected.

This time there is a key difference -- the defense has learned of

the existence of James Munro, who has told five people, over a period

of 22 years, that Bonin killed Trotter, said Mary Ann Galante, lead

defense counsel for Crummel. Munro was a co-defendant of Bonin’s and

testified against him in the last murder Bonin was convicted of.

Such consistent statements by Munro over such a long period should

be permissible, Galante said.

“Under the law, it absolutely should be allowed,” Galante said.

“It is evidence that the jury absolutely should hear, because what

you have is evidence going back 22 years.”

Deputy District Atty. Bill Mitchell said Munro has disavowed his

statements blaming Bonin for Trotter’s murder.

“He’s indicated that he’s only made those statements in order to

get some attention for himself and he thought he was doing everybody

a favor by trying to blame it on Bonin,” Mitchell said. “He thought

by saying that Bonin said he did it, it would give closure to [the

family].”

Crummel’s defense team filed its request to admit this evidence in

Riverside County Superior Court on Feb. 19. Crummel, who was charged

with one count of murder with special circumstances in the Trotter

case, pleaded innocent in 2000.

Crummel’s arrest in 1997 culminated a firestorm of controversy

that began earlier that year when the Newport Beach Police Department

-- in its first public act under Megan’s Law -- disclosed that

Crummel was a high-risk sex offender. He was arrested in jail, where

he was being held on unrelated charges of molesting three underage

Big Bear boys.

Crummel’s rap sheet dates back three decades and contains a sordid

history of child molestation. Most recently, Crummel was sentenced to

60 years to life for sexually abusing a 16-year-old boy at the

Newport Crest condominiums, where he lived.

Trotter vanished on April 19, 1979, on his way to school. Walking

along Harbor Boulevard, about a mile from where Crummel lived, the

blond boy was reported missing and feared dead when no clues turned

up.

Eleven years later, the boy’s charred skull and teeth were found

by Crummel near the Ortega Highway in Riverside County.

Munro is serving a life sentence for being an accomplice in

Bonin’s murder of hitchhiker Steven Wells.

The people whom Munro allegedly told that Bonin killed Trotter

are: defense investigator Gene Brisco, who interviewed Munro in

prison in 2003; psychiatrist Vondra Pelto, who was present during

that interview; newspaper reporter Elizabeth Evans; Ronald Phipps, a

former cellmate of Munro’s; and herself, Galante said.

The defense team also wants information admitted that was produced

by Alexis Skriloff, who interviewed Bonin in jail for a biography.

Bonin told Skriloff that he dumped four murder victims along the

Ortega Highway, where Trotter was found, but the police only

recovered three of them, according to the motion filed by the

defense.

Jury selection for the case starts Tuesday, Mitchell said.