COLD CASE: San Francisco Vice Cop Victim of a Professional Hit
A cover-up was suspected from the beginning; was Officer Garnier set up and murdered by fellow officers that night in 1988?
On July 10, 1988, thirty-year-old San Francisco vice cop, Lester Garnier, was found slumped over the steering wheel of his blue Corvette. He had been shot to death, execution style, in a vacant Walnut Creek shopping mall parking lot, not far from his home.
Top brass at the SFPD quickly absolved their department from responsibility in finding Garnier's killer, handing the investigation over completely to a much smaller and understaffed Walnut Creek Police Department, which only served in raising suspicions.
Back in 1971, when a cop killer was last on the loose, San Francisco police spared no effort tracking the man across jurisdictions, even clear across the country. It made little sense that they would call off the dogs on this important manhunt right from the get-go.
Walnut Creek police took charge of the investigation and would come to conclude that Garnier had been set up and killed by someone he knew and trusted; perhaps a fellow officer in the vice unit at the SFPD. The hot shot, with 4 years under his belt in vice, had been aired out with an AMT 380, a small semi-automatic pistol which many officers carried for backup in those days.
At least a dozen San Francisco cops came under scrutiny, but ballistics tests on the guns they turned in were negative. Still, this theory has persisted for decades, stirring the bad blood between the two police departments.
Possible motives for the hit are numerous. Working undercover busting prostitutes, johns, and drug dealers, Garnier was privy to a number of sensitive organized crime investigations, involving everything from a major narcotics smuggling operation in North Beach; to a high-class prostitution ring utilizing underage girls; to the largest illegal sports bookmaking operation in the entire U.S.
Law enforcement investigators on both sides of the Bay all agree on one thing: Lester Garnier was the victim of a professional killing - most likely by someone he knew.
Additionally, Federal law enforcement agencies had been conducting long-running investigations of corruption inside the SFPD, specifically involving Garnier's beat: vice. Some wonder if the young gun was preparing to turn whistleblower.
A videotape found hidden in Lester's home office mysteriously disappeared after being confiscated by detectives. Although vice officers routinely conduct video surveillance in "trick rooms" - wired hotel rooms where they capture prostitutes' solicitations on tape - the tape in Garnier's possession was of a different nature. A source close to the investigation revealed that the recording was made during an undercover SFPD stakeout from a Fisherman's Wharf hotel. Just prior to the SFPD's investigation, the department's organized crime division had assisted the FBI at the same location on surveillance of La Cosa Nostra activities.
Federal agents were tipped off to a new restaurant on the wharf, managed by a family member of Anthony Scotto, a capo (or captain) in the Gambino crime family, and quite possibly the most powerful labor racketeer in the entire country. Scotto was setting up restaurants ostensibly run by his family in New York and San Francisco. From a nearby hotel room, federal agents monitored the Fisherman's Wharf location and took note of city luminaries attending the restaurant's grand opening. No arrests in the months-long operation were made before the FBI folded the investigation and then turned over the surveillance spot to SFPD, a common practice among law enforcement agencies.
But what remains a mystery is how the SFPD then used the location and why Garnier had hidden a tape recording from that surveillance spot. Confidential sources say the recording may have included sensitive information implicating some of his fellow officers in serious criminal activity.
Investigators soon learned the prostitution ring specialized in underage girls … among the list of high-paying johns was a prominent San Francisco jeweler, a millionaire hotelier named Donald Werby, and a then-candidate for mayor, Roger Boas - a former San Francisco supervisor.
Evidence of SFPD officers dabbling in what cops refer to as the "dark side" dates back decades (in reality, it goes back to the city's founding days during the Gold Rush). In the 1950s, grand jury testimony uncovered a bookie drop for cops' bets hidden in the main police station. In subsequent decades, officers were exposed for taking bribes from drug dealers and bookies, as well as for soliciting prostitutes. A 1970s police corruption probe in Chinatown resulted in an indictment against an undercover cop, but many suspected higher-ranking officers of accepting payoffs from criminals there.
Just months after Garnier's murder, newspaper headlines exploded with reports of one of the biggest police stings in the city's history. The SFPD's vice unit had staked out a string of brothels operated by a husband-wife duo with family ties in the business dating back at least 100 years and a high-profile client list that turned heads, implicating San Francisco lawmakers and some of the city's political elite in a web of hellacious sex crimes.
Investigators soon learned the prostitution ring specialized in underage girls, often recruited on Polk Street by a Bentley-driving pimp. Among the list of high-paying johns was a prominent San Francisco jeweler, a millionaire hotelier named Donald Werby, and a then-candidate for mayor, Roger Boas - a former San Francisco supervisor and the city's chief administrative officer under mayors George Moscone and Dianne Feinstein.
As investigators were preparing warrants for the arrests of brothel operators, Patrick Roberts and his wife, Kelly Loyd, they requested backup surveillance from Lester Garnier and his partner, to gather fresh information on the couple's comings and goings. They watched Roberts as he moved his house of prostitution from an old brothel in the Mission District to a location in the Inner Richmond. After a couple of days of surveillance, Garnier's partner reported that he suspected their true identities had been discovered by Roberts. Two months later, Garnier was found executed with a bullet in the gut and one in the head.
Detectives' curiosities about one female federal agent … whom they had tied to Garnier, were heightened when, within months of the vice cop’s murder, her parked car was mysteriously bombed.
Within months of the young vice cop’s killing, a secret grand jury returned indictments on the brothel operators, ex-supervisor Roger Boas and seven other customers, including one San Francisco police officer. Boas would eventually plead guilty to the charges of having sex with an underage prostitute. Rumors connecting Garnier's death to this headline grabbing scandal have persisted to this day.
Law enforcement investigators on both sides of the Bay all agree on one thing: Lester Garnier was the victim of a professional killing, most likely killed by someone he knew very well. He was set up by whoever it was that called his house that night and arranged to meet him in the empty parking lot.
Three blonde females were spotted at the scene, according to eyewitness statements, which would lead Walnut Creek detectives to investigate female law enforcement officers who resembled the police sketches. Detectives' curiosities about one female federal agent with the Internal Revenue Service, whom they had tied to Garnier, were heightened when, within months of the vice cop’s murder, her parked car was bombed. Some wondered if the bombing, which coincidentally occurred in Walnut Creek, was meant as a message to silence her.
This IRS agent’s connections with SFPD narcotics inspector, Alex Fagan, the department's future Chief and three-decade veteran, drew even more attention. Fagan had quickly moved up from patrolman, and knew the female IRS agent from working on organized crime task forces. These special operations were prestigious assignments, and due to their covert nature, were often kept secret from fellow officers. Described as a cop's cop by veterans in the department, he was well regarded by rank-and-file officers and federal agents, and was soon promoted to captain at Northern Station, where he would lead the department's fiscal division.
But Walnut Creek police detectives questioned Fagan's upscale lifestyle. He lived in a $735,000 home in Orinda in the late '80s and owned half a dozen cars - highly unusual for a mid-level cop. Fagan vehemently asserts that nothing ties him to Garnier or his murder.
In June 2008, one of the blonde women seen leaving Lester's car after he was shot was identified as Scottish national Catherine "Scotty" Kuntz; her fingerprints matched those found in the Corvette. She is the only identified suspect in the case. She was a prostitute and living in Concord at the time of the murder. In 1991, she was arrested in Virginia for conspiracy to commit murder, after allegedly hiring two people to kill her husband; fortunately, they were unsuccessful. However, the charges of conspiracy against her were dropped; she later pleaded guilty only to assault.
Kuntz was released from a Florida prison in late June 2008 where she was held on unrelated charges. She was subsequently deported to her home country of Scotland. Despite the fingerprint match. Police in San Francisco and Walnut Creek apparently didn’t have enough evidence to file murder charges against the suspect.
This is the one and only unsolved murder of a San Francisco police officer in history. The family is still looking for answers and for the killers to be held responsible.
The Walnut Creek Police Department considers this an open case. Anyone who has information is encouraged to call WCPD at 925-943-5868. In addition, San Francisco has offered a reward of $250,000 for any information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of the person(s) responsible for the murder of Officer Lester Garnier.
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Sources include: San Francisco Chronicle, ABC NEWS, and Unsolved Mysteries
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