From the archives

Murder at 63rd and El Cajon Blvd.

A true San Diego bookie, talk of killings in jail, easy to steal cars and take to Mexico

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“David told me he was going to shower and clean up and said if the guy moved to hit him." (David Diaz)

American gothic horror

By late October they had an apartment at Fortieth Street and Orange Avenue. Early one morning Garrett saw two men at the front door, one of whom was Marck Lambros III, a pudgy twenty-nine-year-old who had come to get back some gold jewelry David had stolen from Lambros after the two had met in front of the Press Room bar at Third Avenue and Broadway.

By Bruce Gibney, Aug. 5, 1982 Read full article

James Arthur Thomas: “Just after the war, there was a lot of money around town an ’ bookin ’ was right out in the open." (Craig Carlson)

He used to make book

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"Next thing I know I’m ridin’ my bike down by the boardwalk in P.B. and — Jesus! — four cops an’ two women is swarmin’ all around me.” They escorted Thomas back to his apartment, searched it thoroughly, and found nothing. Two went outside and discovered a number of shredded football cards in a trash container in an alley near Jamaica Court.

By Jeff Smith, Dec. 3, 1981 Read full article

He’d not only stabbed his wife to death but had cut her to shreds. (Peter Kuper)

I just smoked a Camel and watched him die

“I found out about it when I was still in El Cajon, and as soon as I hit the outs, we fell by La Jolla to see old 'Doc Savage’ to let him know I knew. This was after I slapped shit out of the old lady and she corroborated. Beat her down pretty good, actually."

By Lin Robinson, Oct. 24, 1991 Read full article

Sgt. Joe Ortiz: “We do have an extradition treaty with Mexico, but Mexico just won’t extradite its citizens.” (Craig Carlson)

P.S., your car is gone

“Our guy finds [another] wrecked Datsun 4X4 in a junkyard, changes over all the numbers from it to the one he found in the canyon. But when he took it in to get it registered, the DMV noticed that the VIN plate was loose, so they referred him to us for inspection.”

By Neal Matthews, July 31, 1986 Read full article

Les Girls complex (Craig Carlson)

Porn Peddlers

The Hi-Lite bookstore within the Les Girls complex near Rosecrans has forty-five such peepshow booths. If peepshows were banished overnight, “it would certainly take the cream off the ’ top [of the business],” according to one local owner, who added, “they pay the rent.”

By Jeannette DeWyze and Paul Krueger, March 13, 1986 Read full article

Since 1977 at least ten murders in Oceanside have had what police call “homosexual overtones.” (David Diaz)

Death in Oceanside

It was in the bars Smith frequented in Oceanside that people came to know him best. There was little intimacy in the ostensibly straight life he led as a successful San Marcos construction company executive five days a week or in the life he shared with his elderly mother in a quiet Vista cul de sac.

By Bob McPhail, Jan. 29, 1987 Read full article