Up until this point, the police had treated the Herrs with a level of detachment. “They were not hard—that’s not really the right term—but dry,” Steve said. “Now, their attitude changed.”
The next morning—Wednesday, May 26—Steve returned to Long Beach. He still had his list of locations where money had been withdrawn and was anxious to catch the perpetrator. But he didn’t want to do it alone. He phoned detectives to tell them about his plans.
“I called and said, ‘Are you guys staking these places out?’” he said. “And they told me, ‘Steve, we see you in your car right now.’”
At the same time, Det. Sgt. Ed Everett and his partner, Keith Davis, had been dispatched to speak to Dan. They located him with Rachel at the home of her brother Noah. Dan seemed surprised to see the police standing in his doorway.
“How’d you find me?” he asked.
Everett responded with another query: “Do you know why we’re here?”
“Yes. It’s about the murder.”
There was nothing incriminating about this statement. By this stage, everyone in Costa Mesa was talking about the well-liked college coed found killed four days earlier in her friend’s apartment.
Dan requested to speak to Everett privately, and the two went outside. “When is the last time you saw Sam?” the sergeant asked.
It was a question that Dan had already answered when Jake pressed him about his final encounter with his neighbor. Since then, he’d probably thought about his alibi dozens of times. “He had indicated that he had seen [Sam] … previously … Friday morning to Friday afternoon,” Everett testified at a pretrial hearing. Dan was preoccupied with his financial challenges, and Sam handed him one hundred dollars.
“Just consider it an early wedding gift,” Sam assured his neighbor, “and don’t worry about repaying it.”
They parted ways for the final time, Dan said, in the middle of the day. “He imagined that he had last seen him between two and three,” Everett said. “And after having helped him run some errands for his wedding, Mr. Herr was with another unknown subject, and he left after dropping him off with this unknown subject in a Mazda.”
As the conversation continued, Rachel came outside. “Is everything okay?”
Everett looked down at Dan’s hands. They were shaking.
Shifting his attention back to Rachel, the sergeant said that he intended to speak with her in a few minutes. For the time being, though, he asked that she return indoors.
Rachel went back into the apartment and waited. When she finally spoke with detectives, her story was almost identical to that of her fiancé. “She indicated that they were having financial issues due to the wedding,” Everett said, repeating the account of Sam giving them one hundred dollars as an early wedding present. “She told me she thanked him and then she had said she would save a dance for him at the wedding.”
Like Dan, she claimed that Sam had been with a man she didn’t recognize. “She said she didn’t know who the subject was and didn’t believe that he lived in the apartment complex.” Everett said that Rachel told him that she’d seen the stranger herself. “She indicated he was in the apartment” with Sam and Dan.
By this point, detectives had a fairly vivid picture of what had occurred in the building that day. For example, they knew that Dan and Rachel had been visited by their friend Chris Williams. But, thus far, the only two people who said that they’d seen the man in the baseball cap were Dan and his fiancée.
It seemed like Dan and Rachel were covering something up. Maybe Dan was the one funneling the money to Sam, police thought. But why? Some detectives wondered if Dan and Sam were lovers. When Sam also became involved with Juri, the theory continued, the lovers’ triangle turned violent. Maybe Sam killed Juri in some twisted sign of loyalty to Dan. For all detectives knew, Dan might have killed the pretty Japanese student himself.
Once they were done talking to Rachel, Everett and Davis returned to their car. “Let’s follow him,” Everett said, referring to Wozniak. “I think he’ll lead us to Sam.”
A team was assigned to surveille Dan from a distance, tracking him to Long Beach—the same general area that Steve had been watching. They spotted Dan exiting his car and meeting with a teenager, who handed the actor an envelope. After Dan left, the officers continued monitoring the teen. About twenty minutes later, a pizza deliveryman arrived on the block. The boy went outside to pay for a pie, then brought it across the street from his home—into a house where a party appeared to be going on.
Police followed the deliveryman several blocks and pulled him over. They learned that the pizza had been ordered from Ecco’s—one of the spots where money had been withdrawn from Sam’s account—and paid for with the veteran’s ATM card. Detectives were alerted about the development and decided to crash the party.
“We thought that Sam might be hiding in the house,” Everett said.
The teenager answered the door. When he looked up, he saw a helicopter banking over the building, and the officer inside literally pointing at him. As investigators searched the house for the missing veteran, the boy identified himself as sixteen-year-old Wesley Freilich—the same Wesley Freilich who’d played Winthrop in The Music Man and considered Daniel Wozniak his mentor. He tried to stonewall the police at first, denying any connection to the ATM card.
“Are you sure about that?” he was challenged. “This card’s tied to a homicide.”
Wesley was a kid who aspired to be an actor, not a criminal. Tears instantly ran down his face. “A homicide?” he repeated, terrified.
He immediately disclosed that the ATM card had been given to him by Dan Wozniak. Dan said that it wasn’t a big deal. He was working for a bail bonds agent, and the card belonged to a client who’d posted bail, then disappeared.
For the past several days, Wesley said, Dan had had him withdrawing money from the account. When Wesley did this, Dan made it clear that it was important to wear a hat and sunglasses; you didn’t want a security camera catching your image. He wasn’t really supposed to be ordering pizza, Wesley admitted. But it’s not like he wasn’t doing his job. In fact, earlier in the day he’d handed Dan an envelope with his latest withdrawal—four hundred dollars.
Police still didn’t know what had happened to Sam or what role he might have had in Juri’s death. But they were beginning to view him as less of a perpetrator and more of a victim. After all, Wesley was delivering Sam’s money back to Dan, not some enigmatic figure whom no one could name. At the very least, Dan—who’d continually suggested that he was desperate for money—was guilty of obtaining those funds through fraudulent means.
That night, Dan put on his effervescent grin when he met up with a group of friends at Tsunami, a Japanese restaurant in Huntington Beach, for his bachelor party. His wedding was just two days away, and if he was still panicking over money no one appeared to notice. Before the celebration ended, though, authorities entered the establishment and arrested the groom for financial improprieties.
Dan would later complain that the lawmen waited until he’d finished paying the check.
* * *
Sam’s Army friend Miles Foltz learned about the arrest from Rachel. Miles had come to the building to discuss the case with Sam’s neighbors Dave Barnhart and Jake Swett, hoping to make sense of the disappearance. Although both men had been friendly with Sam, they seemed exceptionally close to Rachel, and she was in the apartment as well. It was the first time that she and Miles had ever met. As they spoke, Rachel received a text and looked over at Miles.
“Dan got arrested,” she told him.
Because no one reacted with dismay, Miles assumed that he was the only one hearing the news for the first time. Certainly, Rachel seemed perplexed by the circumstances. Yet Miles had the sense that all three had expected the arrest to occur.
“She wasn’t really freaking out,” Miles said. With the wedding date so close, he expected a stronger reaction. Maybe that was just the way Rachel processed information, Miles thought. Still, something wasn’t right. Miles wondered what Rachel and her friends weren’t telling him.
“It was really weird,” he said, “just a really weird atmosphere around her.”
But Rachel said she didn’t grasp the extent of Dan’s problems. “I didn’t know what to think,” she’d tell the Dr. Phil show. “And my first response was”—she smiled—“‘Oh my gosh. What trouble could this idiot have gotten himself into now? And is he going to be out for the dress rehearsal tomorrow?’”
At the time, Dan was simply charged with bank fraud. No one said anything about Sam’s ATM card being used, but Miles instinctively knew that the crime was tied to his friend’s disappearance.
“Rachel said something about Dan owing money to a loan shark,” Miles said. “The others seemed to know about it, and were saying things like, ‘You know Dan; he can’t keep his fuckin’ mouth shut’ and ‘he’s not going to be able to keep his story straight.’ And so I was like, ‘Is everyone in on this?’”
Not wanting to reveal his suspicions, Miles looked down at his phone and quietly sent a text to Steve. Rachel needed to be investigated, Miles suggested. She might know what had happened to Sam. In fact, Miles thought that maybe the whole building was part of the conspiracy.
* * *
To add to the confusion, police noticed that somebody had logged on to Sam’s Facebook account. It seemed like Sam was still alive and posting messages from Northern California.
Costa Mesa detectives contacted authorities there. They quickly discovered that the poster was a buddy of Sam’s who knew nothing about the disappearance. He just knew Sam’s password and was putting up some nonsensical post as a gag.
* * *
It was just around midnight when Dan arrived at the Costa Mesa Police Department and was taken to an interview room. From two monitoring rooms on the same floor, detectives gathered to watch a telecast of the conversation.
Det. Mike Delgadillo—the investigator to whom Steve had initially handed the list of banking transactions—sat across from Dan. Delgadillo had been a member of the Costa Mesa Police for thirty-one years. At his side was bald, bull-necked Det. Mike Cohen.
Reaching for a lanyard he kept around his neck, Cohen read Dan his Miranda rights from a laminated card.
Police had quickly determined that the crime was not drug related. Although Dan drank and dabbled in Ecstasy, he wasn’t a daily drug user, nor had he attempted to alleviate his financial stresses by dealing cocaine, methamphetamine, or OxyContin. Likewise—despite his fondness for consuming alcohol with friends—Sam wasn’t even a recreational drug user.
Nevertheless, Dan told detectives that it was Sam who conceived the plot to defraud the bank. “He told us that he had been approached by … Sam Herr to get involved in a fraudulent credit card scam,” Delgadillo said, “where he was orchestrating use of Sam’s ATM card.
“He explained to him that he could make money by using Sam’s ATM card, and requesting the assistance of a third party to use Sam’s card and go to the ATM, withdraw money from Sam’s account, and Sam could make the claim later that his card was being used fraudulently, and the money would be refunded to him.”
Dan claimed that Sam agreed to stay far away from the bank or ATM when the money was being withdrawn. This way, if there was a sighting of Sam at that time he’d be able to maintain his argument that he had no connection to the plot. In addition, Sam intended to use his cell phone, Dan said, in case authorities attempted to determine his location with telephone company records.
Wesley was chosen to participate because he was underage, Dan said. “He got ahold of Wesley and asked him if he would engage in using the card at the ATM,” Delgadillo said. Dan’s rationale: “Because he was a juvenile … more than likely, if he was ever caught, they would do nothing, as far as prosecution.”
But what about Juri? It was one thing to steal a few hundred dollars from a bank and quite another to kill a young woman. Dan anticipated that detectives were going to ask about the murder and was eager to provide an answer.
He blamed Juri’s death on Sam.
“He did it,” Dan said. “I’m not going to protect him anymore. I’ll tell you everything.”
According to Dan, he’d met Sam downstairs on Saturday, May 22—hours before Steve discovered the corpse in his son’s apartment. Sam appeared nervous, Dan claimed. “He said that Sam … asked for some help to get out of the area,” Det. Jose Morales would testify, “that he had done something. He wouldn’t go into detail.”
What Sam did reveal, Dan said, was that something bad had happened in his apartment.
“Dan got dressed and left with Sam in Sam’s vehicle, as they drove just to drive,” Morales said. “They weren’t really going anywhere. He said that Sam … admitted that he had killed somebody, and that he needed to get away. Eventually, Sam admitted that he killed Julie.”
The reason Dan hadn’t disclosed this information previously, he said, was that he was scared. After all, he’d claimed to have seen Juri’s body with his own eyes. “At one point, he finally confessed to going up to the apartment and seeing what was there,” Delgadillo said. “Apparently, Julie was deceased. And he agreed to take Sam, drive him into Long Beach, and, over the course of time, take money out of his account and funnel it back to him so that he could flee the area.
“… He said he did it because Sam had threatened that if he didn’t help him, he would come back and get him, as well as … Rachel.”
Delgadillo and Cohen let Dan talk. But neither of the seasoned detectives believed much of what he heard. “There were a lot of [inconsistencies]…,” Delgadillo said. “I mean, we asked him about where he dropped [Sam] … off, where he was staying. He was very evasive as to a lot of this, the way he had driven up there. I mean, we asked him a lot of questions about the area that he dropped him off at, as far as how we can contact him. It just didn’t seem right.”
While Dan was busy with the two investigators, Det. Jose Morales drove to the Camden Martinique apartments and looked for Rachel.
He wasn’t sure how Dan’s fiancée would act when he found her. But, at this stage of his career, Jose believed that he was prepared for just about anything. The detective had grown up in the neighboring city of Santa Ana after emigrating with his parents from Mexico’s Guerrero State at age four. He remembered his parents each working two—and sometimes three—jobs while the family attempted to gain a foothold in the United States. Both labored in factories. Jose’s father also picked oranges for Valencia Growers in Irvine, while his mother worked in a series of bakeries.
The one thing the two generations shared was an appreciation of Los Tigres del Norte, a San Jose, California–based band with its roots in drug-ravaged Sinaloa, Mexico. Jose was aware of the fact that traffickers from both sides of the border enjoyed the group’s songs about gangsterism, but that wasn’t the part of the music that appealed to him. “They talk about the Mexican government not fulfilling people’s dreams,” he said, “and the way people suffer after they come to the United States for a better life.”
He saw signs of that struggle all over Santa Ana, as well as a hesitance to cooperate with the authorities. “People respected law enforcement,” he said. “But they weren’t going to be forthcoming with information. We used to live across the street from a rock house”—a place where addicts purchased crack-cocaine—“and people would knock on our door, thinking that was the place. You wouldn’t call the police. People used to break into our house all the time. You wouldn’t call the police. We’d buy bikes every other month because people would steal our bikes. They’d jump over our fence and steal them. But you wouldn’t call the police for that.
“You didn’t want to get involved with the police coming over to your house.”
Among the city’s immigrant population, the Santa Ana police had a reputation for manhandling thieves and other miscreants. “They were very tough,” Jose said. “You didn’t mess with the Santa Ana Police Department.”
His family largely approved of their tactics. “My mom was the law enforcer in our house,” he said, “and she told me, ‘If the police ever catch you doing something bad, they’re not bringing you home. You can stay in jail and forget about getting bailed out.’”
Nevertheless, Jose had little fear of law enforcement. They’d never do anything to him, he reasoned, as long as he followed his mother’s edicts about staying out of trouble. “I was attracted to the uniform,” he says. “My uncle was a first sergeant in the Mexican military, stationed out of Mexicali. We’d go out and visit him once in a while, and he’d tell me about confiscating drugs and burning them in the mountains, and all the duties he had. He’d show me his shooting trophies, and I was attracted to that.”
Whenever the police passed Jose on the street, he made it a point to acknowledge the men in blue. “My friends would say, ‘Why are you waving to them?’ But those were my guys. They were it.”
Because his parents couldn’t afford college, Morales decided to join the U.S. Marines Reserve after high school and have the government pay for his education. He attended Golden West College in Huntington Beach while working the graveyard shift as a security guard. And since he’d been in the Santa Ana Police Department’s Explorer group in high school—a type of scouting program in which young people learn about law enforcement policies and training—he was offered a second, paid position as a part-time cadet. At age twenty-two, he was given a full-time job.
Dealing with drunks and bar brawls was relatively easy. Jose was confident in his physicality and could easily break up fights. And if the situation became heated, he had both the weapons and the training to wrest the confrontation in the direction that it needed to go. Interactions with the mentally ill were more confusing. “It’s hard when you’re trying to help somebody who doesn’t want to be helped,” he said. “You say one wrong thing, and you’re going to get the kind of reaction that can trigger something very negative. So you have to think quick.
“I remember being called to one lady’s home who tried to cut her wrists. She was upstairs. We were downstairs. What I tried to do was connect with her not like a police officer who wanted to lock her up, but another human who cared about her personally. We talked about the people who needed her, like her kids, the things that were important to her. And, eventually, she dropped the glass, and we were able to take her into custody to get her some help.”
After six years on patrol, Morales began working undercover as a narcotics officer. In one operation, he’d arranged to buy a collection of guns, along with cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, and pseudoephedrine. But when the conspirators’ affiliates were busted in Northern California, the suspects became paranoid and demanded a meeting.
“It wasn’t, ‘Let’s go meet for some beers,’” he said. “It was, ‘We want to talk to you now. We need to get to the bottom of who the snitch is.’”
After conferring with his superiors, Jose found an excuse not to attend, then continuously delayed the meeting for several more weeks until tensions eased. Although the dealers suspected Morales, they were anxious to make the sale—and the police department was able to make the bust. “It’s always the greed,” Jose observed. “It’s always about the money to them. They’ll forgive and forget as long as the money’s coming in.”
With each passing year, Jose acquired more knowledge about the criminal psyche. A year before Dan’s arrest, Jose was promoted to detective, specializing in Crimes Against Persons.
* * *
At the Camden Martinique apartments, Morales found Rachel with Jake Swett and Dave Barnhart in the apartment that they shared, and asked to speak with her outside.
After briefly discussing Dan’s arrest, Morales asked Rachel if she’d be willing to accompany him to the police department. “You’re not under arrest, and you can end our interview at any time,” he said.
“Okay.”
When she arrived at the building, Dan was interrupted in the interview room and told that his fiancée was outside. He asked if he could talk to her.
“The police said…, ‘Okay, we’re going to have him talk to you ’cause what he has to say, you’re not going to believe it, coming from us,’” Rachel recalled. “At that point, I realized that he was seriously in trouble.”
Rachel was brought into the interview room. With the detectives listening, Dan “told her that he had been involved in a fraud scheme with Sam,” Morales said, “and that Sam had killed Julie, and that he had helped him clean up the crime scene.”
Morales watched Rachel closely to gauge how she was absorbing the news. “There was no reaction,” the detective said. “That’s what kind of caught us off guard is that he’s telling her what’s going on, and she has no reaction.… There’s nothing.”
After the exchange, Rachel left the interview room and met privately with detectives, telling them about Dan’s behavior the previous Friday, when he’d been hyperventilating and acting as if he were going to have a heart attack. She maintained that she asked what was wrong and he explained that he’d borrowed money from “bad people” and had to repay the funds that day.
She insisted that she was ignorant about whatever occurred later on. “After hearing out of Dan’s mouth that he had any involvement in a murder, I went into shock,” she said on Dr. Phil. “The wedding’s the next day. We were supposed to have our dress rehearsal that evening, and I’m finding out he’s not the person I thought he was.”
* * *
After Rachel went home, Dan was led out of the interview room to a jail cell down the hallway. After his DUI arrest, it was his second night in police custody in less than a month. But in this case, it seemed like he’d remain behind bars far longer.
At noon, Det. Sgt. Everett received a message from the jailer. Daniel Wozniak had more that he wanted to say.
Delgadillo rushed back to the jail. Dan was in a holding cell, waiting. The detective would describe him as “extremely agitated, anxious. He seemed kind of upset.”
According to Delgadillo, Dan said, “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay. You’ll be able to talk to me, but we have to go back into the interview room.”
Dan nodded and Delgadillo led the suspect down the hallway—into the room where Det. Mike Cohen was already waiting. Once again, Delgadillo repeated the Miranda warning, and Dan waived his rights.
“After I advised him of his rights, I asked him if he wanted to talk to me,” Delgadillo said. “And he asked me where his attorney was. And I told him, ‘I just got done advising you of your rights.… Do you understand that?’ And he says, ‘Yes.’ I asked him, ‘Do you want to speak with me?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You said you had something to say. Go ahead and tell us.’ And he goes, ‘Okay.’”
It was the third time in less than twenty-four hours that the detective had gone over Dan’s rights with him. In the detective’s mind, Dan understood that he could ask for an attorney at any time and the interview would abruptly end. But Delgadillo believed that Dan didn’t want an attorney. Dan wanted to talk.
The Daniel Wozniak who looked at Delgadillo was not the same man who entered a room grinning, telling boisterous jokes, and backslapping both friends and strangers. Now Dan’s face was serious. His eyes were wide, and there was clearly something that he needed his questioners to know.
Delgadillo returned Dan’s stare, and Dan started to talk.
“The first words out of his mouth,” the detective said, “were, quote, ‘I’m crazy and I did it.’”