THIS BOOK IS BASED ON MY ROLLING STONE ARTICLE, “The Great Mojave Manhunt,” which was published on September 22, 2005. I would like to thank my editors there, Will Dana and Eric Bates, for giving me this assignment when the incident happened in 2003, and Eric, for his thoughtful editing and patience as I worked on the story for two years. i would also like to thank Kathleen Anderson, my agent at the time. The article was reprinted in The Best American Crime Writing 2006, and I am grateful to Otto Penzler and Mark Bowden, editors of that anthology, for including it.
To write the article, I consulted police and coroner’s reports; a project such as this can’t be written without them, and although they must be prepared when it comes to any crime or murder, I’d like to thank the people who take the time to put together these lengthy and complicated statements. I also turned to the following people for help (job titles for members of law enforcement are generally the ones used at the time of interviews): Lynne Kueck, Peggy Gilmore, and Ann Ghent—Donald Kueck’s sisters; his daughter Rebecca Welch; his neighbor Wayne Wirt; Deputy Stephen Sorensen’s sister Dixie Bear; friends and colleagues from different phases of his life, including Kimberly Brandon-Watson, Julie Franks, Connie Mavrolas, Pastor John Wodetzki, Richard Hedges (founder of the Outlaw Pigs law enforcement motorcycle club), Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department members Sgt. Christopher Keeling, Deputy Vince Burton, Deputy Paul Dino, Deputy Randy Heberle, Deputy Melissa Sullivan, and Captain Carl Deeley; Sgt. Larry Johnston and Officer Victor Ruiz of the California Highway Patrol; Sister Mary Michael of Mount Carmel in the Desert; LA County District Attorney David Berger; LA County Deputy District Attorney David Evans; Norm Hickling, aide to LA County Supervisor Mike Antonovich; Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Detectives Philip Guzman, Joe Purcell, and especially Mark Lillienfeld; LASD Sgt. Paul Delhauer; former Antelope Valley Press reporters Kim Rawley and Nicole Jacobs; former Fox news reporter Lorena Mendez-Quiroga, and LAPD SWAT officer Rick Massa (now retired).
To write this book, I turned once again to police and coroner’s reports. Thanks also to my former writing students Mark Takano and Carol Park for help in navigating Riverside and various agencies there. And thank you to Celeste Fremon, reporter and founder of WitnessLA, for background on sheriff and police department enforcement of immigration codes. I owe a debt of gratitude to reporter Connie Mavrolas and Pastor John Wodetzki, who continued to provide important context and facts, and spoke from the heart about their own experiences inside this story. I am grateful to Steve’s friends Steve Kirchner and Dan White, as well as the following members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (some of whom now have different titles or are retired): Sheriff Lee Baca; Detective Joe Purcell; Detective Steve Katz, Deputy Steve Propster; Sgt. Richard Valdemar, and SWAT team members Deputy Mark Schlegel, Deputy Rick Rector, Deputy Fred Keelin, Sgt. Joe Williams, Deputy Bernard Schockley, and Deputy George Creamer. In addition, I am most thankful to two veteran cops, LASD Detective Mark Lillienfeld and now-Lieutenant Bruce Chase, without whose help I could not have written this book. Over the eight years I worked on this project, Det. Lillienfeld spent many hours talking with me about his life in law enforcement and his role in the final hours of the manhunt. I met Bruce Chase after my article was published, and throughout the years I worked on this book, he also spent a great deal of time filling me in on his experiences in the sheriff’s department, and guiding me through the manhunt and SWAT’s role in it.
Along the trail of this project, Antelope Valley residents Kristie Holaday and Kate LaCroix were also helpful, and I’d like to thank Jill Starr of Lifesavers, the wild horse rescue organization in Lancaster, for the introduction to Kate.
Over the eight years I worked on this book, various friends and relatives of Jello Kueck began to come forward and were generous with their time, providing much insight into their departed friend. They also provided important recollections of both Jello and his father and the nature of their lives—and their own at the time of this story and beyond. Their participation in this project was crucial. They include Fritz Aragon, Angela Asbell, Aaron Blair, Sharon Booth, Mike Cazares, James Finch, Ford, Rande Linville, Dave Oberweber, Elaine Simons, Chris Smallwood, Amanda Smallwood, Virginia Smallwood, and Zoey.
I would also like to say thanks to John Carver for the fine book trailer, and to pay serious acknowledgement to the fine crew at Nation Books—my wonderful editor Ruth Baldwin, for being simpatico with my work and supplying all manner of help with this project, editor Carl Bromley for his support, Marissa Colón-Margolies for emergency aid and reminders, and publicist Dori Gelb for guiding this book along its public path; my publisher John Sherer at Basic Books; and their colleagues who have done such fine work on production, copyediting, and design, including Collin Tracy, Linda Mark, and Jed DeOrsay at Perseus, and Beth Wright at Trio Bookworks.
Finally, I am grateful to Mark Lamonica for not only encouraging me to write this story, but also for insight and moral support along the way. I would also like to thank my agent, Liz Darhansoff, and her associate Michele Mortimer for their critical role in this project. And as ever and always, I am so grateful to my mother, Eleanor Stillman, for being in my corner throughout it all—and telling me not to barrel through intersections, advice that has served me well.