ON FEBRUARY 17, 2000, I decided to spend the day watching Jason’s residence on Electric Avenue in Venice, California.
Though I was hoping to be inconspicuous, I was driving a new white Ford Excursion that to me felt a little too much for the neighborhood. I pulled up and parked about a dozen car lengths south of Jason’s residence. His black Jeep was parked in front. Three bungalows were laid out like a triangle. The one to the left was occupied by Edward Solby and his wife, and the one to the right by a young woman named Betty Phipps. Even when you stood in front of the gate it was difficult to see the small bungalow in the rear that was occupied by Jason.
Jason’s windows were open as usual in his Jeep. You could tell the interior was wet, as it had rained earlier that morning.
At 11:50 AM Jason came out, opened the small gate and stood beside the little black mailbox attached to the chain-link fence. He was casually dressed. I watched as he opened the box and slammed it shut. He opened the gate, walked back through, opened and closed a secondary gate, then disappeared toward the rear bungalow.
Within an hour the postman arrived, put the mail in the box, and walked on. A few minutes later, Jason came out again, took out the mail and looked at each envelope. He suddenly appeared angry, hurling his mail into one of the three plastic trash containers in front of the bungalow complex. He reopened the little gate, walked back toward his bungalow, and again disappeared. He didn’t once look in my direction.
Ten minutes later, Jason came out and got into his black 1993 Jeep, the same one we had now determined he had owned on the night of June 12, 1994. I followed carefully in pursuit as he pulled out and made a right-hand turn onto Westminster, a left turn on 6th Avenue, a right turn on Rose, a right turn onto Lincoln Boulevard, a right on Broadway, and a left on to 11th Street, now in the city limits of Santa Monica. All of a sudden I realized we were approaching Mélisse Restaurant. Jason turned right at 11th and Wilshire, and turned into the parking lot directly behind the rear employee entrance. He pulled in quickly, jumped out, and left the door on the driver’s side flopping back and forth as he ran into the restaurant.
I now realized what Jason was there for—his last paycheck. He hadn’t received it by mail and was angry. He was going to collect it in person.
I was prepared for the worst, thinking, Oh my God, don’t tell me this is going to be a repetition of what happened when Jason went to get his final check from Paul Goldberg, which ended in Jason assaulting and attacking Goldberg with a kitchen knife.
I parked my vehicle and quickly ran up to where Jason had parked. I was determined that if I heard cries for help, I was going inside.
I felt some responsibility, to a degree, if something were to happen, because I had learned such a great deal about Jason and had not been able to share it because of the potential danger of giving it to the district attorney or the Los Angeles Police Department at this point in my investigation. Within four or five minutes, Jason, not noticing me standing there, came out, climbed back into his Jeep, and took off.
I ran to my car and followed him to the Santa Monica Bank parking lot. Jason parked, walked across the street, and put something into the bank deposit. He then returned to his Jeep and drove away. Traffic was heavy, but I was able to follow him all the way back to his bungalow in Venice, some fifteen miles away.
In one hair-raising hour of surveillance, I had been up one street, down another, pulled into driveways, run stop signs, run traffic lights—anything in an attempt not to lose sight of Jason and more determined than ever not to be seen.
I still felt, but couldn’t prove, that Jason had been angry because he had not received his check from Mélisse and was determined to get it one way or the other.
Thank God no one was hurt, this time.
Once Jason had pulled up to his residence, he parked on the opposite side of the street, crossed over, and once again disappeared behind the chain link fence.
It was obvious that Jason, who needed to live in a structured environment, was doing anything but. Now he had no routine to fall back on. There was no more Danielle, no job, just plain loneliness and the bottles of booze he consumed daily as he watched the movies he rented from Blockbuster Video.
Two days before leaving Los Angeles, I had an opportunity to spend another few hours watching Jason on Electric Avenue. It had rained early that morning and some that afternoon. I saw him come out and once again roll up the windows on his Jeep only after it had stopped raining.
During the three weeks I was in Los Angeles it rained constantly on and off. Jason never seemed to roll up the windows until afterwards. It made me wonder why? Had he hoped, over the period of years, that the rain coming in would wash away any evidence that might be there? Why not roll your windows up first, before the rain?
Leaning into the Jeep, I noticed that somebody had cut through the vinyl covering on the console in between the two front seats, going about one inch deep into the foam rubber and leaving a three- to four-inch jagged oblong opening. The vinyl and foam had both been removed.
Someone had to have a good reason for intentionally carving this hole out of the console.
It was impossible for me to know how long ago it had happened, but I couldn’t help wondering if there might have been blood there at one time, which could have been a constant reminder of what might have happened on the night of June 12.
While looking inside the Jeep, I also noticed that someone’s head had struck the windshield from the inside, on the passenger’s side, leaving a spiderweb of cracks. I speculated whether it might have been Danielle Sapia’s head that hit the windshield.
Could it have been an altercation between Jason and Danielle, like the ones he’d had with DeeDee, Jennifer, and Paul Goldberg?