A father is shot during a home invasion. Was it random or did he know his killer? Investigators would need to untangle a twisted web to find the answers. View source material and photos for this episode at: anatomyofmurder.com/a-tangled-web-part-1/Can’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc
Chapter 1: Who is the victim in this case?
I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.
I'm Anastasia Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.
And this is Anatomy of Murph.
If you're a longtime listener of this show or just a true crime fan in general, you probably can't count the number of times you've heard how DNA or modern forensics have helped solve a crime or catch a killer. So it's sometimes hard to believe just how new most of this science really is.
And you may be asking, what did investigators do before these techniques became so commonplace? I mean, fingerprinting has been around for most of the 20th century. But even when I started my law enforcement career in the 1980s, things like DNA profiling, GPS tracking, even doorbell cameras, they all sounded like stuff of science fiction.
And the answer? What we often describe as old school detective work. Gathering facts, building a timeline, and speaking with people. Witnesses, sometimes over and over, until the potential lies are exposed and the truth shakes out.
Because while the hard proof can often be revealed in a piece of science, at the heart of every crime is a story, an intricate web of human desires, fears, and frailties. And with just the right combination of patience, logic and gut instinct, a good investigator can unravel that web and reconstruct a story that may have begun with a single dark thought, but ended in murder.
This was truly detective work to me. This is what an investigation should have been. You know, it wasn't send some DNA swabs off. send some foot impressions off. It was myself and my partners working together and just keeping at it like every single day until we solved it.
Retired detective Michelle Amacone worked in law enforcement for 29 years, 20 of which were spent as a homicide detective in Southern California. And it is no exaggeration to say that she was a trailblazer.
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Chapter 2: What were the circumstances of the home invasion?
The first things that ran through my mind were, you know, home invasion, the wife. And now those were really my two main thoughts, I think, when I was heading to the scene was, okay, home invasion or, you know, the wife. The wife's the only one in the house.
The James home was located in a middle-class neighborhood, not an area with a particularly high crime rate. So with the arrival of police on the quiet suburban street, neighbors were understandably alarmed.
That was your typical trapped home neighborhood. Pretty dense. I mean, the houses were close together. It was raining that night. There was a large amount of people, already gathered neighbors, family members of Kevin James, the victim.
Their shock and confusion was soon followed by the unmistakable dread of seeing crime scene tape and the arrival of a county coroner.
The scene was taped off, as usual, and the deputies walked us through the scene. So it was a two-story house. You walk into a pretty big living room. There was nothing in the living room, kitchen, dining room, or anything. At least no evidence that anything happened down there as far as blood or disturbance or anything like that.
So no immediate signs of a break-in, no broken glass, overturned furniture, or rummaged drawers. Nothing out of the ordinary, but in the primary bedroom, that was a different story.
So when we walked in there, the bed was immediately to the right of the door. He was in bed. He was laying on his right side, still covered up. He had like a couple blankets on him. There was a pillow laying next to his head and then a pillow under his head.
And the pillow next to his head, a lot of blood on it, and you could tell that there were what appeared to be at the time bullet holes in that pillow.
There were three .40 caliber bullet casings recovered from beside the bed, but no gun left at the scene, which, however unlikely considering the multiple shots, immediately ruled out death by suicide.
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Chapter 3: How did the investigation begin?
But the one thing Michelle did have were witnesses, because Kevin's wife Lisa and their two sons were all in the house, and their accounts of what they saw and heard would be critical in starting to piece together the tragic details of Kevin's murder.
We were told that the deputies had spoken briefly with Lisa James, the wife, and she told them that She had been sleeping in her oldest son's room because she had lupus. Kevin James Sr., the victim, had a cold, flu kind of thing. So she didn't want to sleep with him that night because she didn't want to catch anything because her immune system was compromised.
And so Lisa had fallen asleep in the same room of her 12-year-old son. But shortly before 11, she had woken up in a panic.
She had also told deputies that when she was sleeping, what woke her up was she heard what she felt was someone breaking into the house through the slider in the master bedroom. And then she heard three gunshots.
So let's talk crime scene. There had been no signs of forced entry on the first floor. So the idea that the killer may have entered through the sliding door on the second floor was a possibility. But when they took a closer look, detectives again were stumped by the lack of evidence.
No fingerprints, no handprints, nothing on it that would indicate that someone touched it. None. It was clear that no one came in through that slider.
Not only had no one come in through the sliding door, there was no sign anyone could have accessed the second floor at all.
It was raining, and their backyard had no grass. It was all mud, and they had a Rottweiler in the backyard. So we went over and looked over the balcony. There's no ladder. There is nothing that you could have gotten up to the balcony and into the slider with that's still either attached to the balcony, leaning against the balcony, or even laying in the yard. It's just mud.
And the only prints in the mud are dog prints. There's no footprints, nothing. That would indicate that anyone came through there to get up to the balcony to go through the slider. So those were the two main red flags right there. Like no one came through that slider or the backyard.
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Chapter 4: What evidence was found at the crime scene?
The car was a distinctive 1965 Buick Riviera, a one-of-a-kind vintage car that was even customized to be heard from blocks around.
And let me just add, he knew the owner as well. Everyone in the neighborhood knew that the Riviera belonged to a man named George Taylor who lived just down the street from the James' home. The victim's own son had provided what was potentially a huge break in the case.
He knows George, and he knows this car. And when I asked him, you know, could you say who it was for sure running out of the house, he said, could have been George, but he said, I can't 100% say who it was.
But he was able to confirm that whoever he saw running from their house towards the car, he wasn't alone.
There was a driver because this person running out of the house got into the passenger seat and the car took off. But he couldn't see the driver. He couldn't see if anyone else was in the car.
Within hours of that desperate 911 call, detectives had a strong person of interest in Kevin James' execution-style murder. But the investigation was far from over.
This was just the first thread in a tangled web of lies, betrayal, manipulation, and murder.
In January of 1998 in Moreno Valley, California, Kevin James was shot three times in the head while he was sleeping in his own bed.
Moments later, incredibly, his 12-year-old son spotted a man running from the house and getting into a car impossible not to recognize, an enormous, customized 1965 Buick Riviera.
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Chapter 5: Who were the key witnesses in the case?
Now, there was no gun found at the scene, and it was clear that Lisa had not fired a weapon herself. But clearly, Michelle's suspicions are piqued that maybe she was involved in the shooting somehow, or at least withholding information.
And so Detective Fernandez and I, he was my second. Detective Thompson stayed at the scene. And as we're walking outside, we both looked at each other, and I immediately said... Okay, she's involved. I knew there was a long way to go, but it immediately centered my focus on her.
But in the meantime, thanks to Lisa's son, investigators did have another very real person of interest, the owner of that 65 Riviera that was seen speeding away from the scene.
Lisa was able to eventually tell detectives that she did in fact know George Taylor, but she couldn't think of any reason George would have anything to do with the killing of her husband. And while they weren't close friends, they certainly weren't enemies.
But there was one person that Michelle hoped might know a little bit more. And that was the woman George Taylor lived with, Lisa's close friend and neighbor Shelby Harris.
I asked the deputy to contact Shelby and bring her to the station because now we want to talk to her about George. And so Shelby is at the station, fully cooperative.
Shelby Harris confirmed much of what Lisa said, that Kevin had no enemies that she could think of, and there was no beef between him and her roommate, George Taylor, that she was aware of.
Did he have a gun with him today when you saw him, or last night when you saw him? No. You didn't see him with him?
I didn't see him with him, I should say. Did he mention Kevin at all? No. Any problems between him and Kevin that you know of?
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Chapter 6: What role did the 12-year-old son play in the investigation?
Now, you obviously know where you're down here. Yeah, I want to know what's happening.
Taylor described his relationship with Kevin James as friendly and the two often bonding over their love of old cars.
Our main thing was our love for old cars. Because he had the 67 Barracuda. I always wanted the 65, but I didn't want an Impala. I didn't want a Chevelle. I wanted something that nobody really has. And the Riviera just looked too nice.
But then he went on to claim that on occasion he would buy small quantities of marijuana from Kevin.
All I know is he kept it in the garage. The garage was, he would shut the garage, I'd wait outside, and then he'd open the garage back up and he'd hand me what I had in cash. We'd sit there and, you know, for a little bit, talk about cars, drink a beer, and then I'd be on my way.
Clearly, selling marijuana is hardly a capital offense. But if true, it does offer a hint of a possible motive. Because as we know, where drugs and cash are present, violence often follows. Ever been up to his room?
Up to his kid's room? Never? Ever? He kept wanting me to know that he was very gangster. And those are his words, that he was very gangster and he had some gangster times. And that I didn't know anything about his life, but it was very dangerous for him to be at this police station. And his life could be on the line.
According to Taylor, that was why he had not stayed at Shelby's that night as usual, and why his car might have been seen parked near Kevin's house on the night of his murder.
There were some people out, a Mexican gang, out to steal George's car, and he had been followed that day, and he was afraid for himself and for Shelby. And so he and Shelby decided to go stay in a motel for the night. And according to Shelby, it was just her and George alone. In the motel, no one else was there.
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Chapter 7: Who is George Taylor and what is his connection to the crime?
I actually arrest George that night. Now, I know that I can hold him for 48 hours, and then I know when he's getting out of jail, and we can set up a surveillance and follow him and see where he goes and what he does.
But before that, Michelle and her partner decided to take one more shot at getting him to talk, thinking that the murder charge hanging over him might convince him to play ball.
Because I'm also thinking he knows that I think he's lying. I mean, we were clear in the interview. And if someone put him up to this, if he's the one who did it, if he was the one running out of the house, now give him a night to sleep on this. And maybe in the morning, he'll come to his senses and want to tell us what happened if other people are involved, which at this point is my theory.
And so the detectives return the next day to pay George Taylor a visit in jail and give him another chance to come clean.
But fairly quickly, he says, you know, I've already talked to an attorney and I think I should talk to him before I talk to you guys anymore. So we stopped the interview. Didn't know you had an attorney. Yeah. So we leave. So that interview goes nowhere.
But thanks to their first interview, they had locked him into a statement which included a pretty shaky alibi. And his time in custody gave them the time they needed to initiate surveillance on him as soon as he stepped out of jail.
The idea here is to see where he goes, who he talks to, and whether he is making any efforts to cover his tracks. But it doesn't exactly go according to plan.
We follow him. He goes directly to his mother's house, also lived in Moreno Valley. And we watch him go into the house. And we're sitting in a van outside, quite a ways down the cul-de-sac.
His mom, Tina, comes out of the house and makes a beeline for the van and starts pounding on the windows and telling us she knows we're the cops and she knows we're in there and, oh, my God, and get out of here.
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Chapter 8: What were the detectives' suspicions about Lisa James?
They are part of what Tina, George's mom, refers to as Shelby's gang. And so Tina is the one who puts George, Terrence, Joe, and Shelby as this little gang that are doing criminal activities together.
There were rumors about guns, drug dealing, even bank robberies. But at this point, it was impossible to know what was real and what might have been exaggeration.
George came in with all this bravado about being a gang member. And so I don't know if this is what his mom has picked up from him, what he's told her, or if it's actually true. But the one thing I do know is the four of these people are hanging out together and someone else was driving that car. that took George away from Kevin's house. And so good possibility it's Selby, Terrence, or Joe.
Now I've got two more people that are possibly involved.
And now one of those people was missing. George Taylor's mother was convinced that something terrible had happened to her son.
There was a time where Tina told me that George went to Florida for a year or so. She thought that might have had something to do with some criminal involvement that he had to get out of California for a while. And so I kept saying to her, you know, maybe he's just left the state. And she was adamant. I'm telling you, Michelle, Selby had him killed. Selby had him killed.
So let's just set the table and say that Shelby had already talked to police and she was being cooperative. So Michelle had come up with some theories. And I could see two potential and opposite reasons. Being as cooperative as you can. You've got nothing to hide. So be open and forthright when answering questions.
And number two, you know, it makes me think of the movie, the usual suspects and Jessica at this point with so many potential suspects being involved in the case, maybe she was trying to get ahead and see if police would provide any information back to her, or even maybe she was looking for an opportunity to be the first one to get a deal.
I think I agree. Look, I mean, she definitely seems cooperative. She's offering whatever info she has. So that goes against it. But again, like, as we know, like most things are possible, but if true that she was involved or behind it, it's puzzling. Why? And I think there we have to really think about, well, how could George's disappearance be connected to Kevin's murders?
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