Las Vegas Weekly

Murder was the case

One hundred years of LA homicide history are on display this week at the Palms

A Mac-10 automatic pistol used in the murder of a LAPD detective is displayed at “Behind the Scenes: The LAPD Homicide Experience” Tuesday in the Palms. The exhibit, a glimpse into some of the most notable homicides and critical incidents in Los Angeles in the past 100 years, coincides with the four-day California Homicide Investigators Association conference.

Photo: Steve Marcus

Photo: Steve Marcus

An exhibit on the Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman murders is displayed at "Behind the Scenes: The LAPD Homicide Experience" Tuesday in the Palms. The exhibit, a glimpse into some of the most notable homicides and critical incidents in Los Angeles in the past 100 years, coincides with the four- day California Homicide Investigators Association conference.

Dennis Kilcoyne is standing in front of a large photo of Nicole Brown Simpson, though you can't tell it's her without the nearby caption.

Simpson's blonde hair and all-American good looks are largely hidden. Instead, the photo shows her crumpled body folded onto itself at the end of a long walkway stained with blood. It's shocking, horrifying and fascinating all at the same time — a rare look at exactly what homicide detectives found when they first uncovered evidence of the savage double murder that would bring an entire nation inside the courtroom.

Kilcoyne, an LA homicide detective and the president of the California Homicide Investigators Association marvels at the image for a moment.

"Juries need tangible things to understand," he says, gesturing at the gruesome police photo.

The picture of Simpson is one example of the tangibles that the jury in the O.J. Simpson case was given and one of many similar police photos on display this week at an exhibit presented by the Los Angeles Homicide Department and the California Homicide Investigators Association at the Palms Casino Resort.

Behind the Scenes: The LAPD Homicide Experience, open free to the public and on display March 3 and 4 in conjunction with the annual California Homicide Investigators Association Conference, is both a primer in police work and a walk down a memory lane lined with violent criminals, gangland slayings and LA's most prolific serial killers.

"Nobody's every seen this exhibit before," Palms co-owner Gavin Maloof explained Tuesday afternoon. "This is 100 years of files and murder cases. It's just fascinating."

Indeed, the exhibit showcases evidence from some of the city's most famous crimes that until now had been revealed only to the police officers working the case or those present at trial. There are never-before-released photos, murder weapons and storyboards that break down each case into terrifying detail.

"I'm hoping that [visitors] realize it's not the CSI effect and that they realize there's a lot of hard work that goes into putting these puzzles together," Kilcoyne says of his goals for the exhibit he first pitched to the Maloof brothers about a year ago. "That's what these are, puzzles."

And not all of them have been solved.

The Black Dahlia is here, though her murderer has never been brought to justice. Photos of her naked corpse laid spread eagle with a foot of space between her torso and legs are posted near the entrance. Nearby is the Ford Fairlane that the Manson family used in their murders, and further along there are exhibits on Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, Marilyn Monroe's overdose death and a recreation of 1997's North Hollywood Shootout, which left nine officers shot and both suspects dead.

In addition to the historical displays, Behind the Scenes showcases the tools of modern police work used by the L.A. SWAT team, bomb squad, dive unit and polygraph team. The men and women staffing the tables of automatic rifles or demonstrating the bomb disposal robot and administering polygraph tests aren't docents, they're police officers from the respective units. And for many of the uniformed officers strolling the exhibit, the cases on display inside the Palms' Key West Ballroom bring up personal memories.

For Detective Kilcoyne, a number of the faces and names on display this week stir up memories of his 33 years with the Los Angeles Police Department, but the one that causes the most profound emotional reaction in the experienced officer isn't a case that he worked, it's the murder of his friend and colleague Russell Lee Kuster.

Photo: Steve Marcus

A photo of slain LAPD police detective Russell Kuster at "Behind-the-Scenes: The LAPD Homicide Experience" in Tuesday in the Palms. Detective Russell Kuster was shot and killed in 1990 when he attempted to stop a man who was waving a handgun in a restaurant. The exhibit, a glimpse into some of the most notable homicides and critical incidents in Los Angeles in the past 100 years, coincides with the four-day California Homicide Investigators Association conference.

An L.A. detective, Kuster was off duty at a Hollywood restaurant on October 9, 1990 when a rowdy patron began giving a waitress trouble. She pointed out Kuster at the bar, telling the customer he was a cop.

Kilcoyne shakes his head as he recounts the events that led to his friend's murder that night. "She just signed his death certificate."

The troublesome diner retrieved a gun from his car and confronted Kuster. In the resulting shootout both men inflicted fatal gun wounds on each other. A photo posted on the exhibit wall shows a younger Kilcoyne in uniform standing next to Kuster's widow at the unveiling of her husband's memorial star outside the Hollywood Police Department.

Tucked in among celebrity murders and murderers, the case isn't the most famous at Behind the Scenes, nor is it the most dramatic. But for Kilcoyne, it's the one that best conveys the message behind the entire exhibit.

"This is real life. This isn't CSI on TV at night," he says. "This is what people do to each other."