Detectives are confronted with a shocking tragedy involving someone who was instrumental in solving Daisy’s murder. Plus, a source in Mexico helps solve the remaining mysteries about how social media ultimately cracked this case. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What shocking revelation about Jeffrey is discussed?
on the stand, he was great. That kid was amazing. Right. Um, but if it wasn't for him, it would have been, it would have taken a lot longer. Right. And when we talked to him, he was, you know, he wasn't scared. He was, you know, it was forthcoming. Um, just tell us what you know. Okay.
It was one horrific tragedy, one senseless act of violence, that had ended the life of yet another teenager from the same apartment complex. And so, as I spent the next few months putting in requests to interview the detectives on Daisy's case, I realized I had another murder to ask them about. Jeffrey's. Usually, homicide detectives are the ones with all the information.
They're the ones who get to choose when to withhold it and when to share it, whether to put out bulletins on social media or to work the case without the help of the public. They're often the ones tasked with delivering horrible, life-shattering news, telling people when someone they love has been murdered,
But when I began talking to Lugo and Sanchez, it became clear to me that they didn't know about Jeffrey's death. Because when I sat down with each of them, they spoke about him in the present tense. For example, here's something that Detective Lugo said.
I'm sure now he's 13 or 14, but at the time he was 10 or 11. Not any older than that. And very bright.
Jeffrey actually was older than that. He was 13 when he identified Daisy's body. He was 16 when he died of multiple gunshot wounds just three years later. When Detective Sanchez spoke of him, he said in the present tense, he's a young kid.
You know, I'm not going to tell you how old he is, but he's a young kid. And he was very courageous to say, hey, listen, you know, I think I know who that is, right?
I found myself in this strange situation because now I was the one who had news to share with the detectives. I had to tell them that their main witness, the teenager who helped them solve Daisy's murder, had also been the victim of a homicide. I didn't really know how to share this news.
Lugo had been on a tight schedule when we first talked, and I had so many questions about Daisy's case that it seemed like it wasn't the right time to ask about another one. Detective Sanchez and I talked just a few days after that, and during the end of our conversation, I decided to bring it up. I have another case that I wanted to ask you about.
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Chapter 2: How did social media play a role in solving the case?
Yeah, but that kid was a good kid. Like, and he...
I know. So was Daisy.
Jesus.
I'm Jen Swan. From London Audio, iHeartRadio, and executive producer Paris Hilton, this is my friend Daisy. Episode 10, Cat Eyes. After I told Sanchez about Jeffrey, I knew I had to tell Luko too. He agreed to meet me at the Homicide Bureau for a follow-up interview. And that's when I filled him in on my conversation with Sanchez.
The other thing that I told him during our interview, and I don't know if he told you too, was that I found out that Jeffrey, the main witness, was murdered.
Yes.
Yeah. Did you know about that?
Yes. It's very tragic. Yeah. He was such a nice boy, but he's just a victim of the area, right? I think... It's so dangerous for them in the area. It's almost heartbreaking that things like this occur in Compton.
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Chapter 3: What tragic connection exists between Jeffrey and Daisy?
Lugo's response was surprising to me, especially because when we first sat down in his office just two weeks earlier, he gave no indication that he knew about this other homicide case, about how it dovetailed with Daisy's.
And so I asked him, Do you remember where you were when you learned about Jeffrey?
About his murder?
Yeah.
I think they told this here.
Maybe it was the way he hesitated or restated my question. Or maybe it was just the stark difference in his reaction versus Detective Sanchez's. But I had this feeling that he was not being honest with me. He'd always been a little defensive when speaking about Daisy's case, and I understood why.
Here I was questioning him about what he'd been doing during the investigation and why Daisy's friends felt like they had to start their own. But I guess I thought that since this case wasn't one that he was working on, he might be a little more forthcoming with me. But to me, it felt like he was again assuming the role of the detective with all the answers. the football coach with all the plays.
As we walked out of the conference room, I began to question other things that he had told me about Daisy's case, about how he'd been working the investigation, about how difficult it was, about how exactly Victor had been caught. And I wondered, could I really trust any of it? In the hallway, Lugo stopped and introduced me to a detective named Joe Purcell. He's an old-timer who trained Lugo here.
That was about three decades ago.
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Chapter 4: What was the detectives' reaction to Jeffrey's murder?
Maybe he didn't mean it that way, but it sounded like what some of Daisy's neighbors had imagined the police might say. A murder in Compton? That's never happened before. Like it was some kind of joke, some kind of punchline.
Compton murder, but we cut the guy at Papa's and Beer. Is that right?
Yeah, well, it had been a couple of months and the family, you know, the family was wondering what's going on with this. Why isn't he arrested? So they put out their own TikToks and Instagram trying to find him.
I felt like I had to jump in and explain that the police had gotten this big assist from social media. They were like putting this photo out. People were calling, blowing up your cell phone, saying, I've seen him here.
Yeah. Yeah. Seen him everywhere. And it could be dangerous, right? If the parents, in this case, it worked out fine. But I was telling her. It could be dangerous if they wanted to be someone and they put his picture up as a murder suspect. And it turns out someone else committed the murder.
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Chapter 5: How did the public's involvement impact the investigation?
Lugo was always downplaying the role of social media in solving this case. Like when I first interviewed him in this office just a couple weeks earlier. I asked him about the moment he saw the screenshot showing Victor at Papa's and Beer. He told me he barely saw it.
It came, yeah, I remember seeing it. late in the evening, maybe we're so busy during this time and I remember seeing something to that effect and we already knew WHERE HE WAS AT, AND WE'RE NOT HERE TO, AND I TOLD YOU THIS ALREADY, JENNIFER, OUR RELATIONSHIP, WE WANTED TO BE, THOSE ARE OUR VICTIMS, RIGHT?
SUSIE HAS SUFFERED ENOUGH, AND I KNOW SHE WAS UPSET FOR A TIME BECAUSE NOTHING WAS BEING DONE, BUT WE HAVE TO WAIT. to make sure that we have to be able to prove it, right? We can't just arrest someone and then we have to cut him loose and then he leaves to a country that we don't have a treaty with and we'll never get him back, right?
Okay, maybe it's worth pointing out that Lugo actually did have proof. This is based on his own admission. He had the DNA match. Sanchez confirmed this when he gave testimony at trial. He said the CODIS hit came back less than two and a half weeks after Daisy's murder.
The first results came back on March 12th, and the official letter from the California Department of Justice, that came back March 18th. Anyway, I was curious about this screenshot, about how it led to Victor's arrest. But when I asked Lugo about it, he seemed almost agitated by the question.
I don't want to get in an argument. And if they think they had a lot to do with it, I want them to... It's okay, right? It takes a team and whatever. But we know what we did. We know who we talked to. We know the flyer went out with the arrest and wanted all over social media. That's when things happen. But if they want to believe that it was them and all of them, that's okay, too.
This flyer that he's talking about, it's the one the sheriff's department put out on Facebook. Lugo is saying that it was this social media post that led to Victor's arrest, not the ones put out by Deezy's friends and family. But those TikToks had apparently made an impression on the detectives. That's at least according to Victor.
When I interviewed him recently, he told me that when he came into the office for his interrogation, which, you know, never actually happened because Victor didn't know what a lawyer was. He told me that that was true. The detectives, he claimed, had teased him for being famous on TikTok. Here's how Victor says that conversation went.
How did you become aware that they were looking for you on TikTok?
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Chapter 6: What questions arise regarding the detectives' honesty?
I had to go to the scene of Victor's arrest. I showed up to Papa's and Beer on a weekday afternoon. It was the off season and the bar was nearly empty, which was honestly a little weird for a place that feels a bit like a cruise ship docked on the beach.
There's this sprawling outdoor area and there's clusters of tables surrounding a mechanical bull and a live music stage that sits directly on the sand. I ended up taking a seat inside. It was kind of a smaller area. It felt more like a sports bar with wood paneled countertops, big screen TVs, and loud reggae and rap music blasting over the speakers.
I ordered nachos and I started talking to the bartender. And when I told him about why I was there, his eyes lit up. He had followed Victor's murder case. He'd even tracked down news footage from the trial.
When I see his mom in the news, she touched my feelings.
She touched your feelings?
Yes, like what?
Daisy's mother, yeah.
It's hard and we love that. Life, innocent life.
It's hard when we lose innocent life, the bartender said. He didn't want to be identified by name, so I'm just going to refer to him as the bartender. He said that he felt for Daisy's mother and for Victor's. That he was shocked by the details that emerged at trial. And the reason he was so invested, the reason he wanted to see how the story had ended, is because he himself had been part of it.
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Chapter 7: What happens during the follow-up interview with Detective Lugo?
Billy the Kid. Well, he's not really, he don't talk to nobody.
Billy the Kid, the Wild West outlaw who went on the run after committing a series of murders. It was the nickname this bartender had given to Victor, having no idea just how fitting it really was. The bartender's main impression of him was just that he kept to himself. except for when he was drinking. That's when he became an entirely different person.
The bartender described this version of Victor as aggressive, violent, unpredictable.
How long did he work here for?
He's coming by in April.
In April? Yes, the first days of April. And he worked like three months. Because he was arrested July 2nd, I think. Yeah, like three months.
that's a while did he ever do you think he ever went back and forth because people kept saying they saw him in l.a but maybe they saw somebody else probably they think there's somebody else so you think he never left once he got here no he was here
I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone. Most of all, his wife, Caroline. He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me. Caroline's husband was living another life behind the scenes. He betrayed his oath to his family and to his community.
She said you left bruises, pulled her hair, that type of thing. No.
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