Death in the Hollywood Hills

Terry Hall, Kristi Johnson’s mother: I think Kristi appreciated life very much.  She was very aware that what there was in this world, you know that was beautiful about this world.

But the world could be ugly too—and that’s where the search turned.

Up on that hill in Hollywood, the physical evidence that might have revealed who killed Kristi was gone.

But there was evidence— in defects of personality, in behaviors, in history— in the prime suspect. Detectives discovered there was a history lesson in Victor Paleologus,  a wealth of material which grew after his arrest got a little publicity and witnesses started coming forward.

Christine Kludjian, another victim:They said his name was Victor Paleologus. And I pulled over on the side of the road.  And it was like white noise.  It was unbelievable that this was the same guy. 

For Christine Kludjian, an actress from Santa Monica, it was like a bad flashback. By 2003, it had been 14 years since she’d met Victor Paleologus. Though he had told her his name was "John Maroni" and he asked her out on a date.

Kludjian: He said, “I’ll pick you up in a limousine, we’ll have dinner, and there’s a big industry party,” because he said he that he was a music executive at Columbia Records.

Keith Morrison, Dateline correspondent: You’d meet some famous people?

Kludjian: So forth and so on. I mean he mentioned Madonna, he mentioned a couple of other people.  So “Wow, that’s fun, that’s great, why not?”

He told her the party was to be a downtown hotel in a suite. She was 21. She trusted him just enough to go up there.

There was no party. Just him.

Kludjian: He’s trying to kiss me and I pushed him away and then he just attacked me.  He grabbed me, he threw me on the bed, he tried to rip my clothes off and in that moment, he pulled ropes from behind the bed.

Morrison: He would have had to arranged those before—

Kludjian: Exactly.  Right.

Morrison (interviewing Paleologus): Did you tie her up?

Victor Paleologus: No.  Nobody got tied up.  There was no attack whatsoever. 

Victor admitted he’d been there, taken her up to a suite, but had a very different story about what happened.  For example, she showed the cops back then rope burns and bruises. 

Paleologus: She had a string purse on her.  I picked up her purse and grabbed it. She wrapped it around her wrist.  She was pulling back.  We got into this tug of war type of issue, her strap broke, and she went flying back over the credenza.  We had a suite there.

Christine got away and Victor was arrested and charged with attempted rape. There was a hung jury.  But rather than face a second trial, Victor pleaded guilty to a reduced charge: false imprisonment by violence.

Paleologus: Instead of spending another $30,000 to go back to trial on that, I took the plea for false imprisonment, and went on probation for three years.

It was his first run-in with the law but by no means his last.

In 1991, there  was an actress named Elizabeth Davis. She says he told her his name was Joe Messe, from Disney. Then he said something about a Bond movie.  And he spiked her drink. She noticed a white powder and called the cops. No charges were ever filed.

In 1996, a SWAT team had to be called when Paleologus holed up in a mobile home in Malibu after he failed to show up in court on  another charge.

This time a woman he had dated accused him of breaking into her house and trying to attack her with a rope. He made a deal. Pleaded guilty to burglary and got probation.

As for the SWAT team, it was all a big mistake, he says.

Along the way Victor also got in trouble for ID theft and fraud.

It was 1998 when, according to several women, he starting refining his Bond girl scam.

And one of the victims was so traumatized she wants to remain anonymous even now.

Paleologus: I just wanted to have a good time.  That was the whole concept that night.

As Victor says all he wanted was a date. And well, yes, he did tell her, he says, that he could get her into a Bond movie.

Paleologus: Like an idiot, what comes out of me sometimes is ridiculous. 

She says he tied her up, tried to rape her after she met him at his abandoned restaurant for an audition.

Again he took a plea deal, assault, and this time he went to prison for  five years.

But get this: Victor says it never happened.  He swears.  None of them ever happened.

Paleologus: First and foremost, let’s clear up one thing.  I never struggled with any woman or forced myself upon any woman whatsoever.

January 20, 2003, Paleologus was released from prison. 26 days later, Kristi Johnson disappeared.

Morrison: It’s a pretty big leap to go from sort of minor league fumbling attempts at sexual assault to actually killing somebody, isn’t it?

Det. Obenchain: It is. But as we know, and we’ve seen, people escalate in their degree of violence.

And though there were no finger prints, no DNA, fibers, nothing to connect Victor Paleologus to Kristi Johnson, he was charged with her murder.

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Death in the Hollywood Hills Remembering Kristi Johnson Morrison: A Hollywood dream-turned-nightmare Crime scene photos Did the suspect prey on other attractive women? Timeline: Paleologus' dark history Kristi's mom: A fountain of joy in Kristi's memory Victor Paleologus' letter to the judge Death in Hollywood Hills Section Front   Add Death in Hollywood Hills headlines to your news reader: